Gaining weight despite diet and exercise? Long

What are your sugar levels at? If you are hypoglycemic (blood sugars are to low) it can cause your body to store every single calorie you take in as fat. If you didn't get a fasting glucose in your blood work, I would suggest either asking your regular doctor (or your endocrinologist) for a Hemoglobin A1C just to make sure your sugars aren't off. The other thing that you can do is get a glucose meter and test your self. You would want to start with a fasting level (first thing in the morning before you get up, after not eating for 8 hours). The normal range for a fasting level (via a glucose monitor) would be 70-99. Anything lower or above this indicates there maybe an issue. Two hours after eating your level should be less than 140. (again anything lower or above this could indicate that there is an issue.

If I understand correctly, you are implying the gaining weight is fat. If the weight was muscle, then you probably wouldn't even write here.

Muscle takes a while to grow and it requires a lot of dedication. I find the story completely strange. If your working out a lot then it should be muscle but instead it sounds like less working out and eating too much. Fat doesn't come out of thin air.

Just saying... complete honesty.

In my own experience my weight will drop and go up every few days. I maintain my strict diet all the time. The only thing that could add weight is muscle or water. A lot of water will get retained in my body from time to time. I'll gain 5 lbs or more sometimes over night but drop more weight days later.

If you were burning a ton of calories in a day, your body would have no choice but to eat the fat.

I read

Waiting on test results right?

I'm writing to share with you my recent experiences and my doctor's theory. If someone is looking for the same answer as the OP did, maybe it will help.

For starters - for the last 4 years my story goes pretty much like the OP's. Gaining weight (in fat) no matter what. I had 3 personal trainers and spent every free minute on reading about loosing fat. Cross fit, Hiit, classic weight training (and I'm not lifting air in pink dumbells), cardio - all those didn't make the difference. I even desperately went through 3-months kethosis, I tried carb cycling, or no gluten for 9 months even if I have no allergy, and I always measured every gram and wrote it down.
To sum up: I was doing everything I could to loose weight. Despite that I gained 23kgs (about 50pounds) during all those diets and workouts.
My TSH levels were fine, my thyroid USG done by a technician was fine. No hope...

About 6 months ago I went to a highly recommended endo. She made the thyroid's USG herself and then she explained to me, that for a typical technician it could look fine, but my thyroid was twice the size it should be.
That's strike 1
I was given thyroid hormones and my weight gain suddenly stopped. When you're overweight maybe it's not something you aim for, but for me, after all this, it was a huge success.

A few months after that I went to a different doctor with a different matter since I needed a tonsilectomy. Then the otolaryngolist said, that it looks like I've been living with an inflamation for a long time (more than 10 years as it seems). And then she told me something I have never considered, since noone wrote about it in google
She said that if my liver fights with the inflamation for so long it stops burning fat. It even can become impossible for some people (even if we usually think that a sick person gets thin by default). I hope it's understandable since 1. I'm not a doctor, 2. I'm not good in english
I had a tonsilectomy two months ago. Of course I didn't loose any pound then, even after not eating for 2 days in a hospital, but I got used to the fact, that even starving doesn't make anything for me.
But over 3 weeks ago something has changed. The madness started. I'm loosing weight with about 5% of effort of what I did for the last few years. I haven't seen any lost for a few years of extremely hard work and obsession in the kitchen. But now it looks so easy!

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So, if this helps anyone who has the same problem - works very hard, eats nothing but clean and counted food and not only nothing good happens but also fat appears from nowhere despite all the effort:

1. Check your thyroid and check again, do the USG, do it elsewhere, checkout your TSH FT3 and FT4
2. Check the OB in blood (I hope it's named the same in the US) as it seems to show that you're struggling with an inflamation (I had OB much over the normal level for at least 11 years)

serinde160 - thank you so much for your post! I will definitely bring it up with my endo. She also suspected inflammation, possibly thought it was a cancer at the time but my white blood cell counts were fine. Who would have thought that liver function would play into it???

At this point, I don't know if the weight gain is fat or water retention. I do know it may be SOME muscle, but I have gained weight from muscle before - and dropped a clothing size in the process. My clothes are getting tighter - this isn't muscle. According to my HRM, MFP and Fitbit, I have been taking in 1100 calories less than I burn daily for the past 2 weeks now. I measure every meal, I don't cheat, I'm very anal about that. I still gained a pound a week. That is very, very wrong. My body is definitely doing something it's not supposed to.

Just to throw in one more piece here despite how MFPers hate the word "cortisol", but it's a real disorder for some. You might keep that in check as well. In one episode of "House MD" a little girl can't lose weight and it turned out some problem with her cortisol level affected by the brain due to a trauma in the past. Good luck~

I am so sorry to hear your doctor visit kinda fruitless...I hope you can figure this out one way or another soon. :flowerforyou: Is it possible to take some vacation or simply just from this much exercise regime? WHo knows...it might help?