Why am I gaining weight?

If you just started working out, you're going to be retaining more water to repair your muscles. Be patient, it will go away once you've been doing it for more than a week.

Hello fellow Mainer!

Do NOT take the advice above re: deducting 400 calories. That is irresponsible advice as this person has no idea what your diet is like. You also don't need a fat anaysis scale as most of those are wildly inaccurate.

If you just started working out, that could be the problem. When you're new to exercise or increase the intensity of your workouts, the muscles retain water and glycogen as part of the natural healing process. Basically anytime you're sore from a workout, it's likely you'll see a stall or slight gain on the scale. This is not a bad thing and something that will go away as your body acclimates to the new routine.

Are you logging accurately and consistently? It doesn't matter how much you exercise, if your calories aren't in check you won't lose. Eat within calories to lose weight, exercise for fitness.

Could your pants be tighter due to that time of the month, digestive issues or bloating for other reasons?

Are you eating back earned exercise calories? If so, be careful with that as MFP listings tend to be overestimates. Try to eat back more like 1/2 of them and see how you do.

Good luck!

Its water retention due to the new exercise program. You don't say if you're counting calories? Weight loss starts in the kitchen.

It's been one week. One.

Are you eating too little calories or too much calories? Maybe you need to cut down on the exercise. You are doing too much it seems. Cut it down to 3 times a week and see how you go.

I have been working out for just about a week and have been doing my best to eat better. I have cut out most all processed foods and only have a little chocolate to satisfy those cravings. I know I shouldn't expect much in a week but my pants are tighter now then when I started. I have been doing cardio kick boxing as a workout. I should also mention that about 10 mths ago I had a c-section not sure if that has any relevance. But I am getting discouraged when working out leads me to gaining. Scale has gone up and pants are almost to tight to wear.

Question for you: did you gain all this extra weight in a week?

Probably not; so I'm going to say be patient! I know it's not easy but it takes time, and it takes a bit of time for your body to adjust to working out if you aren't used to it and you can retain fluid during this time, too.

Just be patient, stick to it. It's so easy to want to see results right away and so many ads and programs have you believing you should just drop as much weight as possible as quickly as possible so everyone wants to see results the next morning; but that won't happen.

Also, the most effective long term weight loss is slow and steady, that way your body has time to adjust to it and your lifestyle will also adjust. If you do one of those programs to get you skinny quick you could end up being skinny fat, doing damage to your vital organs, rebounding and gaining the weight back plus some, experiencing digestive issues, and so on. There's a lot of concerns with these quick programs.

Best of luck to you! And please feel free to add me if you'd like

I have been working out for just about a week and have been doing my best to eat better. I have cut out most all processed foods and only have a little chocolate to satisfy those cravings. I know I shouldn't expect much in a week but my pants are tighter now then when I started. I have been doing cardio kick boxing as a workout. I should also mention that about 10 mths ago I had a c-section not sure if that has any relevance. But I am getting discouraged when working out leads me to gaining. Scale has gone up and pants are almost to tight to wear.

#1 - Its only been a week
#2 - Do you weigh everything?
#3 - How much sodium/water are you taking in?
#4 - When you just start to work out your body stores more glycogen/water to repair the muscles.

Hello fellow Mainer!

Do NOT take the advice above re: deducting 400 calories. That is irresponsible advice as this person has no idea what your diet is like. You also don't need a fat anaysis scale as most of those are wildly inaccurate.

If you just started working out, that could be the problem. When you're new to exercise or increase the intensity of your workouts, the muscles retain water and glycogen as part of the natural healing process. Basically anytime you're sore from a workout, it's likely you'll see a stall or slight gain on the scale. This is not a bad thing and something that will go away as your body acclimates to the new routine.

Are you logging accurately and consistently? It doesn't matter how much you exercise, if your calories aren't in check you won't lose. Eat within calories to lose weight, exercise for fitness.

Could your pants be tighter due to that time of the month, digestive issues or bloating for other reasons?

Are you eating back earned exercise calories? If so, be careful with that as MFP listings tend to be overestimates. Try to eat back more like 1/2 of them and see how you do.

Good luck!

all this

You need to know how many calories you're eating before you can go up or down with them. It may be water. Drink more water
( which still sounds crazy to me) but I've been told by several professionals to drink more water if I'm retaining water. I've also been told that most people should drink more than 6-8 cups depending on weight and activity level. I'm sure you can research online what your water intake should be. I find mfp to be about double on the exercise calories burned so eating back 1/2 is great advise. Also A week isn't a long time. I know it's frustrating, especially if you see others that drop .5 - 2 lbs consistently on a weekly basis. I never drop that way I usually stay the same for 3-4 weeks and then usually have a nice loss out of nowhere. Averages out the same but I just have to be patient. Stick with it and be consistent.

Yes - drinking more water can help because when your cells are using water in helping to repair your muscles, they use more than they're used to and the stores depleat. Then when they get more water again, they'll hold onto it for dear life almost. So really, by drinking more water it will help your cells to release the extra water they're already holding on to.