Maintenance - HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE.

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misspenny762
misspenny762 Posts: 279 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So even though I'm not quite at my goal weight yet I tried an experiment this weekend where I set my goals to maintenance. (To be safe, I changed my fitness level to sedentary, even though I'm more lightly active). I admit that I cheated a tad on Friday and Saturday (although I did dance all Saturday night, which I didn't log either, so I figured that might help even things out a bit). Then on Sunday I was about 100 cals under. I stepped on the scale this morning and... gained two pounds!
I'm not tripping over the weight gain because I know I can melt it off just as soon as I find some time in my schedule to hit the gym. But I am confused. If you supposedly need to pack on 3500 cals to gain a pound, how is it possible to gain 2 pounds over the course of a weeked where I only went over a total of a few hundred calories? I don't understand how it's even mathematically possible to gain weight this fast unless your calorie intake is astronomical. Anyone want to explain how this works? And if this is how my body handles "maintenance" levels, how is weight maintenance going to be even possible for me?

Replies

  • ChubbieTubbie
    ChubbieTubbie Posts: 481 Member
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    It's probably water retention--did you eat anything high sodium? Did you drink enough water? It's impossible to gain 2 pounds from only eating over a few hundred calories!
  • jillybeanruns
    jillybeanruns Posts: 1,420 Member
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    Water retention - high sodium? or did you switch up your fitness routine recently? or a combo of both?
  • Mindful_Trent
    Mindful_Trent Posts: 3,954 Member
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    Unless you ate 7000 extra calories, you DIDN'T gain 2 lbs over the weekend. Our bodies fluctuate a lot - mostly water weight due to hormones, sodium levels, exercise, etc. I've noticed it usually looks like I drop 3 to 4 lbs between my Monday official weigh-ins and Wednesday, but then I regain some of that by the next Monday weight in - it's just how my body's water-weight "cycle" seems to work.

    Don't stress over it. Keep eating right, drinking plenty of water, exercising and you'll be fine. :flowerforyou:
  • mario284
    mario284 Posts: 18
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    The samething happened to me when I switched to maintain the weight. It lasted just for a couple days though. I am now back to my goal weight. I wouldn't worry about it too much. :-)
  • vyseexe
    vyseexe Posts: 9
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    I'm am having a similar issue my weight seems to go up but it may just be water retention for the both of us. I lost a few inches off my waist and some of my chest but I still weigh more than I did a week ago. I account for the extra weight by the way of my sore muscles, and because of too much sodium intake give it a few days you'll be back on track soon enough.
  • tigerblue
    tigerblue Posts: 1,526 Member
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    I have found that the maintenance calories on this website are about 200 cals too high for me. I did some research online--googled "how many cals to maintain weight" and looked at several sites before I found the number for me. Most of the sites I saw reccommended fewer cals than mfp.
  • tigerblue
    tigerblue Posts: 1,526 Member
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    I have found that the maintenance calories on this website are about 200 cals too high for me. I did some research online--googled "how many cals to maintain weight" and looked at several sites before I found the number for me. Most of the sites I saw reccommended fewer cals than mfp.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    It is not recommended to switch directly to maintenance. It is better to increase your caloric intake over weeks or months 100-200/day/week at a time. so if you go from 1200 to 1600 you should add 100 and stay there from 2-4 weeks then add another 100 again 2-4 weeks and eventually you will be at maintenance cals without shocking your system with a large caloric increase all of a sudden.
  • therobinator
    therobinator Posts: 832 Member
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    There could be lots of factors at play here. Are you nearing your time of the month? Did you eat lots of sodium even though you didn't go over calorie-wise? Did you drink enough water? What time of day did you weight yourself? Had you just eaten? Etc.
  • wrevhn
    wrevhn Posts: 864 Member
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    its water weight baby girl. evil evil thing. it comes and goes pretty easily. its not included in the "3500 cals = 1 lb" rule. thats just fat. water can go on you for differant reasons

    could be your body shocked from jumping up more cals than it was use to getting. they say to "gradually introduce more calories".

    however, I would do some research on various websites about what your mntc cals really should be. try freedieting.com, and webmd.com and search out a few others compare notes.

    as for the current water weight, you can drink water to get it off. also, water pills can help.
  • KatalynasMommy
    KatalynasMommy Posts: 136 Member
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    I changed to maintain at the beginning of the month. I have 1770 calories to eat a day, having problems eatting all of them I lost 3 more pounds since then, and last week I didn't even workout. I have not idea how I'm going to maintain, so I'm trying to eat more to get more calories. I guess you just have to adjust yourself to want your needs are. GOOD LUCK!!
  • misspenny762
    misspenny762 Posts: 279 Member
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    Thanks everyone for all your input.

    To answer some questions:

    - I have not been eating a lot of sodium... If anything I should be eating way more because I have extremely low blood pressure.
    - I haven't been drinking as much water as I should, so you might be on to something there.
    - My fitness routine does get kind of thrown for a loop on the weekends when I go home because I don't have access to a gym or my bike (and this weekend I was even super smart and forgot my running shoes.)
    - As for that time of the month... I have no idea because my schedule is WAY off right now. I really need to get to the doctor about that, actually.


    Edited to fix a typo.
  • mizfit
    mizfit Posts: 118
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    So even though I'm not quite at my goal weight yet I tried an experiment this weekend where I set my goals to maintenance. (To be safe, I changed my fitness level to sedentary, even though I'm more lightly active). I admit that I cheated a tad on Friday and Saturday (although I did dance all Saturday night, which I didn't log either, so I figured that might help even things out a bit). Then on Sunday I was about 100 cals under. I stepped on the scale this morning and... gained two pounds!
    I'm not tripping over the weight gain because I know I can melt it off just as soon as I find some time in my schedule to hit the gym. But I am confused. If you supposedly need to pack on 3500 cals to gain a pound, how is it possible to gain 2 pounds over the course of a weeked where I only went over a total of a few hundred calories? I don't understand how it's even mathematically possible to gain weight this fast unless your calorie intake is astronomical. Anyone want to explain how this works? And if this is how my body handles "maintenance" levels, how is weight maintenance going to be even possible for me?

    Thanks for posting this question you actually helped me out when I read the advice you received from other MFP members. Today was my weigh in day and I weighed myself earlier in the week just to see if I was on track and I weighed in more today then mid week!!! I couldn't understand why until I saw the answers about sodium and water retention and sure enough I had a lot more sodium the last few days. So now I know to keep bettter track of things. This site is great in that you can get so much help even from other people's questions.

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