4 pound gain in one week?

halzuzu

I've been a member of MFP for about 3 weeks now. I don't have a lot of weight to lose just the pesky 5-10 extra pounds that have crept up in the last year. I had been following Weight Watchers for almost 10 years but in the past year it seemed to have stalled or I hit some sort of plateau and instead of maintaining I started gaining which is why I switched to MFP. The first week I lost about 1.5 pounds. The second week I gained back 0.5 cause I had gone to Vegas and it was hard keeping within my calories with all the buffets, etc. Just recently I've been doing a lot of circuit training. Last week I stayed within my calorie range, worked out almost everyday eating most of my exercise calories and this morning i was up 4 pounds? I know water retention, , etc. could be a factor, but is it possible to have gained 4 pounds of muscle or fat in one week? And it is not the TOM. I feel like I've been doing everything right, but discouraged right now. I've maintained a 40-50 pound weight loss for 10 years now and I know it can be slow going. I live a healthy lifestyle since finding out I have a digestive disease over a decade ago. I don't eat meat and rarely eat any fatty/ junk foods. Of course I am human and indulge every now and then (e.g, Vegas), but for the most part I eat healthy and workout regularly. Lately, counting calories, tracking WW points and exercise without results is bringing me down.

amjayasuriya

It could definitely be muscle and also maybe your body is holding onto extra water to build muscle, etc. Hang in there and dont get discouraged....next week could be completely different (and if you keep up what you are doing, it likely will be!)

TheMaidOfAstolat

I doubt that it would be muscle this early into it.
Your muscles are most likely excreated lactic acid (ie: water weight). Give it a few weeks.
Also, it could be TOM. Your weight can fluctuate as much as 5 pounds a day. It's not fat (1 pound of fat would take you eatting 3500 calories above your maintenance cals).

jdurham87

Getting you 8 glasses of water intake every day helps tremendously. Are you drinking all your water? And yes, you are right about the water retention...it could be just water weight. Weigh again tomorrow and see if it's the same.

halzuzu

Thanks for the advice. I was one pound down this morning, but I also noticed that even though I'm hitting my calorie goal I've been WAY over in sodium the last few days. I've been paying so much attention to the calories that I've forgotten how important it is too also watch my carb/fat/sodium intake as well.