Eating just a few more calories, but gaining weight back

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almarti5787
almarti5787 Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been on a 1200 calorie diet since I started with my fitness pal. I usually work out 5 times a week and I was seeing great results. I thought I was losing weight too quickly. I lost almost 60 pounds in a little over 3 months, so I decided to up my calorie intake just a bit and cut out a day of working out to slow the progress a bit. I eat around 1400 calories daily, give or take a few depending on if I worked out that day or not, but the weight has been coming back. I was down to 194 and over this week that I have upped my calories, I ended up back at 199. I don't believe its water weight, and I don't know why I would gain weight back so quickly. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

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  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
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    It is likely to be water because your carbs will have increased which act like a sponge I upped my calories a couple of months ago and it took 3 or 4 weeks for my weight to settle down again. Give it a couple of weeks and try not to get too concerned it's perfectly normal and it will settle
  • preslyann50
    preslyann50 Posts: 114 Member
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    If you were working out that much and only eating that amount of calories. So your body might be holding on to the extra calories. I would try upping your calories and seeing if that helps still.
  • williams969
    williams969 Posts: 2,528 Member
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    5 lbs in one week could only be fat gain IF you consumed an extra 17,500 calories ABOVE your TDEE (which at 194lbs, is MUCH higher than 1,400cals/day). Which you clearly did not. It's water weight. It takes weeks (maybe even a whole month) when adjusting caloric intake to see the net results. As long as you're accurately logging, I promise you will still lose.:flowerforyou:
  • motivatedmartha
    motivatedmartha Posts: 1,108 Member
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    It is likely to be water because your carbs will have increased which act like a sponge I upped my calories a couple of months ago and it took 3 or 4 weeks for my weight to settle down again. Give it a couple of weeks and try not to get too concerned it's perfectly normal and it will settle

    ^^^this. A weekend is not enough to judge anything by.
  • almarti5787
    almarti5787 Posts: 2
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    Thank you all. You have helped ease my mind greatly. I'll give myself a while before weighing in again so that I'm not stressing out about it. Once again, thank you everyone.
  • itsbasschick
    itsbasschick Posts: 1,584 Member
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    also keep in mind that if you eat more, you'll store more... er... poop. and that weighs something, too.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
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    If you are gaining weight, then you are not in a calorie deficit. I suggest opening your diary up for more specific advice. You could be retaining some water, but weight gain might is usually a combination of these: (1) eating more than you think due to underestimating calories in and (2) overestimating calories burned. You have also cut out a day of exercise, which has decreased your calorie deficit.

    That said, a week is a little too soon to tell what is going on. Some questions:

    Do you weigh all your food? Are you using the correct entries? Here's a link that might help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

    Are you eating your exercise calories back? How are you estimating your calorie burns? MFP, Internet, and gym machine numbers are generally overestimated, so either eating back only a portion of those exercise calories or under-reporting the time spend on the exercise is recommended. Heart rate monitors usually give more accurate readings.

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