Week 4 and i've gained 400g!!! (roughly a pound!) Why????

jat80

After the first week I lost 1.5kg (3.3lbs)
After week 2 I lost 1.6kg (3.5lbs)
After week 3 I lost 0.9kg (2lbs)

Just weighed myself today and i've GAINED 0.4kgs (1lb)!!!

I'm weighing myself naked on the same day every week in the morning on the same scales but it looks like my weight loss is slowing down to the point where i've now gained.

Any help or advice/encouragement would be great please!!

ginnyroxx

read this

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/777-why-is-starvation-mode-so-bad

ginnyroxx

or this was a good one
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/135011--starvation-mode?hl=starvation+mode&page=4#posts-1841629

My guess is you may not be eating enough calories. do a search for 'starvation mode' and you'll find tons of threads.

watch your sodium intake and make sure you're drinking lots of water, too.

good luck

elainegsd

You've lost about 9 pounds in 3 weeks. That is an exceptionally large loss for your body to handle. I'd chalk it up to your body adjusting to the loss, keep doing what you are doing and see what next week brings.

I've noted that for me, I lose weight in about a 4 week cycle. I will lose very little for two weeks (about a pound or two total), then have a week where I have a big loss (like 6 pounds), then a week where I may gain a pound. This still gives me a loss of about 2 pounds a week on average IF I focus on the longer-term trend instead of the short term on the small loss/gain weeks. Perhaps this is what is happening in your case?

Could also be that your sodium level has increased, or you are simply losing weight faster than your body wants to let it go.

SouthernBell86

Hi!
Well first of all, Congratulations on taking the first steps in your weight loss journey! This is really an experience with a lot of ups and downs, and times where things get really slow or even seem like they are reversing. Also, the previous three weeks you had really high amounts of weight loss - 2 pounds a week is considered the highest amount you should lose in a week and still be healthy (except in the first couple weeks when people usually lose a lot of water weight). Personally if I ever have really big losses, they are usually followed by small ones or none at all, and the average amount lost over time is still in line with the goal amount I want to lose.

First things first - without seeing your food diary I have no basis for knowing what you are doing and if that might have an influence, but here are a few things that can influence it.

1) Not drinking enough water/ consuming too much sodium. You really need to make sure you are drinking enough water for YOU! The popular consensus right now is half your body weight in ounces per day. So I weigh 210 pounds right now, which means I should drink 105 ounces of water each day. I actually drink a bit more than that, but as you can see this is well over the 8 glasses that are usually recommended. Water is one of the most important weight loss tools there is, it helps your body perform and flush fat out of your body. If you have too much sodium, your body retains water unless you are drinking enough to flush it out, so watch your sodium intake.

2) Weight fluctuates based on water weight, fat, muscle mass, and a variety of other subtle factors. Have you recently been upping your exercise regime and trying new things? GOOD! But you'll probably be gaining muscle mass which may outweigh the fat you are losing for a couple weeks. Nothing to stress about, because in the long run, the additional muscle mass will help your body burn more fat when you are resting.

3) Are you under eating? Eating all your exercise calories? Try to eat right at the amount MFP tells you each day, including any it adds for exercise. Your body needs calories to function each day, and when you exercise it definitely needs more. If you aren't eating enough your metabolism slows down and adjusts to the amount you are consuming, slowing down fat loss.

Okay, after that I also want to advise that you measure yourself if you are not already. It is a much more accurate measure of how your body is transforming. Depending on how much you have to lose there may be many weeks where you lose nothing or seem to gain, but if you have lost inches, then you have lost fat, and it is one of the other factors that is contributing to the scale having weird numbers.

I always think of a plateau period as being your body asking if you are serious about weight loss, or if it was just an accident. Keep doing your best to eat healthy, eat the RIGHT number of calories, exercising, and eat a good balance of fat, carbs and protein. If you keep doing all that, your body will pick back up to the weight loss program.

Okay, GOOD LUCK!!!

alantin

Weight loss is supposed to slow down after the first week. You lose fast in the beginning because most of that is just water. After that, a healthy pace is about 0.5 kg a week.
About the last week. No idea what happened without knowing anything about your diet. Might be just water retention in which case it's nothing and probably disappears in a day or two. Salty food can easily make you retain a lot of water. Make sure you keep a deficit of about 500 Kcal a day, don't cheat with your food diary, and don't overestimate your exercise calories (really easy to do that!). Also, drink lots of water and try to cut back on sodium.

Other than that, looks good! You average 0.9 kg per week. Congratulations!

jat80

Wow! Thanks everyone for your advice and encouragement. I think water and sodium levels are key here. I don't drink enough water and looking back on my food diary my sodium levels are pretty high on some days! Man this is all new for me. After reading up on sodium levels I'm definitely gonna watch it and look at the sodium content in things I'm eating. I don't really add salt to stuff so it's just a matter of looking and researching sodium levels for foods i'm eating.

Thanks again everyone!