How quickly will muscle add weight?

joannasaurusrex

I've been back on the diet wagon since New Year and it was going well. About 1200 calories a day and mixing up my exercising, getting in 4-5 workouts a week. I've been losing about 1-2lbs a week but then within a day or two my weight shot up by about 5lbs. I figured it could be water/scale error/similar but I've been stuck at my new fat weight for five days now!

I've been doing BodyPump classes 3 times a week so figured I've been building muscle. But 5lbs seems to be an awful lot, so quickly? Surely that can't all be muscle?! Or even fat?? My measurements seem to still be the same. I've been in the position before where I've stopped LOSING weight because I've been gaining muscle, but it feels weird to be putting weight ON.

Any ideas? I had an indian takeaway about 10 days ago and my flatmate keeps unhelpfully telling me that "it must be that curry that's made me fat again". Gee whiz. Hoping MFP has some more logical suggestions.

Sl1ghtly

"I figured it could be water/scale error/similar..."

joannasaurusrex

"I figured it could be water/scale error/similar..."

I tried changing the battery in my scales, and then tried different scales! Surely if it was water etc it would have sorted itself out by now...

UponThisRock

Muscle isn't going to add weight if you're in a calorie deficit.

Acg67

"I figured it could be water/scale error/similar..."

I tried changing the battery in my scales, and then tried different scales! Surely if it was water etc it would have sorted itself out by now...

Women are much more susceptible to water retention, there is no way you gained 5lbs of muscle in a week and it's extremely unlikely you gained 5lbs of fat in a week, unless you had an epic binge for a week or two. So the most likely culprit is water

joannasaurusrex

Women are much more susceptible to water retention, there is no way you gained 5lbs of muscle in a week and it's extremely unlikely you gained 5lbs of fat in a week, unless you had an epic binge for a week or two. So the most likely culprit is water

Yeah I figured 5lbs of muscle - or fat - in a week was INSANE. This is probably a dumb question but is there anything I can do about water retention?! Or do I just have to wait for it to go away? I thought after nearly a week I'd have least seen it change about a bit.

Rae6503

It's probably water.

It's taken me 4 months to gain 10lbs, probably only 4 or 5 of that is muscle, and I eat about 3000 calories a day.

Acg67

Women are much more susceptible to water retention, there is no way you gained 5lbs of muscle in a week and it's extremely unlikely you gained 5lbs of fat in a week, unless you had an epic binge for a week or two. So the most likely culprit is water

Yeah I figured 5lbs of muscle - or fat - in a week was INSANE. This is probably a dumb question but is there anything I can do about water retention?! Or do I just have to wait for it to go away? I thought after nearly a week I'd have least seen it change about a bit.

And while the above applies to both men and women fairly equally, women have an additional issue which is the changes in water balance throughout the month due to the menstrual cycle. As I discussed in Body Composition Recommendations, some women can shift fairly significant amounts of water over the duration of their monthly cycle. That will tend to overwhelm all but the most extreme rates of fat loss.

Trying to measure fat or weight loss in women on a week to week basis is often a futile endeavor and females may have to measure only once per month (ideally at the same point in the cycle) to get any sort of consistent or comparative measures. Women should generally pick a specific point in their cycle and make all measurements then to track changes month to month.

Another option is to measure weekly but only compare the same week of the cycle each month. So week 1 of the cycle would be compared to week 1 of the cycle a month down the road, week 2 is compared to week 2, you get the idea. What doesn’t work is comparing week 1 to week 3 because the body may be holding a ton of water during one of the weeks and not during the other making comparison impossible.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/not-losing-fat-at-20-deficit-what-should-i-do-qa.html

MrDude_1

its just water... dont worry about it and at some point you're "suddenly" going to lose alot of weight.

tinyjourney

It is amazing what water retention can do to a woman. One meal at a Japanese steakhouse and I'm up 4lbs of water retention. Even knowing it is water retention, it messes with you. Just try and stay consistent, results take time!

Coco_Puff

Get a gun and shoot your scale, I bet your jeans still fit better even at the higher weight!