I just dont get it

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10manda86
10manda86 Posts: 229 Member
in Motivation and Support
And it is a knock to motivation... had a terrible week last week and managed to lose 0.8kg. This week been good, went to the gym a few times when I could, instead though the scales are up... interestingly though, body fat the same, muscle mass the same, measurements down slightly... I've been feeling terrible this week too, flu coming on, braces rubbing my lip, headaches... maybe not enough water has caused my problem???

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  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
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    Do you weigh once a week? If so, it's probably just a random fluctuation. I weigh daily and calculate an exponentially smoothed weighted average to track my trend. It's consistently downwards. However, I only update my weight on this site on Mondays. Looking at MFP, I appear to have several plateaus and increases (this Monday was 2.6 lbs. more than last Monday). But looking at my daily weights, those plateaus and increases are just noise in the data.

    If you're interested in daily weigh-ins and sophisticated averaging, I recommend John Walker, The Hacker's Diet, chapter on "Signal & Noise" (free online at: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/). Trendweight.com is a site that automates that method if you happen to have a scale that is Internet-enabled.
  • 10manda86
    10manda86 Posts: 229 Member
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    I weigh daily just to maintain, to ensure a downward trend taking into account daily fluctuation anomalies but generally hoping for a downward trend and then do a final weigh in and tracking on here on Saturday... this week I did my Saturday weigh and then Sunday it was up and it has stayed there all week and that is the 300g gain, it is nothing but a little kick in the guts to motivation. I am going to say that it is a water problem, hormonal probably as well and as I think back I probably have drank as much as I normally do
  • ElsaVonMarmalade
    ElsaVonMarmalade Posts: 154 Member
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    The body isn't a machine, and doesn't always respond the way it "should." Don't let it get you down!
  • Boogage
    Boogage Posts: 739 Member
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    You can hold a lot of water when you're working out. Many people report gaining 5 or more lbs in the first couple of weeks. Personally I have found that when I workout consistently my weight either stays the same or goes up a bit and it stays like that for as long as I keep exercising. When I take a week or 2 out my weight drops drastically which means I have in fact been losing weight but just holding onto a lot of water for repairs. Don't get disheartened. If you know you're doing it right, then you'll get results if you stick with your plan. The scale can be a poor measure of our progress.
  • Synchronicity
    Synchronicity Posts: 82 Member
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    Patience. You are going to have your ups and downs. We do not know all there is to know about human metabolism... so it's really just a guessing game as to why you gained a little this week and lost last week. It could be water retention. It could be you didn't burn as many calories as you thought you burned and/or that you ate more calories than you thought you ate. It doesn't really matter in the long run. If you maintain a chronic calorie deficit and keep on trudging, you'll lose weight in the long run. Always focus on the long run. It's too easy to get discouraged if you do this day-to-day or even week-to-week.

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