Working out 2+ months, gaining weight & inches!

Options
2»

Replies

  • taramaclaren
    taramaclaren Posts: 95 Member
    Options
    it would help if your diary was open. Im guessing that you are eating the wrong types of food. packaged stuff? to much sodium? not from scratch/ most food from boxes? either that or I am banking on that you are eating to few calories and your body is desperately trying to hold onto what little energy it can. perhaps you are only eating 1200 (too low) and working off 600 calories a day- you are in starvation mode with a net of 600. Your body needs more calories then that to even walk around, pump blood, think etc. in a day. you have to eat back your exercise calories, do some research on TDEE and BMR. If those are not the issues I am guessing it is because you stopped taking two prescriptions (its possible).

    One quick note - I read a lot about "starvation mode" here on the forums. Starvation mode is a myth, and while I understand that it is really popular here in the community, there is no scientific evidence that your body will put on weight or refuse to drop weight when it is taking in fewer calories than it is burning. It is just not logical or scientifically proven.

    Here's an article that may help explain:

    http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=35501

    EDIT: I do not advocate starving oneself for weight loss. Just the sharing of accurate information. With weightloss slow and steady wins the race, as the article points out! :)
  • dmenchac
    dmenchac Posts: 447 Member
    Options
    IF you aren't losing weight, you are eating too much.

    Working out is more about fitness, weight loss is a result of a reduced food intake.

    this.

    You are true about this but weight lost gets a little more complicated. If it wasn't then people would be more success at weight lost. Metabolism seems to be a lot of people problem. Eating less and exercise a lot in not the way to see results. Metabolism has to be corrected..
    http://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/truth-about-metabolic-damage

    IT WORKS

    I was told by a mod to try and be nicer.

    Could you ever make a post that doesn't include the same T-nation article?

    Its borderline advertising and AT has nothing to do with what the OP is talking about.
  • xHelloQuincyx
    xHelloQuincyx Posts: 884 Member
    Options

    muscle does NOT weigh more than fat. a pound of fat is the same as a pound of muscle. fat takes up more space than muscle though. a pound is a pound is a pound... remember that old trick where they ask you what weighs more the feathers or the lead weight? g's I feel sorry for the inaccurate information that is being spread by a person who is supposed to be informed in fitness... or at least basic science. the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn throughout the day too without even trying. the more strength training I do the thinner I get...

    By volume, silly. A cubic inch of muscle weighs more than a cubic inch of fat. Or, in other words, to use your example, a pound of muscle is much smaller than a pound of fat.


    One pound of muscle is going to occupy less space (volume) within the body than one pound of fat.


    so why is she gaining five inches?
  • fbmandy55
    fbmandy55 Posts: 5,263 Member
    Options
    IF you aren't losing weight, you are eating too much.

    Working out is more about fitness, weight loss is a result of a reduced food intake.

    working out reduces net calories... you loose when you have a calorie defect. you really shouldn't make this assumption without seeing what she is eating. now this lady is gonna cut her food even more when it is probably the quality of the food she is eating that needs to change or the type of exercise.


    do a quick search on the forums 'eat more to weigh less' I bet you will get tons of people who have been in the same boat

    No.

    If she is not losing, it's because she doesn't have a deficit. Type of exercise and quality of food aren't the cause of her gaining, it quantity.

    or it could be her stopping medications. (specifically hormones in BC)
    or it could be her over estimating how much she is exercising or how many calories she is burning. Does she have a HRM? is she eating back workout cals?
    or it could be her scale.
    or it could be inaccurate measurement of portions.
    or it could be her time of the month soon (irregular after stopping bc)
    or it could be the fact that she only has a small amount of weight to loose compared to you. a lot more plateauing happens when you are closer to your goal weight.

    FFS, Every single reason you listed has to do with her not having a deficit! If she is not measuring, or over estimating then she IS eating at a surplus.

    But please take your own advice and research the forums and 'stop spreading misinformation'. Doing the wrong exercise and eating boxed food doesn't make you gain weight. Only if you are taking in more than you are putting out.
  • dmenchac
    dmenchac Posts: 447 Member
    Options
    IF you aren't losing weight, you are eating too much.

    Working out is more about fitness, weight loss is a result of a reduced food intake.

    working out reduces net calories... you loose when you have a calorie defect. you really shouldn't make this assumption without seeing what she is eating. now this lady is gonna cut her food even more when it is probably the quality of the food she is eating that needs to change or the type of exercise.

    do a quick search on the forums 'eat more to weigh less' I bet you will get tons of people who have been in the same boat

    The quality of food has NOTHING to do with losing weight. You can lose weight on McDonalds as long as you hit your caloric goal.
  • xHelloQuincyx
    xHelloQuincyx Posts: 884 Member
    Options

    FFS, Every single reason you listed has to do with her not having a deficit! If she is not measuring, or over estimating then she IS eating at a surplus.


    so birth control pills are having a deficit now?? woahh. I was trying to give her advice based off of my experience like everyone else. calm down.... If she actually wanted an accurate answer she would open her diary. all the rest is just a guess.

    personally I think you will fail if it is all just a numbers game. to ME it is about eating healthy and working toward a certain lifestyle that I can live with without counting numbers and freaking out over a scale. it is just a number that only you obsess over. I need to put the right fuel into my body to function correctly. sorry that you could not understand what I was saying about my personal opinion for myself.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    Options
    IF you aren't losing weight, you are eating too much.

    Working out is more about fitness, weight loss is a result of a reduced food intake.

    working out reduces net calories... you loose when you have a calorie defect. you really shouldn't make this assumption without seeing what she is eating. now this lady is gonna cut her food even more when it is probably the quality of the food she is eating that needs to change or the type of exercise.


    do a quick search on the forums 'eat more to weigh less' I bet you will get tons of people who have been in the same boat

    No.

    If she is not losing, it's because she doesn't have a deficit. Type of exercise and quality of food aren't the cause of her gaining, it quantity.

    or it could be her stopping medications. (specifically hormones in BC)
    or it could be her over estimating how much she is exercising or how many calories she is burning. Does she have a HRM? is she eating back workout cals?
    or it could be her scale.
    or it could be inaccurate measurement of portions.
    or it could be her time of the month soon (irregular after stopping bc)
    or it could be the fact that she only has a small amount of weight to loose compared to you. a lot more plateauing happens when you are closer to your goal weight.

    Highly unlikely it's the meds or TOM. She gained before stopping the meds. She's still gaining after.

    If her scale isn't calibrated properly, it would still be off by a consistent amount - if it's steadily increasing, she's gaining. If it's on an unstable surface, the measurements would be all over the place, and OP would be asking why her weight's zigzagging all over.

    Everything else you mention comes down to inaccurate tracking of calories - basically, OP is not in a deficit. So, again, advice is to weigh and measure everything and be conservative when it comes to machine- or MFP-estimated calorie burns.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    Options
    IF you aren't losing weight, you are eating too much.

    Working out is more about fitness, weight loss is a result of a reduced food intake.

    this.

    You are true about this but weight lost gets a little more complicated. If it wasn't then people would be more success at weight lost. Metabolism seems to be a lot of people problem. Eating less and exercise a lot in not the way to see results. Metabolism has to be corrected..
    http://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/truth-about-metabolic-damage

    IT WORKS

    I was told by a mod to try and be nicer.

    Could you ever make a post that doesn't include the same T-nation article?

    Its borderline advertising and AT has nothing to do with what the OP is talking about.

    A lot of people are having the same issue. That link is the answer to the problem. Yeah I get attacked but there are people who privately message me and say thanks this article got me to realize what I was doing wrong. Mod don't worry about people attacking me. I don't take offense to this forum as people attacking. A lot of people are getting stuck at scale weight and are trying to exercise more and eat less to compensate.
  • taramaclaren
    taramaclaren Posts: 95 Member
    Options

    FFS, Every single reason you listed has to do with her not having a deficit! If she is not measuring, or over estimating then she IS eating at a surplus.


    so birth control pills are having a deficit now?? woahh. I was trying to give her advice based off of my experience like everyone else. calm down.... If she actually wanted an accurate answer she would open her diary. all the rest is just a guess.

    Yeah - I think we can all agree that most of her answers will come from her simply logging her food and getting more information.

    As far as weight gain on birth control... I was trying to blame about 8 new lbs on my new pill a while back. I started researching it to help me make my case of excuses to myself, and most of what I came up with was this: BC does not make you gain weight, rather it makes you emotionally want to eat more and THAT causes you to gain weight. Unfortunately, I couldn't blame anyone but myself. I found it super interesting because I'd already heard (like you) that the simple act of taking the pill causes weight gain.

    Here was the nail in my excuse-laden coffin from WebMD:

    http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-pills-weight-gain
  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,731 Member
    Options

    muscle does NOT weigh more than fat. a pound of fat is the same as a pound of muscle. fat takes up more space than muscle though. a pound is a pound is a pound... remember that old trick where they ask you what weighs more the feathers or the lead weight? g's I feel sorry for the inaccurate information that is being spread by a person who is supposed to be informed in fitness... or at least basic science. the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn throughout the day too without even trying. the more strength training I do the thinner I get...

    By volume, silly. A cubic inch of muscle weighs more than a cubic inch of fat. Or, in other words, to use your example, a pound of muscle is much smaller than a pound of fat.


    One pound of muscle is going to occupy less space (volume) within the body than one pound of fat.


    so why is she gaining five inches?

    So, yeah...if you're comparing the weights of two things, don't you think you would the items by volume, or some other metric, to compare? Or, you know, any measurement other than weight? I mean, logically? How much sense does it make to select a pound of each to compare their weights?
  • xHelloQuincyx
    xHelloQuincyx Posts: 884 Member
    Options

    Here was the nail in my excuse-laden coffin from WebMD:

    http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-pills-weight-gain

    From personal experience I did gain weight from stopping bc. it stayed for about 3 months after until my periods became normal. I did not hear about it it personally did happen. I can't make assumptions from a linked site that could or could not be credible and I can't make guesses for this lady. Personally I think that stopping two medications could very well cause change in the body and mentally too. the other medication was an anti depressant. after doing a quick google search I found many articles that I could link that further that thought, but again- it's just a guess so I will leave that work to the OP.
  • kkoenig0617
    kkoenig0617 Posts: 2
    Options
    Thanks for all the replies (minus the fighting). I will try to post more food on here, that's why my journal isn't open, well that and because I don't know how. I just didn't know losing weight, at my age, should be this difficult. I will look into purchasing a food scale and hope that is the answer to all my problems once I am able to learn correct portioning instead of just eating healthy foods! Again, thank you!
  • misscourtneyt
    misscourtneyt Posts: 2
    Options
    I had this same problem when I started working out, and it is so discouraging.

    First, Do not live by your scale. I dread getting on the scale because even if you are loosing inches or gaining muscle, the scale goes up and it tricks your mind into thinking you are doing something wrong.

    Second, If you are gaining inches, adjust your meal plan and workouts. Cut out some carbs, add more cardio and HIIT training.
    Also, make sure you are drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day :)

    Third, STAY POSITIVE AND MOTIVATED! You are your biggest enemy, make sure you are feeding your mind positive thoughts and reassurance and keep doing what you are doing. At first, your body might re-tain some food and water, but it will realize you are working out and trying to loose weight and it'll work with you :)

    xoxo
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    Options
    Thanks for all the replies (minus the fighting). I will try to post more food on here, that's why my journal isn't open, well that and because I don't know how. I just didn't know losing weight, at my age, should be this difficult. I will look into purchasing a food scale and hope that is the answer to all my problems once I am able to learn correct portioning instead of just eating healthy foods! Again, thank you!
    It sounds like you haven't been counting calories and instead "eating healthy" and avoiding foods you think are "bad". If you eat 3000 calories a day of "healthy" foods, you will gain weight if it's more than your maintenance calories. If you eat at a deficit, you will lose weight, whether those foods are "healthy" or "bad". Notice all the quotes; food labels aren't bad and can just lead to disordered eating.

    I'd start tracking what you eat, and stick with it for a while. Then see what happens. These are really good reads for getting started:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here

Categories