1000/kcal a day defecit=4lb gain?!

Water weight, high sodium foods, diet sodas, and.... that... "female time" of the month plays a major factor. Along with hormones. Unless you ate an extra 3,500 calories it's all water.

Personally, I use a scale for just about everything except liquids.

And after a dinner of Chinese take away (which was loaded with salt, I am sure) I was up 3 lbs overnight.

Here's what I learned during my weight loss:

(1) Weekly ups and downs don't matter. Averages are king.

So you lost 5 pounds one week, 4 pounds the next, up 4 this week? That averages to 1.667 pounds per week. That's just shy of what is predicted based on a 1,000 calorie a day deficit. And - if you're not weighing your portions - I'll bet your deficit is smaller than you think, which basically means your average loss might be exactly correct based on your deficit.

My advice: Track your daily and weekly losses on a spreadsheet. that way you can easily calculate averages and see that your loss is actually perfectly in line.

(2) If you didn't eat enough above maintenance to gain 4 pounds of fat, you did not gain 4 pounds of fat. It is absolutely, 100% possible to be retaining four pounds of water. I do - about one week a month. Sometimes it's less, but 4 pounds is not out of line at all. See (1). Averages are what matters.

(3) Weight loss is not perfectly linear. If you're like me, your losses will be whooshes and stalls. If I lost 5 pounds one week (which definitely happened several times) I knew very well that I was unlikely to lose anything the next week. Whooshes were always followed by stalls for me, and stalls by whooshes. See tip (1).





And yes...I use my food scale many times a day, even now, 18 months into weight maintenance. You wouldn't believe how often I eyeball 28 g of cheese perfectly NOW but that's a long work in progress. I often don't weigh leafy greens, but every serving of peanut butter, jam, nuts, chips, crackers, hummus, mayo, cheese, meat, yogurt, etc gets weighed before it goes in my mouth. If it's nutrient dense, it's important to weigh. For fruit, I'll weigh if it's convenient (peeling a banana at home, for example) but if I pack a piece of fruit to eat with lunch at work like an apple, pear, or orange, I don't weigh. I'm not above weighing everything at home, but I'm definitely not willing to have a scale at work

You don't weigh your food...

Not saying the 4lb gain is fat...but...

If you don't weigh your food you aren't at a 1000 calorie a day deficet...most likely you are eating more than you think.

That could be, I didn't think of that. I use measuring cups and spoons for dry/wet items but I don't weigh anything besides meat. Do most people use their food scale for everything? Should I use it for fruit and things too?

Thank you!

I weigh everything. If a food in the MFP database only has measurements, I read packages and weigh food according to that. It's rare 1 cup of anything weighs an ounce, it usually weighs more.

Personally, I use a scale for just about everything except liquids.

And after a dinner of Chinese take away (which was loaded with salt, I am sure) I was up 3 lbs overnight.

If you drink ANY liquid other than water, black calorie free coffee, or diet soda with zero calories WEIGHT IT
weight your cream, you sugar scoops, your butter pats

anything you put in your mouth weight

Liquids are typically measured by volume, not mass. It's very unusual to find nutrition information for a liquid measured by mass. I sometimes see it on salad dressings, though those are usually volume as well. You need to know the density of the particular liquid to convert the measurement from volume to mass. It's easy with water (1L=1kg) but not necessarily with other liquids. What I mean by this is that it's more convenient and likely more accurate to measure liquids by volume, not on your kitchen scale.

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Personally, I use a scale for just about everything except liquids.

And after a dinner of Chinese take away (which was loaded with salt, I am sure) I was up 3 lbs overnight.

If you drink ANY liquid other than water, black calorie free coffee, or diet soda with zero calories WEIGHT IT
weight your cream, you sugar scoops, your butter pats

anything you put in your mouth weight

Liquids are typically measured by volume, not mass. It's very unusual to find nutrition information for a liquid measured by mass. I sometimes see it on salad dressings, though those are usually volume as well. You need to know the density of the particular liquid to convert the measurement from volume to mass. It's easy with water (1L=1kg) but not necessarily with other liquids. What I mean by this is that it's more convenient and likely more accurate to measure liquids by volume, not on your kitchen scale.

A tip i learned for measuring liquids on the food scale outside of ounces, for salad dressings and coffee creamers 1 mL = 1 gram

youre welcome.

Not precisely. 1g of water = 1ml. But that varies for other liquids based on their density.

You could certainly estimate cream that way, for example, but it will not be precise. The density of cream - and thus its weight - depends on the fat percentage AND temperature. The 1ml = 1g measurement is precise for water, but cream is lighter in density than water (that's why it floats to the top!). It would be close enough to estimate, but so is a measuring cup.

If the density of the salad dressing is different than that of water, there will be a difference in weight even if volume is identical. I have no idea if there is a density difference. Your method is not precise unless you have determined each liquid's density, which is certainly possible, though time consuming.

Measuring with volume utensils is also not completely precise. This is a case where, unlike weighing the mass of solid foods (which IS more precise than volume measurements), you can decide which method is more convenient. There will be a negligible difference between a volume measurement of cream and a weight measurement of cream - even assuming you've calculated its density.

I will say that when I bake, I use mass measurements for all solid ingredients but volume measurements for liquids. That's how most recipes are written, because of the variation in density of various liquids.