Mysterious Non Loss

adrianadciocan
adrianadciocan Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi guys,

I'm a bit perplexed at the moment and I'm hoping some of you might have an idea of what's going wrong. A bit of background, I'm not a novice to weight loss. Back in 2009 I lost approx 40 kilos just from calorie counting and a bit of walking. I started off at about 130kg and went down to 92kg in the space of 6 months. About a year or so I lost another 7kg but managed to gain that back after some stresses in my personal life.

I restarted at about 91kg and for the past 3 weeks I've been calorie counting pretty accurately (only skipped a few days where I couldn't reasonably estimate what I had) and for the past 2 weeks I've been going to the gym every morning for an hour.

Now... I have not actually lost any weight during this time... in fact, my scales inform me that I have gained. This morning I weight 91.7kg. I'm not freaking out about it too much because I know it might take some time but logically it doesn't even make sense. I've been eating under my calories, I don't eat ALL of my exercise calories as I appreciate that the equipment at the gym isn't always so accurate so that has been my safety net. So is there something which happens when you start exercising on a regular basis which makes you gain at first? Or is there something in my food diary which is ringing alarm bells? I'm intending to make the switch to (nearly) clean eating this weekend, maybe that would help? I'd like to nip this in the bud before it become demotivating...

Thanks in advance for any advice/help!

Adie

Replies

  • Cait_Sidhe
    Cait_Sidhe Posts: 3,150 Member
    Are you absolutely sure you are eating at a deficit? Are you logging every single little thing? Are you being honest with what you log, not choosing the lower calorie option? Most importantly, are you weighing your food? I plateaued for over a year and then gained. I finally became honest with myself and my food diary and I now log EVERYTHING and I weigh all my food. I lost 20 lb since I started doing this.
  • GiddyNZ
    GiddyNZ Posts: 136 Member
    If you have only just started exercising on a regular basis you could be developing a little muscle which weighs more, but also will burn more in the long run.

    My best piece of advice would be to take your measurements now so you can see the difference, I didn't do that and it's too late now to go back.. lol
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
    Depending on your workouts, you could be retaining water. When you first start an exercise regimine, you typically create microtears in your muscle fibers. Your body retains water as part of the inflammation response to speed up the healing (and build a little muscle in the process). This water retention can last for up to about 3 weeks, and can balance out or even outweigh losses in fat (water is quite dense, particularly when compared to fat). Give it a little time. Make sure you are weighing/measuring and logging everything you eat. A bite here and a handful there can add up quickly. Good luck.
  • JessHealthKick
    JessHealthKick Posts: 800 Member
    hmm well your numbers look pretty good in your diary. I would suggest this;

    Try to increase your protein intake. This can 'assist' in maintaining muscle when you do start losing weight

    Get some fresh vegetables in there girl! I couldn't see one thing that looked like a vegetable... (not including potatoes). You really need to try and get the 2 and 5 thing down (2 servings of fruit and 5 of vegetables). I easily go over 1600calories with no bread/pasta/rice but instead from lots of fruit, veggies, chicken breast, eggs, ham and yoghurt. It's important to clean up your diet and back away from the processed foods (this will improve your energy and mean you don't need coffee!)

    Make sure you are drinking lots and lots of water. Just keep drinking it.

    Good luck! If things don't change at all and you are logging HONESTY then you need to try move your numbers down or up by say 100-200. I found 1200 too low for me, upped to 1400 and lost a bit, 1600 and lost a bit more and then plateaued (also wasn't being an angel with my eating). Now I am back around 1500 and being honest with my diary and finally losing a little again :)

    Jess
  • langurmonkey
    langurmonkey Posts: 92
    If you have started exercise after not having exercised for a while you can get some water retention in your muscles as they get used to the extra work they are doing. It goes away after a few weeks or so.

    Try not to get demotivated! We all have periods where nothing seems to be happening for no good reason.
  • adrianadciocan
    adrianadciocan Posts: 16 Member
    I *think* am being completely honest with my logging. I log everything immediately and don't skip. There'd be no point. I'm either taking the calories directly from the packaging or weighing everything. So that can't be it. I've had a fair bit of experience in the past with logging and I know that false logging only creates problems and you only shoot yourself in the foot.

    I do eat a lot of pre-packed food though at the moment because I live alone and it's too much hassle to cook for one person unless I have enough time. I've eaten a pre-packaged salad every day this week and totally agree that I need to up my non-processed food (I was doing really well last week and the week before with home made stuff! Shame I got so busy).

    Now that I'm really thinking about it I think it might be a combination of things.

    a) I completely agree with what was said about exercise. I never really exercised before and I'm hitting the gym for an hour each morning burning approx 450 cals so maybe water retention from that? Is that enough of a burn to cause water retention?
    b) Exercise at the weekend (I don't go to the gym but go walking or cycling) I don't log because I have no reliable source... MFP grossly overestimates how many cals I burn. Time to get a HRM maybe? Or any other solutions?
    c) Unreliable measurements due to quite a lot of pre-packed food. Although I always choose healthy options (steamed fish, salads etc), ready meals are never a good thing and at least if I am cooking basic clean food myself I will know EXACTLY what's in it.

    So, this weekend I have a little extra time to re-group. :) I'll take all of these things and apply them and will hopefully soon be posting about my fantastic losses. ;) Thanks everyone for the input!

    Adie
  • Cait_Sidhe
    Cait_Sidhe Posts: 3,150 Member
    One thing I've discovered is that the weight of pre-packaged food is almost never what it says a serving is. For instance, I eat a lot of Quest protein bars. A serving which is a single bar is supposed to be 60g. Most of the time, they are 65g or more. So instead of it being 190 calories, it's over 200 calories. It's not much of a discrepancy, but all of the prepackaged food I eat weighs more than it should. It adds up in the end. I never just log one serving. I weigh it and log it from there.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY
  • cactuswren55
    cactuswren55 Posts: 6 Member
    Take a look at your sodium levels in your packaged food. Too much may also cause water retention. I am having to learn how to lower my sodium levels due to a "stiff heart".
  • adrianadciocan
    adrianadciocan Posts: 16 Member
    Aaaaaaaand... this morning I stood on the scales and saw a 1.4kg / 3lbs loss. Go figure! :) I'm very happy. I'll still make the changes suggested as they'll be better for my healthy and tracking. Thanks again for the feedback guys!

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