Weight Loss Frustration!

SJSharksChick

When I first started MFP, I weighed 135lbs, & limited myself to 1200 calories a day, never eating back my exercise calories. I managed to get down to 131.8lbs.

After hitting a plateau, I was advised to increase my caloric intake & to eat back some, if not all of my exercise calories. I started doing so about 2 weeks ago, & have done nothing but gain weight. Weighing myself this morning, I'm 134.4, almost back to where I started from.

I eat relatively healthy & exercise 3-4 times a week, cardio being my main focus, but I also incorporate some strength training (abs, buns, thighs, arms).

Can someone explain what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!

sjcply

are you doing any strength training? Building muscles are the key!

Dawn111567

You may be just retaining some water in your muscles from the increased exercising and eating. Stay diligent and you will drop.

sjcply

are you doing any strength training? Building muscles are the key!

never mind, I just re read your post and saw that you are strength training. Maybe drink lots of water and watch your sodium intake, watch carbs/sugar?
I am not sure what your diet is like, but eat really clean and ramp up the cardio, and maybe that will help!

Good Luck!

chelsealjames

i'd like to know what people have to say to this as well!

greeneyed84

Knowing nothing about you it's hard to help.
What is you calorie goal now? How much do you burn with those workouts?
Do you drink enough water? What's your sodium intake?
What do you eat? If you're eating junk & still under your goal won't work in the long run.

Refisblind

Your muscles retain water while repairing. Your weight is great. I wouldn't focus on that so much as your continued weight lifting and look at how your clothes are fitting. Keep going and you will be fine.

tabi26

Just a question, but how long did you only eat 1200? Your body may be keeping it on just because it thinks it needs too from when you weren't eating very much. Also, are you within a healthy BMI? If you are within a healthy BMI then losing the last few pounds becomes harder as your body thinks it needs to hold onto them. You would need to watch your diet even closer, and do alot of strenght training and cardio to lose the last few You won't bulk up unless you take something to make you bulk up

naahqadar

i think you need to low your daily calories lower than 1200. You should goolge a calculator to tell you exactly how many calories you need (according to your height and weight) each day to lay in bed all day. That will give you just the minimum. And as long as you continue to exercise to maintain and not lose your muscle mass you should be losing more than 2 pounds per week.

You dont have much to lose, AND YOU ARE EXERCISING! Girl you will be there in no time!

dmmsquared

Drink lots of water and definitely watch your sodium intake.

You can turn on sodium in your Food Diary by going to Settings, Diary Settings, and change one of the nutrients tracked to Sodium.

I was shocked at how much sodium I was taking in just with the foods I ate, not counting any salt I added at the table. Once I started really watching my sodium, I started doing better.

tabi26

Also, maybe this will help you out?

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

soccertra

Are you doing the same workouts every time? Your body gets increasingly more efficient each time you work out, so try to keep it guessing by switching it up each time -- run one day and get on the eliptical the next. or one thing i have found helpful is to run circuits. basically i jog for a medium distance, and then spend the second half of my workout alternating between jogging, sprinting and walking (usually 2-4 minutes of each)...switching up the incline as i slow down.

a similar thing happened to me -- soo frustrating! but i tried this and then also cut my calories back to 1,200 but ate the exercise ones back and it seems to have helped. I am back down the few pounds! Stay with it!

hpsnickers1

Your muscles retain water while repairing. Your weight is great. I wouldn't focus on that so much as your continued weight lifting and look at how your clothes are fitting. Keep going and you will be fine.

Yes. You are at a healthy weight and too much cardio can be detrimental. Put more focus into weight lifting. (using weights!!) and strength training.

I started lifting about a month ago and jumped up 3-4 lbs. It held steady and as of this morning I am back to my lowest weight. I have done barely any cardio but have been lifting (P90X) 3x per week. I have just started to incorporation a little bit of cardio.

And when strength training you have to set aside the scale. You will be increasing your lean muscle mass and this will increase your daily burn. Increased metabolism means more fat burned during rest, normal activity and sleeping. You can gain weight with muscle while burning off fat. The scale doesn't tell the entire story.

It takes about a month for your body to adjust. Try letting it get used to the increase and do some more lifting.

The law of unintended consequences
Your body is an amazing feedback system aimed at balance and survival. Humans are at the top of the food chain because they are able to adapt to their environment. Every action produces a reaction. Every change in its environment triggers a survival response. It's important to keep that in mind when you plan your fitness program. If you treat your body as an enemy to be conquered, you'll produce unintended results.

For example, if you severely cut off the supply of food to your body, it will defend itself by slowing down its metabolism to survive starvation. The body will shed muscle mass the same way that you would throw cargo from a plane that was low on fuel, and it will reduce its thyroid activity to conserve energy. The body will also actually defend its fat stores. In anorexia, muscle loss can be so profound that fat as a percentage of body weight actually rises. Extreme carbohydrate restriction also causes muscle loss, dehydration, and slower metabolism, which is why even successful Atkins dieters can have a significant rebound in weight after they stop the diet (don't worry – the advice on this site will prevent that from happening).

As another example, if you put your body under stress through overexertion and lack of sleep, it will respond by slowing down, reducing muscle growth, and increasing your appetite for junk food, carbohydrates and fat. If you feed your body excessive amounts of sugar and quickly digested carbohydrates, and it will shut off its ability to burn fat until those sugars are taken out of the bloodstream.

This website will show you how to work with your body to quickly produce the changes you want. In order to do that, you need to take actions that push your body to adapt – to build strength, burn fat, and increase fitness. You need a training program, not an exercise routine. You need a nutrition plan, not a diet. You need a challenge, not a few good habits you usually try to follow except when you don't.

Setting the right goal
John Dewey once said that a problem well-stated is half-solved. If you want to reach your goal, you have to define it correctly. See, a lot of people say “I want to lose weight.” Well, if losing weight is your goal, go on a no-carb diet. You'll lose a lot of weight – some of it will be fat, a lot of it will be water, and a dangerous amount will be muscle tissue. You'll lose weight quickly, but you'll slow your metabolism and gain fat more quickly once you go off the diet. Trust me on this. I've been there, done that.

The problem is that you've set the wrong goal. If you want to look better, have more energy and enjoy better health, the goal is not simply to “lose weight.” The goal is to improve your fitness level and body composition. That means losing fat, improving your aerobic capacity, training your strength and defending your muscle tissue. You can't do that with a no-carb diet. You will do it using the approach you'll learn on this website. Trust me on this one too. I know what it's like to feel fat, tired and helplessly out of shape. The whole point of this site is to help others avoid that, by sharing lessons that I had to learn the hard way.

Ready to change?
Right this minute, your body is the way it is because it has adapted to the lifestyle you've thrown at it, in an attempt to survive. Ever seen the directory at the mall with the little red arrow that says “you are here”? Well, fitness is the same way. You are here. You can't start anywhere else. So be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Don't worry about how much there is to do. Change your self-talk from “My body is my enemy” to “My body is my partner.” Accept where you are right now as the starting point, and start moving.

Changing your body requires more than just “going on a diet” for a few weeks. If you want to change your body, you have to make some changes to your lifestyle (which requires some discipline, but isn't as hard as it sounds). If you create the right environment, your body will adapt to it by becoming leaner, stronger, and more energetic. You can do this.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/index.html

and there is a link in my signature called Relatively light and trying to get Leaner. It's a long post the but poster knows his stuff. Read thoroughly.

donicagalek

I literally "gained" 6 pounds overnight when I signed up here because it was also when I started doing WAY more exercise than I was used to. It took about a week to get those 6 pounds of bloating injury off. Would have gone quicker if I was a valiant water drinker. :-/

There's also salt (which a lot of people mentioned). Salt comes in many forms and one of the sneakiest is via commercial diet foods. Check the sodium levels of things like baked chips, sugar free jell-o and flavored rice cakes!

Are you measuring your intake accurately? A cup of oatmeal and a cup and a half of oatmeal look identical to the naked eye alone.

Your TOM is also an issue that can make you gain.

rileysowner

Some very good advice here. I would also suggest minimizing or even eliminating standard cardio and focus on strength training cardio or High Intensity Interval Training. Looking at your stats you are at a healthy weight, but maybe you need to resculpt your body by getting rid of fat and toning up. Standard cardio won't do that at your point, and while is won't make you "fat" in the truest sense of the word, but you likely will become skinny fat. Strength training either in HIIT or MRT formats.

SJSharksChick

Thank you all! I will try some of your suggestions!