Why am I gaining weight?

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  • songbyrdsweet
    songbyrdsweet Posts: 5,691 Member
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    23% body fat is considered athletic for a female. It's very difficult to fall below 20%. At 12%, menstruation often stops, so the closer you are to that essential body fat, the harder it is to lose any.

    It's normal to gain weight when you begin an exercise program. Your muscles are making changes to become more efficient. They are increasing their stored sugar, and for each g of sugar, you store 3 g of water. That can attribute to a 2-4 lb weight gain. It can cause a bit of an increase in size as well.

    Stop looking at the scale for a while. Instead, just take pictures in your bathing suit and take circumference and body fat measurements. If you have access to skin fold tests, take advantage of it, because many people don't, and it's a valuable tool.
  • kerrilucko
    kerrilucko Posts: 3,852 Member
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    It occurs to me as I read a lot of these posts about people not losing that some of you guys might be missing two main points in the issue.

    1st point is this: When you have very little weight to lose, it's going to take MONTHS to lose it, and by months I don't mean 1.1 months I mean more like 3 to 5 months. And yes, there may be some weight gain involved. It's not uncommon to put on weight when you're so close to goal.

    2nd point: what is your weekly deficit goal set at (I.E. 2 lbs / week, 1 lb / week...etc)? and how did you go about finding that goal? This is important. Did you just remember back to when you were younger and say "I'd like to be that again"? That's not a good way to get your goal (admirable, but our body chemistry changes as we age, this isn't always achievable.).

    My advice: find out what your body fat % is, then post that up. Because with 7 lbs to lose, you may actually not want to lose 7 lbs (if you catch my meaning). If you have a low body fat %, guess what... you ain't gonna have much luck losing fat, and you really shouldn't WANT to lose muscle, so it might be time to rethink things.

    Just my opinion.

    YES! whenever people ask me for tips or advice I tell them: be prepared to put a year into this. Right, so you don't have much to lose? Well you might be looking at 1/2 lb- 1 lb a MONTH. Seriously. it's going to be very hard to convince your body to give up those last feel lbs. Weight fluctuations are normal. Just go with it.
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    Well SBS and Kerri beat me to the punch already. But I'll reiterate. 23% body fat is pretty darn good. MAYBE you could get down a couple of percent if you REALLLY try hard, but seriously, that's not in any way over weight. Not even a tiny bit.

    My recommendation? you want to change your body at this point? Forget the weight loss thing, eat a maintenance diet and concentrate on building lean, strong muscle.

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