Why am I gaining weight?

eddiemac0
eddiemac0 Posts: 3
in Health and Weight Loss
For the past 3 weeks I have been doing cardio and lifting weights. I also have been eating good, meeting my 1730 cal food intake per day. I go to the gym everyday, except Sundays. I do chest and abs on Monday, back and biceps on Tuesday and legs on Wednesday. Then I repeat the workout cycle all over again. I also do at least 30 min cardio everyday before workout. Now my question is why the heck am I not losing weight or my belly fat etc..? I weighed myself before I started working out 3 weeks ago and my weight was 260lb. During the 3 weeks I was working out, my weight went to as low as 256lb and jumped back to 260lb today. Can someone explain what is going on with my body? I am a total newbie in loosing weight. Any good suggestions would help. Thanks!

Replies

  • dalspot
    dalspot Posts: 1 Member
    Because water weight can fluctuate daily, and you are gaining muscle mass, which, while heavier, will ultimately lead to more fat loss. Keep up the good work!
  • rieann84
    rieann84 Posts: 511 Member
    I don't have an answer, but I would suggest making your food diary public so others can be of help
  • echofm1
    echofm1 Posts: 471 Member
    Yes, water weight. Your body can fluctuate several pounds even in a day, depending on a variety of factors. Look for a general downward trend, or weigh yourself a couple times that week if the number is going up. You might have just had a lot of sodium yesterday, or a particularly hard workout can make you sore. If you're sore, you're also going to have water weight.
  • bkyoun
    bkyoun Posts: 371 Member
    http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Chances are its water weight. When you perform weightlifting exercises (especially if you haven't for a long time) your body tends to recruit and retain water in your muscle. Given that 1 cup of water is about a pound of weight it doesn't take much to offset any fat loss you would have over a period of just 3 weeks.

    Really the answer is your bodies weight will fluctuate naturally with water retention a significant amount and it is enough to mask any fat loss for periods as much as a couple of months depending on your regimen.

    If your goal is fat loss I would say rather than rely on scale weight try instead measuring the circumference around your abdomen every 2 weeks or every week and see if it is decreasing. Even with water retention if you are losing fat your waist will be shrinking. It might be months until you see this reflected in your scale weight.

    Cheers
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Another consideration for water retention is sodium. If you are dieting chances are you have made changes to what you eat. If what you eat has higher sodium now than it did before your body, again, will have retained more water. It takes surprisingly little sodium (in the range of milligrams) to recruit pounds of water to your body. This isn't really an issue unless you have really high sodium intake (in which case it effects bloodpressure because of all the extra liquid) so I wouldn't worry about it to much and would stick with your plan and weight a longer time for changes.

    If you went from 256 to 260 pounds in a matter of days or weeks its going to be a change in water retention guaranteed. You can retain something like 5% of your bodyweight in water from weightlifting and/or increased sodium and in your case that would be over 10 pounds.
  • eddiemac0
    eddiemac0 Posts: 3
    Thanks everybody for your replies. Greatly appreciated! I will stick to my plan for 2-3 months and see what my results are.

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