Gained 6 lbs in ONE day!!?? why.....

balesalicia

I have been doing really well ( i think ) with exercising 5 days a week and eating healthy. Yesterday i weighed myself and then went and did P90X plyometrics. I just weighed myself tonight, and ive gained 6 lbs!
Sundays are usually my "cheat days" because i heard having a cheat day will throw your metabolism off and prevent plateauing so i ate around 1450 calories instead of my normal 1200 but i dont think it would cause a 6 lb gain! Any thoughts on this?

balesalicia

and another added question.....i dont understand why when i excersize, MFP tells me to eat so many more calories? I want to lose weight, so i just stick to my 1200 a day even though it tells me to eat many more calories and it keeps telling me i am not eating enough?
I am graduating in June and really want to lose this weight before then so i am having a hard time finding balance.

Pamko57

6 pounds in one day is clearly water weight. There is no way you have gained six pounds of fat in a day. When you're doing a lot of working out, you may gain a bit due to muscle, but I wouldn't think six pounds.

I am guilty of weighing too often, about twice a week. And I really grab the tape measure too often. In fact, I've given it to my husband with instructions to hide it and not let me have it for 3 weeks. Just keep doing what you're doing and know that in a month, it's going to average out

ninerbuff

Because you ate 21,000 calories. That's how many calories are in a pound of fat.


Realistically, it's water retention. And it fluctuates throughout the day. Quit weighing 2 times a day. In fact, once a week should be plenty if your scale is going to dictate whether you fail or succeed.

And under eating (net calories) can result in a lower metabolic rate resulting in even slower and stalled weight loss. 1200 isn't magic number.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

sarahmonsta

Id say water weight.

balesalicia

My grandma told me she used to weigh herself tons to see how different foods were effecting her so thats why i thought it would be a good idea. and it is hard to eat more than that due to just plainly not being hungry (weird i know because im overweight but i guess that switch just flipped in my head from wanting to snack a lot to not at all) i will slow down on the weighing and see if that helps

JustasiaAusterus

I agree with ninerbluff about the under-eating. I know you're eager to lose weight, but you still have time, and it's only going to be effective if you do it in a healthy way. If you keep at a lower calorie that your body needs, the cravings will become unbearable. Believe me, been there, done that. And you'll only feel worse once you eventually indulge.

Not to mention the stress it puts on your body. Calories, carbs...it's all converted into energy your body needs. If the body does not get enough energy from the food you eat, it does start to eat at the fats first. But after continual strain, it starts to take energy from muscle tissues. While this is going on, there is considerable strain on the various systems of the body as they must try to maintain their functions with minimal energy. That's known as survival mode. Worst case scenario, if you keep doing what you're doing, by June you might be in the hospital dealing with the effects of an eating disorder.

You're young, don't fret too much about the weight. Remember, it's more about healthy living than about weight loss. Don't let weight loss be your primary motivation to eat healthy and exercise. As my Physiology teacher told our class, do it because you want lots of energy, you want your skin to look great, and your hair to shine, and to feel good about yourself, and to challenge yourself.

ninerbuff

My grandma told me she used to weigh herself tons to see how different foods were effecting her so thats why i thought it would be a good idea. and it is hard to eat more than that due to just plainly not being hungry (weird i know because im overweight but i guess that switch just flipped in my head from wanting to snack a lot to not at all) i will slow down on the weighing and see if that helps

It's the sodium in the foods that affect your weight. That and the weight and calorie density of the food. Your best bet is to just stay within a moderate calorie range (20% of your TDEE) and be consistent.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

TrainInsane29

The reason the MFP tells you to eat more when you work out is simple:

Your food goal is 1200cal daily (that's probably way too low, but we won't get into that now). Now, if you eat 1200 cal on, let's say monday, and do cardio and burn 500 cal, then you really only ate 700cal that day. Why? Because those 1200 cal are calculated from your average daily activity (how much you move at school/work etc). So if you work out on top of that, you're burning much more, and need to supplement with more food to fill in the gap from 700 to 1200.

If you don't eat back your calories, your metabolism will slow down, and weight loss will take longer! I know it sounds strange, but it's fact! Don't make the mistake of undereating, it will kill your results!

themeaningofthemorning

It's water weight! And you need to be eating more. Exercise is not to lose extra weight, it's to improve your health and body composition. You should be eating back most if not all of your exercise calories.

themeaningofthemorning

Actually, I'l amend my previous statement. When you build muscle your body begins to burn more calories, so, to a certain degree, we do exercise to lose more weight. HOWEVER, you must EAT the proper amount in order to develop new muscle and in turn rev up that metabolism. It might seem backwards because of the nonsense us girls are taught about eating like birds to stay slim, but it's the truth!

neandermagnon

to gain 6lb of fat, you need to eat 21,000 calories over and above your TDEE. If your TDEE is 2000 (to give an average figure) then you'd need to eat 23,000 calories in one day to put on 6lb of fat in one day. Unless you attempted to eat the entire contents of a Krispy Kreme donut shop or something like that, then it's not fat that you gained.

It's water weight, and the usual culprit for that is sodium. If you have been low carb dieting (or undereating, for that matter), you may have depleted your glycogen stores, then if you suddenly eat a lot of carbs, your body stores them as glycogen, which results in quite a big water weight gain. (and the initial losses on a low carb diet are water and glycogen, not fat, which is why the weight piles on again when you go back to eating a normal amount of carbs... although you can lose actual fat on a low carb diet if you're eating less than you burn off) - both these scenarios (or the two together) could result in a 6lb water weight gain in a day.

Ignore any big jumps on the scale, because unless you've eaten twenty thousand calories or so (which is nearly impossible, you'd be full and nauseous long before you ate that much) the gain isn't fat. It's 3500 calories over and above TDEE to gain 1lb of fat.

JJordon

The Beachbody programs usually require you to eat quite abit to keep up metabolically with their advanced programs. 1200 seems abit low for any Beachbody program, let alone the much lauded P90X (I'm currently on Insanity). I do have the dvds and nutrition guide and quick looky-loo show some calculations. Did you use them when determining how much to eat?

Cause 1200 is just too low for advanced workout programs, period.

twilks11

ninerbuff thats helpful information actually thank you. I was a everyday scale user. My doctor asked me to put it away for one month because i was one of those that if i gained i wouldn't eat. The water retention is still interesting. Can we really gain that much in water and if you go to the gym everyday and try to build muscle will you gain even more?

boboff

Did you need a Pooh?

jshot278

All I can add, is that I gained 7lbs. in a day. I knew I'd been eating well and didn't know what was going on. I did get upset, but told myself that if I continued to eat right, it would go back down. I did in fact have a large sudden loss again.

RunDoozer

Because you weighed yourself at night and havent properly digested or pooped it out yet. Its the weight of what you ate.

balesalicia

Thanks so much everyone for the advice and stories. I really didn't know i was under eating so bad. I just figured if i kept my same diet, then whatever extra i burned off a through a work out was bonus calories(and in turn weight) coming off! If i had any disorder with eating, it was that i ate to much.....I love food! and i just wanted to stop eating crap so i eat tons of vegetables but they don't have very many calories so i guess it isn't cutting it. I plan on being more responsible and to whoever simply explained the caorie/tdee deficit thing, thank you i think i understand now!

nhradeuce

Stop weighing yourself so much. Pick a day and weigh yourself first thing in the morning on that day every week. Your weight will fluctuate (as you noticed) throughout day so it's not really a very good metric. Instead, take your measurements and track those, they tend to be a better gauge of your progress. Who cares what the scale says as long as your body looks the way you want it to?

LorinaLynn

Yesterday i weighed myself and then went and did P90X plyometrics. I just weighed myself tonight, and ive gained 6 lbs!

And at any point during the course of the day, did you eat or drink any food at all? Of course you're going to weigh more at night. There's food and drink in your body that hasn't been pooped and peed out yet.

lookin_new

It is normal for a persons weight to fluctuate like that from morning to night, I had to do my best to only weight myself first thing in the morning because that is your "true weight" if I do weight myself again at the end of the day i can be almost 4-5 pounds heavier. and before my friend taking a human kinetics course in university told me about the fluctuation I would get really discouraged but it was always so much better in the morning.

carriepicone

Are you getting your period? That happened to me right before I was getting my period, don't worry it will come off !!!!

kaigausista

I'm still new to all this eating back calories and all but so far I've been losing 1lb a week and one time 2lbs. I also do cheat days (weekends) which is one reason why I never weigh myself on the Monday. I would gain 3 to 5 lbs of water weight and it would take a day or two to go back to the weight I was the past week and when I do weigh myself on Saturday morning (after workout) I've lost an extra lb. So with cheat days or meals you'll see the numbers go up but because its just water weight it'll quickly come off once you go back to your eating plans..at least that's what's happening to me at the moment. As for mfp setting your calories so high after exercise. When I did the setting I made sure that I set my activity level at stationery hence I get low calories on non exercise days but when I do workout, I eat back my exercise calories...not all but some or more when I'm hungry and so far it hasn't affected my 1lb loss per week. I'll keep at this for now and see if my loss will continue to be gradual but so far so good.

aliciabeatty

Put the scale away. Have 1 weigh in day a week. You are going to drive yourself insane if you're weighing in more then once a day! Like everyone else has said unless you consumed 21000 calories in one day (which you didn't) then it's simply water weight combined with the fact that it's night time! You always weight more at night because you've eaten during the day. Do some research. Becoming educated along the way about certain foods or even the basics of becoming fit will really help you!

daisygettinghealthy

Hi, one pound gain = 3500 calories more than your daily allowance. so their is no way you could have gained that through eating. I gained five pounds in 12 days and I realise how much easier it is to put on rather than lose it. could you explain what your cheat days are? do you eat a few unhealthy things or just more or healthy things so more cals.??

lowpro1983

Agree with others, water retention. Set a day to weigh and try to stick with it. You could also take your measurements and/or take "before" pics to compare.

As far as the calories - remember that you are eating to FUEL your body. Not eating enough can hinder you just as eating too much can.

Good luck!

Biffa92

Yep, agree with everyone else, don't weigh yourself so much and if you do have to (because I struggle to follow this rule myself if I'm honest) weigh yourself at the same time every day, I would never weigh myself twice in one day.

Also I have a rule that it doesn't count (either way) unless you see it on the scales twice!