Gained weight Why?

orandaberg

Being offshore since 30.4.14, it seems I have gained weight while still mainitaining my calories, I am more active offshore throughout the day then I was at home, I know my scale at home is correct, so I cannot understand the gain in weight., the only difference is the food I eat, one can look at my diary. At home I could see progress, here I see gain, so my moral is at a low level now, I assume I am going to have to cut my calories even more, but the foods I eat are pretty much at its limit now and I am afraid I will put myself in starvation mode and my body will just retain calories, thus gain more. I do use the gym out here and am outside all day walking around ,lifting heavy objects and using stairs fo a 12 hr period, at home I was more or less just the 45 min swim.
Any suggestions? Could this be muscle mass building for a short time, and then the weight will go down again in a week or 2? Sorry for mis spells, my spell check is out of order! Any inputs will be appreciated:)
Note: I used 2 different scale here, both the same result

sgvdms

You could also be eating a lot more than you think.
Are you logging everything correctly by weighing with a digital scale? i.e don't measure using 'cups, teaspoons' because it isn't accurate enough.

November_Fire

You're not going to get 'starvation mode'.

How much are you gaining? There are going to be some natural variations. Or maybe your numbers are off and you're eating more than you burn.

Your diary looks a little off. Yesterday's lunch, you ate 5g of beans? That's about a teaspoonful. Your Cafe Expresso apparently contained nothing but 3 calories - I think air has more than that. The day before, your 'salmon salad wrap' is also strangely devoid of carbs or protein. On Sunday there is 'sourkraut' - did you enter your own recipe? Someone else's could have very different amounts of calories. Did you really only eat a single cup - and how big is your cup? On Saturday you log an entire pack, 400g of beef mince - did you eat the whole pack? Did you use oil? On some days there is "Freia - Kokesjokolade" logged as only 6 calories, because you ate 1g. 1g of chocolate? A little square is 4g, are you nibbling a quarter a day? That doesn't sound fun.

Do you enjoy this diet? That's important. It looks very meagre to me, a lot of fish, a single kidney bean and leaves, but if you are enjoying it that's OK. If you're not, you're going to start feeling like you're depriving yourself of other foods.

I think you're choosing 'generic' items from the list but not checking the actual nutritional content of the food. You could be taking in more than those 1200 calories. You log everything, see it only adds up to 800 calories - because the info is inaccurate - and you go and eat something else.

Is 1400 calories really a good 'maintaining' amount for someone as active as you? It seems low.

wilsoje74

Your mashed potatoes are only 28 cal??i agree that you may be a little off and eating more than you think!

orandaberg

Thanks all unfortunately offshore >I cannot weigh my food as I did at home, I can only judge my portions and I use a tablespoon for measurement,, some things I judge a bit more then I do eat just so I do not under estimate. I actually can count those kidney beans, and its about 5-10 pieces, I did start off eating the soups once a day out here, but they are always creamy soups, and even though I used the smallest bowel, I think they were still calorie high, so I stopped. My begining target was 1750 cals a day, when I first started, then as the weeks went on ,I decided to reduce to 1200 because the weight was so slow, after being on the 1200 goal a day I noticed the weight slowly dropping, unfortunately as far as inputs go, using the reference on here is all I can go with, if you notice my meals when I was home, its a lot different then what I have here offshore. At home it was always mixed like a smoothie, here I eat solid portions of food. As far as the salmon wrap is concerned, that was the nearest I could find in reference, it actual was just a slice of salmon with a thin borrito wrap cut in sections of 4, I only took one section, I knew the reference was over, but I used it anyway to just have extra calories, I try to stay below the goal whit the excercise added just to compensate for error in calorie count. One can see my chart to see the gain, it was just over a 1kg which is 2.2 lbs in 6 days, if it stays like this I will add 2 kgs in 12 days or 4.4 lbs.
I really limit my portions on the plate, everyone out here asks how do you not go hungry eating such little portions, the fact of matter is I am not hungry, I eat to maintain metabolism and to just get in the hunger mode. It could very well be I am underestimating the calorie count but I thought with at least 1750 cal max limit I would still be under the goal, I stay away from all the treats out here, Cookies,Cake,Soft drinks, I drinks lots more water out here then I did at home, but do not log the actual amount, could it be just my bodies reaction from my home diet for so many weeks to this sudden change in diet comming offshore, I mean from smoothie diet to solid food. (nearly all the foods prior to 30.4.14 were smoothies, blended)

Nanba007

You could also be eating more sodium and retaining water weight.

drew06

Unfortunately without weighing and cooking the meals yourself, you really don't know how many calories you are eating. A 100g serving of mashed potatoes looks the same as a 100g serving of mashed potatoes w/ 3 tbsps of butter.

My only guess is that you were over your caloric intake, but this is just based on what you have said. Unless you have some hormone issue, this could be the only explanation.

orandaberg

I guess the best way out here is to use small portions using a tablespoon, and find a point where you are not hungry by your last meal, use as best I can in te calorie count and just do my daily excercise and burning calories while I work, apart from that its all I can do.

nxd10

Your diary looks more like mine than anyone's I've every seen! I am also similar in age - 55.

When I travel abroad - which I do a lot, I often gain 3-4 pounds, which comes off within a few weeks (not days) of my getting home. Salt, a pat of butter or cream in the soup, a little mayonaise here or there . . . all things that add punched up flavor with lower quality ingredients and a lot of fat, sodium and calories. It's why I can make an egg burrito at home for 170 calories and McDonald's is 300 and tastes different.

Also, whenever I spend a lot of time flying, I just hold water. You can see it in your ankles and face as soon as you get off the plane. It goes away.

The less processed the food you eat when you're traveling, the less it happens.

SLLRunner

Looking at your diary, I think you are miscalculating calories.

When you say offshore, you mean military, or perhaps some other situation where your food is prepared for you? If so, it has a lot of sodium PLUS I bet you are not weighing your solids and measuring your liquids. It doesn't mater what you eat, how active you are, but it comes down to the simple fact that in order to lose weight you must burn more calories than you eat. If you are gaining weight, and it's not just water retention from sodium, or you don't have some other medical issue you are unaware of, then you are eating more calories than you burn.

I also notice your diary reflects that you eat 1,100 to 1350 calories a day. If this were accurate, you would most likely be losing weight, thus another reason I say overestimation of calories in.

When you eat from your room, do you use a food scale for solids and a measuring cup for liquids? Do you log every single thing that goes in your mouth?

SLLRunner

Unfortunately without weighing and cooking the meals yourself, you really don't know how many calories you are eating. A 100g serving of mashed potatoes looks the same as a 100g serving of mashed potatoes w/ 3 tbsps of butter.

True, but the serving with 3 tablespoons of butter tastes SO good! :bigsmile: