joined zumba last year/ 25# heavier this year HELP!!!

If it is not your scale, or if you are weighing yourself with heavy clothes on - you are definately going over on your calories, especially if your doctor ruled out a medical reason.
-
- Log accurately - get better results.

Water weight? Muscle? Eating way too many calories?

What were you eating? Exercise can only do so much if you aren't eating right.

Track your calories. Use a food scale for accuracy, don't guess. Your doctor confirmed a hormonal imbalance? Did your doctor suggest a certain type of diet? For example, some hormonal issues are benefited by eating lower carbs.

Candice, what is it you weigh now? You look pretty thin by your picture. Could it be you are adding muscle weight? Also, not sure of your age, but you could be having some hormonal weight gain? I know I can gain 7 pounds in just water and lose it within a few days. Maybe we are more talking 15 pounds? I don't get it. Did your doctor take any blood tests to see what is going on?

Zumba is unrelated to your weight gain entirely (it has a relatively low calorie burn). Unless maybe you stopped doing other, more strenuous exercises to allow time for Zumba and ate too much.

1250 calorie per day surplus - it can happen. If you used to burn say 200 extra a day than you did and ate 900 more (which can add up really easily). Even 1200 cals for food alone can add up easily. Especially over the Christmas holidays since you wouldn't even have to eat that much over every day. I know I easily ate 3000 over maintenance at least 6 times alone over Christmas.

Likely part of the 20 pounds is water and glycogen too (plus maybe your muscles are retaining water from the exercise). So say 7 lbs (that part you gained quickly) is water weight. That's only 812 extra cals a day. Let's put it this way... 2 tbsp. of peanut butter is 200 calories. A cookie is around 150. A bigger portion of pasta and you have another 100. Maybe a muffin around 3-400. And there you have it. about 800 calories. Even an extra apple per day is 100 calories. And maybe you haven't even noticed it because you could have just been grazing - a few nuts here, a bite of cake there, hand full of crackers or cereal there, licking the spoon of your cookie batter here... etc.

But I should point out it likely isn't muscle. Women don't gain muscle easily. You have to work very hard to gain muscle as a woman. Even if it were muscle, there is a limit to how much of the extra calories your body could use to build that muscle. No more than 2 lbs would be my guess and that's assuming you were doing a program such as Stronglifts or Strong Curves (heavy weight lifting).

Candice, without wanting to be rude to those who have answered/commented so far...
Ignore anyone who tells you your weight gain is the result of eating too much! (Not everything in the world of weight is about food!)

While a lot of exercise, especially if you are not accustomed to such a program, can cause you to eat a little more every now and then, the extra food would immediately be offset by the extra calorie burn of the exercise.

But, if you were not doing any kind of exercise prior to the Zumba, you are most definitely going to see an increase in muscle mass. Have you checked your measurements? (Has your clothing size gone up?) If you are not gaining a lot of inches in conjunction with your increase in weight, chances are it is simply an increase in muscle mass and nothing else. And, since your doctor has already ruled out any biological/medical cause for the increase, this takes us right back to increase in muscle.

That being said, I would be remiss if I did not add that, although muscle, being far more dense than fat, will take up far less space in your body and, as you lose fat and gain muscle, there is usually a decrease in size, in your case, given the alarming 20# weight gain, you should be seeing some obvious muscle bulk to offset the fat loss. Furthermore, the lower your body's fat percentage, the more rapidly exercise is likely to affect the visual dimension of your body. That is, the less fat you have to start with, the more quickly you will begin to see the muscle development.

In any case, at this point, building muscle should be nothing to worry about. You do, however, need to be aware of building too much muscle and, depending upon what you want to achieve in your workout, you might actually want to eat more in order to offset the effects of the muscle toning.

The numbers on the scale are far from the whole picture. Muscle weighs more than fat for the same volume. If the zumba is helping you build muscle, that is great for your overall health and metabolism. Have you taken measurements? How are your clothes fitting?

ReeseG4350 wrote: »

Candice, without wanting to be rude to those who have answered/commented so far...
Ignore anyone who tells you your weight gain is the result of eating too much! (Not everything in the world of weight is about food!)

While a lot of exercise, especially if you are not accustomed to such a program, can cause you to eat a little more every now and then, the extra food would immediately be offset by the extra calorie burn of the exercise.

But, if you were not doing any kind of exercise prior to the Zumba, you are most definitely going to see an increase in muscle mass. Have you checked your measurements? (Has your clothing size gone up?) If you are not gaining a lot of inches in conjunction with your increase in weight, chances are it is simply an increase in muscle mass and nothing else. And, since your doctor has already ruled out any biological/medical cause for the increase, this takes us right back to increase in muscle.

That being said, I would be remiss if I did not add that, although muscle, being far more dense than fat, will take up far less space in your body and, as you lose fat and gain muscle, there is usually a decrease in size, in your case, given the alarming 20# weight gain, you should be seeing some obvious muscle bulk to offset the fat loss. Furthermore, the lower your body's fat percentage, the more rapidly exercise is likely to affect the visual dimension of your body. That is, the less fat you have to start with, the more quickly you will begin to see the muscle development.

In any case, at this point, building muscle should be nothing to worry about. You do, however, need to be aware of building too much muscle and, depending upon what you want to achieve in your workout, you might actually want to eat more in order to offset the effects of the muscle toning.

This isn't correct as Zumba is a cardio exercise, not a strength exercise.

candicelvt123 wrote: »

LeanButNotMean44 wrote: »

deksgrl wrote: »

Women don't gain 20# of muscle in 8 weeks. A woman bodybuilder who is trying to gain muscle can't do that in a year.

^^^This + highly unlikely to gain much (if any) muscle from Zumba.

I never said it was muscle .....read the post before you pass judgment

You didn't say it, other people did. It was to them these comments were aimed at.