What am I doing wrong?

mrtentaclenun

I started my weightloss last year and have lost just under 50 pounds pretty easily/quickly. On August 5th I starteda new job after being unemployed and my weight loss came to a halt. My job is in a warehouse, so I'm constantly walking around, moving moulding and boxing it, moving boxes occasionally. I never sit down. So I changed my activity level from sedentary to active (the waitress one, not the carpenter, my jobs not THAT physical I don't think). I stopped losing weight, and then I started p90x about 7 weeks ago. I also changed my setting from 1lb a week to 1/2lb a week because I'm just so hungry all of the time. I began to obsess over the scale not moving so my boyfriend took it for a few weeks. Well, I just got the scale back a few days ago and was shocked to see id gained 4 pounds. No, this can't be right. So I drank extra water a few days and kept weighing to be sure. The scale wasn't lying, I gained 4 lbs. So naturally in my upset state, yesterday I ate two days worth of calories. Not helping the cause, I know.

So what am I doing wrong? Why am I only gaining weight? I know p90x builds muscles but there's no way I gained 4lbs of muscle in a few weeks. I'm 20 lbs from my goal, I hate to lose only 1/2lb a week, I just want to be done. But it would be better than going backwards. I'm really devestated over this and losing all of my hope and motivation.

rjlarry

Keep pushing! Sometimes you plateau and you happen to be at a job were your natural exercise has increased. Your body will be back to losing weight just keep your calories right.

Luandanielle1979

Dont lose hope our bodies work in wierd ways. I can gain 6 lbs in 2 days and lose it again by not doing anything different I think its water and my hormonal state at that time. Dont lose hope you have done really really well. Stay positive girl :O)

rthompson81

Do you have a heart rate monitor? Maybe you could spend a few days at work tracking exactly how much exercise you do and how many calories you burn. That way you'll have a personal average instead of one that MFP came up with, and you can set your activity level according to that...

Good luck! The plateaus are definitely frustrating! You can do it!

ManicMelody

This is just a plateau. Sometimes you can fix it by increasing your calories a bit. It sounds crazy, I know, but sometimes you can starve your body, especially when you're using an intense workout program like P90X. Your body might think it's being starved and in turn it is storing all of the food you eat for later, thinking it's not going to get more. I started Insanity and thought I was doing something wrong too. I started eating back my exercise calories and I am seeing the scale move down again. No worries, just keep pushing and working hard. It will pay off.

wilkinsonrg

Since you're more active than you were before, you should eat more calories to keep up with the activity. You may have stalled because you are still eating the same amount, yet moving around A LOT more, which puts you at a deficit.

For a week, try eating more healthy, calorie-dense foods. My faves are crunchy peanut butter and those cinnamon-brown sugar almonds that Blue Diamond sells. See if your weight-loss starts back up after that. You gotta up the fuel you wanna keep the fire burning hotter!


P.S. I love the T. Rex in your weight loss ticker! LOL!

khua0808

A good technique for you right now is to eat at maintainence for 2 weeks then jump start your weight loss as if you haven't lost 50 pounds, that way you should start losing at the speed you were losing before!

kstw

I agree it sounds like a plateau AND gaining muscle. Your activity level has increased significantly and you must be gaining muscle. As for the weight loss being slower, after I'd lost steadily for several months I hit a plateau that lasted nearly three months. I gained a bit (still not sure of the gain, but I too began working out more thinking I needed the extra activity). I then decided to just be patient and even looked back to see my meals at the earlier days of my weight loss. I began eating meals more like those (seems I'd been eating higher proteins meals at that time) and began to see the weight come off again. The plateau has ended and I am losing weight. It is coming off slower but I have always heard those last twenty pounds come off the slowest! Stay positive!

AZackery

Since you already have a scale, invest in an Omron handheld body fat monitor. If you want to know if you gaining lean body mass or as some people call it muscles, then the only way you can be sure is to track your body fat percentage and do the math.

Scale weight is broken down into two categories: Pounds of fat and Pounds of lean body mass

Formula:

Weight x Body fat percentage = Pounds of fat (This amount is not how much you need to lose)
Weight - Pounds of fat = Pounds of lean body mass (This amount is the required amount you body. If this number decrease, you will be losing lean body mass. Is it possible to decrease this number? The answer is yes. But, you want to make sure you work hard to maintain it or increase it. How? By focusing on losing pounds of fat.)

Scale weight loss and Fat loss aren't the same thing. Anyone can lose 5 pounds of fat in an hour, but no one can lose 5 pounds of fat in an hour. The same thing goes for lean body mass. Anyone can gain 5 pounds in an hour, but no one can gain 5 pounds of lean body mass in an hour. Why? Because these things take time. That's why for a healthy weight loss, it's recommended that a person aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week. This is not talking about scale weight, because a person can step on a scale in 7 days and see that they have loss 6 pounds. This is talking about fat loss. Losing 1 to 2 pounds of fat a week, will end up being 4 to 8 pounds of fat loss a month.

There's another forum that can help a person see what would be a future healthy weight and body fat percentage for them. The future weight can be higher than a person think they should be. This formula focus on getting a person lean. Losing fat helps a person get lean. Losing scale weight can still have a person fat.

I will not get into details about the other formula, you can send me a message if you are interested in it.

Keep up the good work and don't let the scale have control over your happiness.

susanswan

Don't ever give up. Assuming you have a solid food and exercise plan your body will hover sometimes. If the scale goes up STAY WITH YOUR PLAN. If the scale goes down STAY WITH YOUR PLAN. If the scale doesn't move STAY WITH YOUR PLAN. If you give in every so often and eat "two days worth of calories" you will never break through that plateau. STAY ON YOUR PLAN! = D