Why am I gaining weight?

He says he's eating at deficit. How is he gaining muscle????????

muscle ways more than fat of course!!! youre getting stronger now

Relax about your weight loss. Be accurate with weighing ALL foods. Be accurate about exercise calories.(I use a heart rate monitor). If you eat at a small deficit then fat will melt away revealing muscle. I find I needed to increase fibre to help things move along. I still don't eat enough but it still helps "transit"

Barring inaccuracies in logging (we all have slips here and there. Sometimes significant, sometimes not), it's easy to gain weight when you eat something high in electrolytes (increased water retention), more carbs than usual after a depletion phase (glycogen storage), or simply lots of fiber in the intestinal tract.

I can easily fluctuate 4 lb. in a single day if I ate lots of carb in preparation for a long ride. And I used to freak out the day after having Chinese food (Sodium). I now use trends as opposed to points to track my weight.

I will be upping my calories for sure and I won't be weighing myself more than bimonthly to have a better view of my general weight loss trend.

Generally speaking, more data points yield better trend accuracy. As other have said, water retention can obfuscate the picture. If you happened to have had an unusually high sodium or high carbohydrate or high cortisol day right before your bi-monthly weigh in, you might not get a very accurate snapshot on that day. There's nothing wrong with that! And most people on here would say it's good not to obsess over a number. But if you are interested in seeing an accurate weight loss trend, try weighing consistently (e.g. after waking & using the restroom but before consuming anything), and averaging it bi-monthly. If you note your daily weight in excel, you can chart a 15-day rolling average, but some might consider that in obsessive territory. ;-)

Haha. I like you!

PS: screw the moral of the story! (See OP post above :bigsmile: )

Barring inaccuracies in logging (we all have slips here and there. Sometimes significant, sometimes not), it's easy to gain weight when you eat something high in electrolytes (increased water retention), more carbs than usual after a depletion phase (glycogen storage), or simply lots of fiber in the intestinal tract.

I can easily fluctuate 4 lb. in a single day if I ate lots of carb in preparation for a long ride. And I used to freak out the day after having Chinese food (Sodium). I now use trends as opposed to points to track my weight.

I have noticed the same re Chinese but did not put 2 and 2 together until just now

To keep some perspective: the most common size bottle of water is usually 16 oz (just under 1/2 liter). Water weighs the same as its volume so 16 oz of water is 1 lb. This time of year as the weather changes from cold winter to warm summer it is not uncommon for your body to temporarily retain more water as it starts regulating itself to make sure you have enough fluid for the extra sweating you may be doing. If you have spring hay fever, your allergies and/or allergy medication may also cause you to retain water.

1 lb. or 1/2 kilo is not that big of a deal and a retention of that amount is not uncommon, especially this time of year or during the first days of a heat wave. Just keep doing what you are doing and maybe up your fluid intake a little.

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Thanks stef!
Ok to recap (and clarify), I'm ok and not panicky at all. This was only to gain knowledge of the reasons for something like this.
I will be upping my calories for sure and I won't be weighing myself more than bimonthly to have a better view of my general weight loss trend.
I'm upping my cals to 1800 a day btw (I need a deficit as well you know. Can't eat my maintenance can I)

Your BMR is not your maintenance. Your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is. You need to eat at least your BMR. I do TDEE - 20%, which puts me a bit above my BMR. Here's a good basic tutorial on calorie counting and nutrition. http://www.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/wiki/faq#wiki_12._what_are_the_basics_of_calorie_counting_and_nutrition.3F Even though it is from a women's site, it stays true for men.

A possible culpret for your weight gain that no one seems to have mentioned- muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. If you're putting on muscle, the scale will reflect that. I lift, and I've been taping (using a measuring tape to measure waist, chest, legs) instead of using a scale and it shows my results far better as you can be losing fat but staying the same weight.

No he's not putting on muscle.
No muscle does not weigh more than fat.

OP, yes I could easily be water fluctuations but no don't ignore the people that tell you it could be miscalculations in your logging. That's always a possibility. Monitor you weight trends for the next couple of weeks to get a better idea of what's going on.

What planet are you from? Muscle absolutely weighs more than fat- a pound of muscle is far less, in terms of mass, than a pound of fat. This is a biological fact. Furthermore, as a 19 year old male lifting, he is most likely putting on muscle.

No, he's holding water from not eating enough. He's below his b.m.r. .. And at a deficit, it's dang near impossible to gain muscle on a deficit.

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What is up with the thought I read all the time that muscle weights more then fat????

A pound is a pound-period! The difference between fat and muscles are a pound of muscles has less volume then a pound of fat. So, if you gain 2 pounds of muscles, you may be heavier then before but may have still less inches.

Please, don't tell people that muscles weight more then fat. It just shows you didn't pay attention in school.

Most people understand this correctly even though it doesn't always come out right in explanations.. If your thigh is 22" but fat, it will weigh less than if it is 22" of muscle. Also, someone who is 6' and 200 lb with a BF% of 10 will look slimmer than the same size and weight with a BF of 20%. That is what people mean when they say that muscle weighs more than fat.

Thanks stef!
Ok to recap (and clarify), I'm ok and not panicky at all. This was only to gain knowledge of the reasons for something like this.
I will be upping my calories for sure and I won't be weighing myself more than bimonthly to have a better view of my general weight loss trend.
I'm upping my cals to 1800 a day btw (I need a deficit as well you know. Can't eat my maintenance can I)

Your BMR is not your maintenance. Your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is. You need to eat at least your BMR. I do TDEE - 20%, which puts me a bit above my BMR. Here's a good basic tutorial on calorie counting and nutrition. http://www.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/wiki/faq#wiki_12._what_are_the_basics_of_calorie_counting_and_nutrition.3F Even though it is from a women's site, it stays true for men.

A possible culpret for your weight gain that no one seems to have mentioned- muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. If you're putting on muscle, the scale will reflect that. I lift, and I've been taping (using a measuring tape to measure waist, chest, legs) instead of using a scale and it shows my results far better as you can be losing fat but staying the same weight.

No he's not putting on muscle.
No muscle does not weigh more than fat.

OP, yes I could easily be water fluctuations but no don't ignore the people that tell you it could be miscalculations in your logging. That's always a possibility. Monitor you weight trends for the next couple of weeks to get a better idea of what's going on.

What planet are you from? Muscle absolutely weighs more than fat- a pound of muscle is far less, in terms of mass, than a pound of fat. This is a biological fact. Furthermore, as a 19 year old male lifting, he is most likely putting on muscle.

He's eating at a massive deficit. The body requires a caloric surplus to build muscle.

Think of a house under construction, an addition, you need lumber (the calories) in order to build the house. You can't build the addition to the house if you're actually removing lumber from it.

Eating that few calories does explain your weight gain. If I thought I might be starving I would cling to every ounce of energy I could too. And your body is way smarter than I. Feed your body.