I gained weight last week while following my numbers and nee

Over by 400 calories one day will not make you gain weight, especially 3 pounds. To gain one pound you would have to eat 3500 calories above and beyond what you are allowed.

Your body goes through fluctuations. I weigh daily and I can be up or down three pounds from one day to the next. As long as you are meeting the calorie goals for what MFP tells you (not going far under or over) you will see weight loss over a period of time (not day to day but week to week). Pay special attention to the amount of sodium you are eating...if that number is high, chances are you are holding on to water weight. Try to keep under the MFP sodium goal.

Sodium can make things fluctuate dramatically, I have seen as much as a 5 lb swing on higher sodium days. It is crazy how much water the body can retain.

My scale is always fluctuationg and it is really frustrating and a lot of times it's just water weight. Though sometimes, I have no idea what it is but I know that I can't be down 5 pounds one day and up 4 pounds the next... but the scale will try to have mebelieve that! At first, I would get discouraged. But now I just wait a week or two to weigh so I can get something more accurate. But if you weigh every single day, you will end up obsessing over those pounds when sometimes they are irrelevant. Pay attention to your non-scale victories.. they often mean more

I think another big thing about weight gain is making sure you are consistent with your excercising. It seems like my weight decreases more when I workout at least 30mins to an hour 4-5 days a week. You have to get your heart rate up high enough to burn calories.

Yea, it's just a weight fluctuation! Yesterday I almost passed away when I weighed myself and saw I'd gained all of the five pounds I'd lost over the past two weeks back! But I was out last night and when I got home, I weighed myself and I'd lost four of those pounds so unless you weighed yourself at a different time to usual then it's the weight fluctuation!

Also, my scales were off for a while too so check that just in case you too bought a really cheap scales! That could be it. Otherwise you've done really well so don't beat yourself up about it!

Same here. Weighed in this morning and i had added a whooping 3kg! Almost collapsed. I had some bread/butter binges over the weekend, but didnt expect it to get to this

From Day to Day, your weight can fluctuate from a lot of reason, like water weight an others. It is strongly recommended that you don't weigh-in every day. Do it once a week instead. This is to prevent panics like this one.

That said, I weigh in everyday myself, but I know to only look at my weekly averages.

This post might be good to read to get you started:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

Up 3 pounds this morning. I went over by 400 calories yesterday and way over on the fat grams with the butter on my oatmeal, but that was yesterday only.....would that cause a 3 pound gain? Two days last week I was under by about 200 calories and the other days I was under by less than 100 calories and close on the other numbers of carbs, sodium, fat, fiber and I was completely honest with my food and exercise diary.

Do I need to adjust my calories lower than what is automatically calculated for me to have to lose two pounds a week?

I exercised each day....but not at a consistent level. What I mean by that is some days I walked ten minutes at a slow pace and some days I walked ten minutes at a very fast pace. One day I had access to an elliptical machine so I walked that day and did 7 minutes on the elliptical. On Saturday I walked for a couple hours at a medium pace. Sunday I didn't exercise at all except some light housework.

I drank my 8 cups of water each day and yesterday I drank 12 cups.

To me it seems like the calculations allow an awful lot of calories and carbs to eat and still lose weight. But then that's the perspective of a person who all her life (since I was 12 years old and I'm 54 now) has a history of losing weight only by fasting for days and sometimes weeks at a time and being below 500 calories a day on the days I ate while I was dieting. Diet doctors in the seventies with pills and telling me the body doesn't need all those calories....to stick below 500. Now, keep in mind I haven't fasted like that for about seven years and no diet pills since the 80's.

Anyway....I would like to what you all have to say. Thank you....

Cherie

what you lost during fasting and eating less than 500 calories a day was water and muscle mass. The body needs a certain amount just to function (baseline number is 1200). Right now if you are eating under 1200 continuously it can keep you from losing. And depending on how much weight you have to lose 2lbs per week might not be realistic or healthy. The reason it allows a lot of calories is because you need those calories. I can imagine the amount of false information back in the 70's.



Please read through the links in my signature "Links in MFP you want to read again and again"; "Your body's thoughts on calories"

and this is a great site: http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TPAdaptation.html

The goal of this site is to help you to transform your physique by walking you step-by-step through everything you need to know about exercise physiology and nutrition. I know that a lot of you have “tried everything,” and because there are so many approaches that have failed you, there's a real risk that you'll quit again and again if you don't see results immediately, or if you don't fully understand why your fitness program should work. Worse, there may be some missing pieces in your program, which could lead to slow progress even though you're hard at work. My hope is that this information will help you to stay on track - to turn effort into results - and to reach your goal.

Want to change your physique? Start by realizing that whatever shape you're in right now is your body's way of adapting to the lifestyle you're living. It's your body's attempt to survive. So the strategy is simple. We're going to give your body a very specific “environment” – a particular mix of activities, nutrition, and recovery – and your body is going to adapt by becoming leaner, stronger, and healthier.

Every change you throw at your body triggers a response. The problem with many diet and exercise programs is that they can accidentally encourage your body to defend fat, shed muscle, increase appetite and even lower its metabolism. The key to fast results is to know exactly which actions will cause your body to adapt by becoming fitter.

Maybe you've tried before to get in shape. But for some reason, you didn't get the results you wanted. If you're like I used to be, you've repeated that cycle year after year to no avail. Maybe you've failed so many times that you think of yourself as a “special case.” You've started to believe your entire metabolism consists of a little turtle on a treadmill. You wonder whether you've got the fat gene. You're convinced that no matter how hard you diet, your cells can still be seen eating Twinkies when viewed under a microscope.

Look. You're not a special case. Even if you had the fat gene (common among Pima Indians but rare otherwise), you'd only be burning 50-60 calories a day less than anybody else. Even if you've been diagnosed with a metabolic difficulty such as diabetes or hypothyroidism, you can still be successful with proper medical support. Most probably, other approaches failed you either because they were missing important pieces, focused on the wrong things, or produced results so slowly that you just gave up. What you need most is good information. You're in the right place.
The law of unintended consequences

Your body is an amazing feedback system aimed at balance and survival. Humans are at the top of the food chain because they are able to adapt to their environment. Every action produces a reaction. Every change in its environment triggers a survival response. It's important to keep that in mind when you plan your fitness program. If you treat your body as an enemy to be conquered, you'll produce unintended results.

For example, if you severely cut off the supply of food to your body, it will defend itself by slowing down its metabolism to survive starvation. The body will shed muscle mass the same way that you would throw cargo from a plane that was low on fuel, and it will reduce its thyroid activity to conserve energy. The body will also actually defend its fat stores. In anorexia, muscle loss can be so profound that fat as a percentage of body weight actually rises. Extreme carbohydrate restriction also causes muscle loss, dehydration, and slower metabolism, which is why even successful Atkins dieters can have a significant rebound in weight after they stop the diet (don't worry – the advice on this site will prevent that from happening).

As another example, if you put your body under stress through overexertion and lack of sleep, it will respond by slowing down, reducing muscle growth, and increasing your appetite for junk food, carbohydrates and fat. If you feed your body excessive amounts of sugar and quickly digested carbohydrates, and it will shut off its ability to burn fat until those sugars are taken out of the bloodstream.

This website will show you how to work with your body to quickly produce the changes you want. In order to do that, you need to take actions that push your body to adapt – to build strength, burn fat, and increase fitness. You need a training program, not an exercise routine. You need a nutrition plan, not a diet. You need a challenge, not a few good habits you usually try to follow except when you don't.
Setting the right goal

John Dewey once said that a problem well-stated is half-solved. If you want to reach your goal, you have to define it correctly. See, a lot of people say “I want to lose weight.” Well, if losing weight is your goal, go on a no-carb diet. You'll lose a lot of weight – some of it will be fat, a lot of it will be water, and a dangerous amount will be muscle tissue. You'll lose weight quickly, but you'll slow your metabolism and gain fat more quickly once you go off the diet. Trust me on this. I've been there, done that.

The problem is that you've set the wrong goal. If you want to look better, have more energy and enjoy better health, the goal is not simply to “lose weight.” The goal is to improve your fitness level and body composition. That means losing fat, improving your aerobic capacity, training your strength and defending your muscle tissue. You can't do that with a no-carb diet. You will do it using the approach you'll learn on this website. Trust me on this one too. I know what it's like to feel fat, tired and helplessly out of shape. The whole point of this site is to help others avoid that, by sharing lessons that I had to learn the hard way.
Ready to change?

Right this minute, your body is the way it is because it has adapted to the lifestyle you've thrown at it, in an attempt to survive. Ever seen the directory at the mall with the little red arrow that says “you are here”? Well, fitness is the same way. You are here. You can't start anywhere else. So be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Don't worry about how much there is to do. Change your self-talk from “My body is my enemy” to “My body is my partner.” Accept where you are right now as the starting point, and start moving.

Changing your body requires more than just “going on a diet” for a few weeks. If you want to change your body, you have to make some changes to your lifestyle (which requires some discipline, but isn't as hard as it sounds). If you create the right environment, your body will adapt to it by becoming leaner, stronger, and more energetic. You can do this.

some times you gain muscle from your work outs to...and if you eat to few calories you go into starvation mode I'm to understand at that point your body will store food because it thinks it's starving which leads to weight gain. Dont get discouraged ...I went over calories 3 days last week and was at level one day and below two and gained back 2.4 pounds.. then the following week i did about the same and lost 1.6 so I think sometimes it just flucuates when your not consistent. I don't excersize daily ( wish I did) and my water intake is never the recommended amount. Just keep working at it and you'll get there.

You cannot gain muscle doing cardio. You have do strength/resistance training. Calorie restriction and cardio cause muscle mass loss and this is what we want to keep. Increasing muscle mass will increase your metabolism and you will have a higher daily calorie burn even during rest, normal activity and sleeping.

All I can say is keep doing what you're doing. Your weight can fluctuate daily with no real reason. There are times that I've fluctuated 5-7lbs doing nothing differently. It can be frustrating and deflating at times. One thing I did do is change my nutrient settings to be 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. This is the ratio that the Zone diet uses. However, I dont freak out if I'm over on my carbs if I know I'm getting most of them from fruits and veggies.

Exactly. I'm at 40/35/25 right now (thinking of switching to 40/40/20). Carbs are good for you. It's your body's primary fuel source. It's the kind of carbs you that is important.