Exercise, calorie count but still gained weight

hftiong

Hi all, i have a problem and am very concerned.

I used to do strength training and have loat a lot of weight from there and a year ago I started running. At first was short casual run continued with my strength training. Past 6 months I have been doing more runs and longer runs. Longest i have done is 23km and every two three days i do around 9km. I have been quite lenient with my food, as in i eat junk and food i like but making sure im always within my daily calorie. Last few months i have been very naughty and earing more than i should and drinking beer! Used to i dont gain weight that fast and will go back to my previous weight in a few days but lately it's so hard! My weight constantly increasing and last two weeks i even started watching my food and leeping within my daily calorie of 1200-1300 but still in vain. I'm actually worried that i might have health problem causing the weight gain. Any doctors or anyone can help me? I'm getting depressed.....

hftiong

Something to add on above.. I see my girlfriends who eat fast foods and junk food without exercise and they dont even gain a pound and me who control my food but still gain weight.. It's very frustrating!!

ndj1979

can you open your food diary?

Do you own a food scale? Weight/measure/log everything?

You mentioned that over the last few months you have been "really bad", more than likely you have been eating over maintenance and that is why you have gained.

If you are doing MFP method, then set MFP to 1 pound per week loss and make sure that you are netting the amount of calories that it gives you …..

aduhart

Hi, just wanted to talk about what has worked for me, hopefully it can help you.

First of all try your hardest never ever to compare yourself with your friends or other people regarding weight loss. Genetics play too much of a role in this, and as you say it can get frustrating and depressing. Now that you realize that unfortunately your genetics don't help you as much as your friends' do for losing weight, be wary of eating like them. Only compare yourself to yourself (weekly weight ins, etc..) and be very patient about it.

Another thing that helped me was not only go for calorie count, but also trying to balance macro nutrients (carbs, proteins, fat). Personally I'm trying to hit 50% carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat (only healthy ones). I find that is a good baseline and has helped me lose weight while gaining some muscle. You can easily check you daily or weekly macronutrients on the myfitnesspal app. So be careful that your junk food spree isn't leading to an unhealthy balance in these.

I can speculate that since you run so much and you haven't taken the best of cares lately on your nutrition that you may be losing lean muscle, and that will certainly slow down your metabolism and therefore your ability to burn calories throughout the day. Try adding some strength exercises to your routine (some weightlifting?). Another speculation might be that with the amount of excercise your doing 1200-1300 calories per day might not be enough, and your body might have triggered its "starvation response" (google about it, intresting stuff), which would also slow your ability to lose weight. I use the harris-benedict (again google it, its really easy) formula to calculate my calorie daily needs, and i've been doing great.

And lastly, if you start eating well, and still have issues with gaining weight, do consult a doctor, a friend o mine had that happened to her and she found about a condition she had.

Hope something of this is helpful, be patient and keep at it.

unesemainedecruaute

Hi!

First off, don't panic! There's a good explanation for everything, it's just that sometimes we're so into the problem that we cannot see the limits nor the exit.

Second, do not waste your thinking into "how the other is doing it so well". Either you know for a fact (you asked them) or you don't, but at this moment, try and focus on yourself. If you need to look to another as reference, look for people with the same problem you have.

Now about you: it's hard to give you advice, even when you gave a lot of information, because there's still important things miss. I'm gonna to introduce them to you and how they can influence:

+ Body weight is not the same as body composition, and both are KEY to determine your metabolism (how many calories you burn). The weight of a runner might be the same of a weight-trainer, but still composition might be different, and that might (and do) affect your metabolism.
+ We do know for a fact that you used to do strength training and changed it for running. Bear in mind that is likely that you lost some lean muscle mass and, with that, some acceleration in your metabolism. Don't panic, if you want you can recover it fairly quick, I'm just saying this because you are noticing a change on your "weight-lost-ability".
+ Bear in mind also that with age our metabolism gets slower (in case you are comparing your 25 with your 32).
+ Use a calculator to determine your calorie intake (the one here on MFP or "IIFYM calculator"). If you already have, then tell us how much of a deficit are you creating with 1200-1300 calories per day.
+ There's still the issue of the food composition. Different food works better on different scenarios. As ndj1979 pointed, it'd be great to have a look at your diary.

hftiong

Thanks guys for your feedbacks. I do think that probably I was really had too much junk and gone way over my daily calorie intake. Also, as some of you might have said, i might not be eating balanced diet so my body is not losing weight. I normally do t eat carbs for dinner. I have my carbs for breakfast and lunch. I do not trust when people ask me to cut down this and that because I love eating and snacking. I still munch on junk food at times because i think if i cut it all off, one day I might crave the junk food so much that i'll go all out and gain it all back! So i let myself eat a bit but still within my daily calorie limit.

When i say i eat 1200-1300 calorie a day, it's just on the days i dont exercise. If i do run, of course i'll eat more but i try not to exceed the calorie burned. I have tried going back to gym for some weight training but because of my work schedule, i cant go during weekdays so weekdays i try to run twice week around 7km. I have longer run on Saturday morning around 10km then i go gym again for weight training approximately 1.5hours. Sunday afternoon i go for weight training again. This is my normal weekly exercise schedule but lately because I have a 22km running event on 25th May, i have been doing run training. Past two weeks i did around 9km twice for weekdays then i go for 22km run on Saturday or Sunday. But after the Saturday or Sunday run, i will be too tired to go gym. After this event in May, i have another 21km mid June and 25km mid July. With all these events I need to train so dont have much energy to go gym after. My weight training need to wait till all the events are over in July. I'm very worried by then i might be too fat and demotivated to exercise. I do think that probably my weight gain is also due to muscle loss and my body doesnt burn as much as when I used to weight train. I was told that cardio burn whatever amount during exercise but weight training actually will build muscle and the muscles continues to burn even after exercise. So i think since i'm losing muscles that why it doesnt burn as much as it used to?

Actually now I'm quite demotivated to exercise because I feel like all my hardwork doesnt reap anything. I might as well go and enjoy all the food and give up! I do agree with some of you when you said that genetics plays a part. I have always been fat since i was young. Only in the past few years i manage drop my weight and finally skinnier than people around me. I was so proud of myself as I never thought I could do it. Now gaining it back is very depressing for me. Makes me feel like a loser

3dogsrunning

Thanks guys for your feedbacks. I do think that probably I was really had too much junk and gone way over my daily calorie intake. Also, as some of you might have said, i might not be eating balanced diet so my body is not losing weight. I normally do t eat carbs for dinner. I have my carbs for breakfast and lunch. I do not trust when people ask me to cut down this and that because I love eating and snacking. I still munch on junk food at times because i think if i cut it all off, one day I might crave the junk food so much that i'll go all out and gain it all back! So i let myself eat a bit but still within my daily calorie limit.

When i say i eat 1200-1300 calorie a day, it's just on the days i dont exercise. If i do run, of course i'll eat more but i try not to exceed the calorie burned. I have tried going back to gym for some weight training but because of my work schedule, i cant go during weekdays so weekdays i try to run twice week around 7km. I have longer run on Saturday morning around 10km then i go gym again for weight training approximately 1.5hours. Sunday afternoon i go for weight training again. This is my normal weekly exercise schedule but lately because I have a 22km running event on 25th May, i have been doing run training. Past two weeks i did around 9km twice for weekdays then i go for 22km run on Saturday or Sunday. But after the Saturday or Sunday run, i will be too tired to go gym. After this event in May, i have another 21km mid June and 25km mid July. With all these events I need to train so dont have much energy to go gym after. My weight training need to wait till all the events are over in July. I'm very worried by then i might be too fat and demotivated to exercise. I do think that probably my weight gain is also due to muscle loss and my body doesnt burn as much as when I used to weight train. I was told that cardio burn whatever amount during exercise but weight training actually will build muscle and the muscles continues to burn even after exercise. So i think since i'm losing muscles that why it doesnt burn as much as it used to?

Actually now I'm quite demotivated to exercise because I feel like all my hardwork doesnt reap anything. I might as well go and enjoy all the food and give up! I do agree with some of you when you said that genetics plays a part. I have always been fat since i was young. Only in the past few years i manage drop my weight and finally skinnier than people around me. I was so proud of myself as I never thought I could do it. Now gaining it back is very depressing for me. Makes me feel like a loser

If you are eating over what your body needs, you will gain weight. Not genetics. Not Eating carbs at dinner. While losing muscle might play a role in how many calories your body needs, it will not cause you to gain weight unless you are eating more calories than you need.
You can exercise as much as you want but without a calorie deficit you will not lose weight. Focus on tracking food accurately. Keep moving. Evaluate in 4-5 weeks.


Also many people find it difficult to balance losing weight while training for distance running.

StaciMarie1974

2 weeks of a lifestyle change is not enough to judge.