Weight gain from not eating enough and exercising too much.

DizzyLinds

I am living proof of what has happened here. I literally tae about 1000 calories a day and was doing 1-2 hours of cardion and weights 5 times a week. I couldn't understand why the scales werent moving. I was eating very nutritiously but not enough. For the last 10 days i have increased my calorie intake and have slightly decreased my exercise.

The result, i have started to lose. I have't got that much to shift but it seems it is going. Also, i used to feel permenantly hungry and it felt like torture. That was when i was more inclined to 'pick'.

Now, i feel full of energy and it has made such a difference to my mood- also the slight loss has lifted this. Def think i was in starvation mode before and clinging onto fat.

mrdee555

Body is like a camel storing water for a long journey ahead, if the body thinks its not geting enough kcals it will store fats/carbs as fat for when it thinks it will need them for energy, i can lose more weight eatiin 3k kcals a day than i can eating 1800k kcals it took me years to figure out that i was actually under eating and overtraining. hope this helps:)

ingies2011

If your friend is suddenly doing a lot of exercise that she hasn't done for a while she probably has muscle inflamation and resultant water retention, also as you become fitter your muscles will also be able to hang onto more glycogen ready for another session of exercise, and glycogen is stored with water in muscles. Tell her to keep exercising, but increase her calories as she will get very run down.

nsblue

OMG when I see some of the responses I just shake my head.
On my weighloss journey I have had a few times when I have gained one or two pounds and did NOTHING understandable to explain it. In anyones weightloss journey when following your program faithfully expect stalls, plateaus and yes that includes small gains. I exercised and pushed myself daily... and i was from 600-1200 calories depending on my docs orders at specific times.I wasn't going into starvation mode LOL was under a doctors care all the time eating as I should. It was explained to me as this.....

"Our bodies use glycogen for short term energy storage. Glycogen is not very soluble, but it is stored in our muscles for quick energy -- one pound of glycogen requires 4 lbs of water to keep it soluble, and the average glycogen storage capacity is about 2 lbs. So, when you are not getting in enough food, your body turns first to stored glycogen, which is easy to break down for energy. And when you use up 2 lbs of glycogen, you also lose 8 lbs of water that was used to store it -- voila -- the "easy" 10 lbs that most people lose in the first week of a diet.
As you stay in caloric deficit, however, your body starts to realize that this is not a short term problem. You start mobilizing fat from your adipose tissue and burning fat for energy. But your body also realizes that fat can't be used for short bursts of energy -- like, to outrun a sabertooth tiger. So, it starts converting some of the fat into glycogen, and rebuilding the glycogen stores. And as it puts back the 2 lbs of glycogen into the muscle, 8 lbs of water has to be stored with it to keep it soluble. So, even though you might still be LOSING energy content to your body, your weight will not go down or you might even GAIN for a while as you retain water to dissolve the glycogen that is being reformed and stored."

So as far as I am concerned if the scales stall or they go up a tad I keep doing what I do and it does come off. KEEP TO YOUR PROGRAM and weight will come off... it has for me lol and I am NOT in starvation mode for eating less than 1200 cal. that is a myth.

maidentl

Your friend did NOT gain three pounds of fat, nor three pounds of muscle. It's impossible to do either on that kind of deficit. It's water fluctuation for whatever reason. Tell her to eat more and stick with it.

Lisa1971

Thanks so much everyone for your responses! I told her to increase her water supply and also to increase her calories. Hopefully that will help! She's a very healthy person and never eats processed junk so I'm sure it's just water weight.

Thanks again!

Lift_hard_eat_big

Tell her to have some common sense and do the math. 600 kcals x 5 days does not even equal 1 lbs of mass, so how in the world can she have gained 3 lbs of fat?

GemmaRowlands

To all who have mentioned building muscle: it is IMPOSSIBLE to build muscle on a calorie deficit. You can't create something out of nothing. If you want muscle, you should eat lots of protein and work out.

Lift_hard_eat_big

To all who have mentioned building muscle: it is IMPOSSIBLE to build muscle on a calorie deficit. You can't create something out of nothing. If you want muscle, you should eat lots of protein and work out.

Some say it is possible to build muscle while on a deficit if you have a lot of body fat to begin with to supply the energy needed to sustain your workouts. You should consume a high amount of protein and perform heavy strength training. It's called recomposition. It does get much more difficult though as you lean out. I'm finding that out personally.

derposaurus

.. it has for me lol and I am NOT in starvation mode for eating less than 1200 cal. that is a myth.

THANK YOU!!! SO sick of people saying that. Especially the person in this thread who said 1200 isn't enough to perform basic daily functions. not true.

jbudge1

OMG when I see some of the responses I just shake my head.
On my weighloss journey I have had a few times when I have gained one or two pounds and did NOTHING understandable to explain it. In anyones weightloss journey when following your program faithfully expect stalls, plateaus and yes that includes small gains. I exercised and pushed myself daily... and i was from 600-1200 calories depending on my docs orders at specific times.I wasn't going into starvation mode LOL was under a doctors care all the time eating as I should. It was explained to me as this.....

"Our bodies use glycogen for short term energy storage. Glycogen is not very soluble, but it is stored in our muscles for quick energy -- one pound of glycogen requires 4 lbs of water to keep it soluble, and the average glycogen storage capacity is about 2 lbs. So, when you are not getting in enough food, your body turns first to stored glycogen, which is easy to break down for energy. And when you use up 2 lbs of glycogen, you also lose 8 lbs of water that was used to store it -- voila -- the "easy" 10 lbs that most people lose in the first week of a diet.
As you stay in caloric deficit, however, your body starts to realize that this is not a short term problem. You start mobilizing fat from your adipose tissue and burning fat for energy. But your body also realizes that fat can't be used for short bursts of energy -- like, to outrun a sabertooth tiger. So, it starts converting some of the fat into glycogen, and rebuilding the glycogen stores. And as it puts back the 2 lbs of glycogen into the muscle, 8 lbs of water has to be stored with it to keep it soluble. So, even though you might still be LOSING energy content to your body, your weight will not go down or you might even GAIN for a while as you retain water to dissolve the glycogen that is being reformed and stored."

So as far as I am concerned if the scales stall or they go up a tad I keep doing what I do and it does come off. KEEP TO YOUR PROGRAM and weight will come off... it has for me lol and I am NOT in starvation mode for eating less than 1200 cal. that is a myth.

Well said!

LisaKyle11

bump.

neanderthin

OMG when I see some of the responses I just shake my head.
On my weighloss journey I have had a few times when I have gained one or two pounds and did NOTHING understandable to explain it. In anyones weightloss journey when following your program faithfully expect stalls, plateaus and yes that includes small gains. I exercised and pushed myself daily... and i was from 600-1200 calories depending on my docs orders at specific times.I wasn't going into starvation mode LOL was under a doctors care all the time eating as I should. It was explained to me as this.....

"Our bodies use glycogen for short term energy storage. Glycogen is not very soluble, but it is stored in our muscles for quick energy -- one pound of glycogen requires 4 lbs of water to keep it soluble, and the average glycogen storage capacity is about 2 lbs. So, when you are not getting in enough food, your body turns first to stored glycogen, which is easy to break down for energy. And when you use up 2 lbs of glycogen, you also lose 8 lbs of water that was used to store it -- voila -- the "easy" 10 lbs that most people lose in the first week of a diet.
As you stay in caloric deficit, however, your body starts to realize that this is not a short term problem. You start mobilizing fat from your adipose tissue and burning fat for energy. But your body also realizes that fat can't be used for short bursts of energy -- like, to outrun a sabertooth tiger. So, it starts converting some of the fat into glycogen, and rebuilding the glycogen stores. And as it puts back the 2 lbs of glycogen into the muscle, 8 lbs of water has to be stored with it to keep it soluble. So, even though you might still be LOSING energy content to your body, your weight will not go down or you might even GAIN for a while as you retain water to dissolve the glycogen that is being reformed and stored."

So as far as I am concerned if the scales stall or they go up a tad I keep doing what I do and it does come off. KEEP TO YOUR PROGRAM and weight will come off... it has for me lol and I am NOT in starvation mode for eating less than 1200 cal. that is a myth.

There is one part of the fat molecule that can be converted to glycogen, but it's not going to be in amounts that equate anywhere near replenishing our gylcogen stores.....that convertion is minute in reality. When someone is in a deficit glycogen is never near full and for some, especially if they exercise glycogen reserves are near empty on a continual basis and generally when someone complains they've gained weight when they've basically reduced thir calorie consumption to starvation levels, glycogen and water storage hapens almost immediately if someone has a binge moment from carbs, and salt...........there's where the weight gain is in severe deficits, not the convertion of body fat to glycogen.

servilia

She wouldn't build any muscle netting 600 cals a day. It might be water weight but not muscle. She also wouldn't be gaining fat on a deficit like that.

Another possibility is underestimating intake/overestimating exercise cal burns. This is really common.

LabRat529

So as far as I am concerned if the scales stall or they go up a tad I keep doing what I do and it does come off. KEEP TO YOUR PROGRAM and weight will come off... it has for me lol and I am NOT in starvation mode for eating less than 1200 cal. that is a myth.

No... "Starvation Mode" it's not a myth*.... at least as the phrase is commonly used. And wishing it were a myth does not make it so.

There is a starvation mode... or a conservation mode... or whatever you want to call it. People get caught up in the wording, because the words can mean different things. "Starvation Mode" also means the metabolic changes that take place after extreme starvation for a prolonged period of time and very few people actually hit that stage... but My Fitness Pal seems to use "starvation mode" to indicate a significant decrease in metabolism. Your metabolism WILL decrease as you diet. No matter what you do, it will decrease as your body mass decreases.... but you can minimize that decrease through exercise, especially lifting, which helps you retain muscle mass.

Very obese people do fine on a very low calorie diet so long as they're being monitored to make sure they're getting adequate nutrition. Looking at your ticker (congrats on your awesome success, by the way!), you started out in the very obese category.

Very low calorie diets are not advisable for those who are not very obese. The non-obese (and probably the obese too) will lose fat and muscle both and the loss of mass will cause a measurable decrease in their basal metabolism.

I'm not arguing with your 'stick with it' advice, it's good advice... but to suggest that something is a myth when its not is a little irresponsible. People need to know that their metabolism WILL slow as they diet. They can minimize that slowing by keeping a modest calorie deficit and by exercising.

Rae6503

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

Beastette

Pregnancy test. Just to be sure...

Espressocycle

This would seem to break the laws of thermodynamics. "Starvation mode" may slow down your weight loss, but it can't make you gain weight. If it could, people in Somalia would be fat.

missjoci

You need to provide your body with the nutrition it needs which 1200 calories/day or above. If she works out a bunch, her net still needs to be at 1200 or above if she wants to see results. Also it may be her TOM or she is just retaining water due to the lack of nutrition she is putting into her body. But if she is working out a lot, she needs to be eating some of her exercise calories, because the body is using a lot of those nutrients to keep going.

When I did a low carb diet I counted carbs, not calories. So if all she's eating is protein, veggies, and fat, she may need to increase her calorie content just due to her diet composition (foods with carbs have more calories generally). If it's Atkins, there are also a lot of good forums on their site that could help her.

psuLemon

Just as a refdrence show her threads on people who eat more and lose more. I did a mfp study and the average woman on this boars with less than 20% body fat was eating 1800+ calories and if you want to look like an athlete they will have to train and eat like one.