Does it ever NOT work...?!?!?!?!

2 weeks is not a long time. It's a blip on the radar. The number one key to losing weight and getting healthy is - PATIENCE. You have to want this more than anything else. Health has to be your priority. You also have to do it in a way that you can continue for the rest of your life. Because that's what it takes. When you are ready to make that commitment, you will be successful. The forums are FULL of people who are doing it. Good luck!!

ETA - You are not gaining muscle on a calorie deficit in 2 weeks. Being realistic is as important as patience.

hey! are gonna be great hun! I was there believe me:) check your inbox
Kristian Rocco

Anything that keeps you active cannot possibly make you fat. I absolutely hated tracking my weight right after I joined the gym. I had lost about 10lbs before I joined and it was disheartening to not see any progress at first. But once I stopped swelling so much, drank a LOT of water, swam a couple laps in the pool (helps with water retention for some), weight started coming off again. Don't worry so much about it for now if it bugs you - just keep track of what you take in and burn, and keep yourself at your net calories for the day. You will tone and lose. My legs are not anywhere near puffy from being swollen from running anymore, I have muscle definition in them and I'm starting to see it in my arms (I've only been running and biking so I know all over the cardio is working to burn fat. So it's encouraging once you get over that hump of just joining to becoming a regular!)

Certain things in this thread just need to be said:

#1) 2 weeks isn't enough time to see significant muscle gain. That's a marathon, not a sprint.
#2) I didn't see anything about your food. Are you logging it? One of the hidden killers of weight loss (and YMMV) is Sodium. When people start to change their diet, they never tend to look at the sodium content of their foods, leading them to retain obscene amount of water.
#3) Again, YMMV, but how much cardio are you doing? I always find it helpful to get the heart-rate up BEFORE I lift. Helps me see some residual heart rate goals as well.

Good luck. Let us know how you do!

I've been known to gain up to 8lbs in a day/overnight in water, depending on what I eat - tortilla chips & salsa?!?! - and what I'm doing - recently drove 10 hours within a 24 hour period through mountains! With each little water gain, I've noticed it takes a couple days for the swelling to receed.

WOW...this is great support. I am having the same issue... I am rooting for you girl. :flowerforyou: you can do it !!!!!!!!!

great summary of key points

I lost two stone and now I have started a fresh with the goal of getting strong rather than just losing weight. But it's making me gain the weight again. I've gained 6lbs steadily these past two weeks.

How quickly did you lose the 2 stone and how? If you were eating a very low cal diet then increasing your cals will often cause people to gain initially after changing to the TDEE -20% deficit. Most bodies adapt to the change in food intake after a few weeks or so and the gain should level off and hopefully you'll start losing.

It takes time and patience but if you are definite you are eating below your true TDEE and you are accurately logging then sooner or later the fat should fall.

Most of the stuff here is accurate, so I hate to be a buzzkill about this, but one other point really needs to be mentioned.

People SUCK at estimating calorie intake, like really...we're bad. Even scientists have trouble with it, which is why there are so few studies with isocaloric intakes.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you can work around these tendencies for error, but it's good information to have.

1) Remember that the formula's that calculate how much you need to lose weight (or maintain, or bulk) are just estimations, derived to be 'close' for as many people as possible. You still have to pay attention to what's going on and adjust as needed. Don't blindly eat X calories daily because the formula told you to. Pay attention to your results.

2) Body changes, particularly weight, are not linear. There's so much other stuff going on that it can be very difficult to gauge your progress. You really need to give it time, like a month or more, to get a reasonable baseline to start from. The sooner you do that the better off you'll be. Using one of the standard formulas is a good starting point; stick with it for 4 weeks and reasses. Adjust as needed and repeat. Be patient, it's a long process, but worth it.

3) The better your estimations, the better your results will be. Have an understanding of what the numbers you're plugging in mean, and always strive for the greatest level of accuracy possible. That chicken you just logged, did you just pick an entry that looked 'close enough' in the mfp database? Did you guess at the weight rather than use a scale? Did you include the oil you used to cook it? Are you putting in things like 3 hours of vigorous house cleaning which comes up as 15,000 calories when it was really more like 2 hours and you didn't even break a sweat? The little (and big) things matter, especially early on. As you get more comfortable in your routine you should become better able to sort of eyeball it, and know when you're on track or not. The adjustments you'll need to make in your routine will become smaller and smaller since you'll already be pretty much on point (the challenge then becomes consistency). You will still need to come back and reassess your estimations from time to time, but it does get easier, and 'work' eventually.

ETA based on previous post: even with weighing and tracking everything people are still prone to errors in estimated calorie intake. It happens, you still need to pay attention to results. While it might not be a problem if you've gained a couple after 2 weeks, after 6 or 8 though you need to change something.