Dieting and exercising hard everyday. Gained 5 pounds and still gaining!

If you open your diary, you may get some helpful advice.

1 week? Way too soon to be reading anything into results - either positively or negatively.

FatPixiee wrote: »

Yes. So I am stressing out because I have been dieting much harder this past week and for some reason I have suddenly gone from 227.6 to 232.8! >_< I am, needless to say, not happy about this and am very curious as to why this is happening. I am eating 1000-1500 per day, some days maybe slightly less. I do 2-3 hours of cardio in addition to 30 minutes of strength training. I was only doing 20 min to an hour of walking, and eating approx 1500 per day until this past week. So why is making everything more intense, working out harder and longer, and eating less making me gain all this weight? Is this a normal thing for some people when starting a new diet?

Weight loss is like stuffing a pipe. You have to keep pushing more into it, and eventually the result will come out the other side. keep going. your weight will fluctuate up and down (I gain and lose 5lbs every month with my cycle). You just need to look at the long term gains and losses, and that takes time. Keep at it. Create fitness goals and shoot for those. Note your Non-Scale Victories... Just keep going.

Are you weighing your food? Are you eating back exercise calories? How do you calculate your burns? You could be retaining water from a new workout regime, you may be retaining due to sodium, or may just need to be patient.

Are you weighing and measuring all of your food? How are you tracking your exercise calories?

A common mistake is to underestimate food intake and overestimate calorie burn. Also increasing intensity in exercise will cause water weight gain. Give it a month, tighten up on your food tracking, eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories and re-evaluate. Another suggestion is to take measurements every two weeks or so with a tape measure, that may be a better way to track right now.

New intense exercise = water retention for muscle repair. Stress = weight gain due to hormones.

If no food changed... ride it out to 3 weeks or until your muscles are not hurting.

What made you change from 20 min walks to 3 hours? Is that per day?

You are fuelling 3 hours of exercise a day on 1500 Cal?

OK. You will succeed in making your body more efficient at surviving on less calories. Saves on food cost long term, I guess...

fightforfit13 wrote: »

Your probably not eating enough calories. If you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to what it can. 2-3 hours of cardio a day is crazy. Look up HIIT training. Spend 15-25 mins doing HIIT with your 20 mins of strength training while increasing your calories and I bet you'll see some results and probably feel better at the same time.

This is NOT true, there is no starvation mode.

You're probably getting water gain in your muscles from the new exercise. If so, it will go down soon. Open your diary, though, to see if you're making mistakes there.

You're not kidding you're stressed. You're giving your body less fuel & demanding a lot more from it. Unless you are close to goal weight this intensity has no where to go - are you going to do 5 hrs of cardio a day? Go back to eating 1500 and start doing some interval training. If you prefer walking then walk and add a minute of running into the mix or a few sprints. Or do interval training on a machine. Keep up the strength training.

It's better to change one thing at a time instead of dropping cals and adding lots of exercise - not only is it less stressful but if you make a lot of changes you won't know which is working and which is a waste of time.

No to starvation mode; it's not a real thing in the context it's being used.

Yes, excessive exercise will make your muscles hold onto extra water for repair. Excessive sodium and hormonal imbalances (stress, menstrual cycle, etc.) will also cause water retention. That sounds like most of the problem, doesn't it?

No to excessive cardio - it doesn't have any end benefits and can actually be detrimental. Chronic under-eating and too much cardio will lead to excessive muscle loss, something you do not want.

Take a deep breath and go back to what you were doing before and add in strength training. Slow and steady weight loss is the way to go. Your profile mentions sudden, drastic weight gains and losses in your history. Change the cycle. Lose weight in a more healthy way and learn to keep the weight off while you're doing it.

Set more realistic goals - such as losing 1lb/week. If you lose more great, but make small changes and remain consistent. Biologics don't like drastic changes and you'll do much better with small changes over a long period of time. Use the tools MFP gives you and remember you're in this for life. It doesn't stop.

In addition to going slow and steady and eating enough to fuel your workouts like a number of other people said, be sure those calories you are consuming are quality calories for the most part. Your diary has helpful suggestions for your mix of protein, carbs, fats, sugar and nutrients. Once your body gets accustomed to a new normal of eating healthier and regular moderate activity, you'll see the pounds start to fall. Everything in moderation; Patience is a virtue, and all of that stuff too.

fightforfit13 wrote: »

Your probably not eating enough calories. If you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to what it can. 2-3 hours of cardio a day is crazy. Look up HIIT training. Spend 15-25 mins doing HIIT with your 20 mins of strength training while increasing your calories and I bet you'll see some results and probably feel better at the same time.

Seems like people are always looking for that magic bullet or that special fad training program. Listen there is nothing wrong with 2-3 hours of light to medium Cardio everyday, especially for older people who don't want to look like a freak and bulk up like the hulk. Our bodies were designed to walk all day long every day. The reason we are so fat as a nation is because people no longer need to walk, they sit on their fat *kitten*'s at work all day and drive everywhere they go..

I have the right to make fun of fat people because I used to be one. I lost 93 or so pounds walking between 3 to 10 miles almost every day, First thing I do when I get up in the morning is 100- 150 counter push-ups and 50 sit-ups I do these as I wait for water for my tea to boil. When I started doing push-ups I could barely do 5 now I don't break a sweat until I hit at least 100 and that's before my first cup of morning coffee or tea .

After my Tea which I drink standing up admiring the morning through the kitchen window , I refuse to get out of bed and then immediately sit down, I want to keep my heart and adrenaline pumping, If I sit down the next thing I know I will have spent 3 hours on the computer.

So after I chug my tea I grab my water bottle and take off out the door as the sun is coming up for a 3 to 4 hour walk. Depending on the walk About halfway through I will stop at McD's and get a cup of black coffee and maybe a bowl of oatmeal or I will stop at the store and grab some fresh fruit for a snack, Ill rest a a few min stretch a bit, this is usually on the longer walks. If I'm only walking 4 miles I wont bother stopping for coffee or a snack.

A year or so ago when I first started walking I could barely walk the 1/4 mile down my gravel driveway to check the mail, I was so lazy that I actually either rode tha ATV or took one of the horses, now I jog it. Back when I started walking I was chafing so bad that I was going through a bottle of talcum a week and my walks were barely a mile. Now I'm up to jogging a mile or two out of every walk.

The first 70 pounds I lost was through lots of "cardio" walking and a severely restricted diet, read 800 calories a day 5 days a week , with cheat days on Wednesday and Sundays, Even now I'm only up to about 1400 calories a day and I'm just .6 pounds away from breaking 200 pounds down from nearly 300 for the first time in 15 years. By the way my son and I wear the same 36 sized pants, a year ago barely fit into 48's . A year ago I was also facing High Blood pressure medication and diabetes, My blood pressure was regularly 160/100 with a resting heart rate of 80+

Today my DR. tells me that I'm an inspiration, that I have done something very few people ever manage to accomplish. He tells me I now have the heart of a teenager and my local Gym offered me a lifetime membership if they could use me in their Advertising, which I think is dishonest because I didn't lose a single pound going to that Gym I only went there for the showers and the hot tub..

Anyhow not to shabby for a man in his late 50's.. By the way my Blood pressure this morning was 112/62 with a resting heart rate of 49. With these results in mind I thinks it's very irresponsible to make the blanket statement that 2-3 hours of cardio a day is crazy.

CaptBligh001 wrote: »

fightforfit13 wrote: »

Your probably not eating enough calories. If you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to what it can. 2-3 hours of cardio a day is crazy. Look up HIIT training. Spend 15-25 mins doing HIIT with your 20 mins of strength training while increasing your calories and I bet you'll see some results and probably feel better at the same time.

Seems like people are always looking for that magic bullet or that special fad training program. Listen there is nothing wrong with 2-3 hours of light to medium Cardio everyday, especially for older people who don't want to look like a freak and bulk up like the hulk. Our bodies were designed to walk all day long every day. The reason we are so fat as a nation is because people no longer need to walk, they sit on their fat *kitten*'s at work all day and drive everywhere they go..

I have the right to make fun of fat people because I used to be one. I lost 93 or so pounds walking between 3 to 10 miles almost every day, First thing I do when I get up in the morning is 100- 150 counter push-ups and 50 sit-ups I do these as I wait for water for my tea to boil. When I started doing push-ups I could barely do 5 now I don't break a sweat until I hit at least 100 and that's before my first cup of morning coffee or tea .

After my Tea which I drink standing up admiring the morning through the kitchen window , I refuse to get out of bed and then immediately sit down, I want to keep my heart and adrenaline pumping, If I sit down the next thing I know I will have spent 3 hours on the computer.

So after I chug my tea I grab my water bottle and take off out the door as the sun is coming up for a 3 to 4 hour walk. Depending on the walk About halfway through I will stop at McD's and get a cup of black coffee and maybe a bowl of oatmeal or I will stop at the store and grab some fresh fruit for a snack, Ill rest a a few min stretch a bit, this is usually on the longer walks. If I'm only walking 4 miles I wont bother stopping for coffee or a snack.

A year or so ago when I first started walking I could barely walk the 1/4 mile down my gravel driveway to check the mail, I was so lazy that I actually either rode tha ATV or took one of the horses, now I jog it. Back when I started walking I was chafing so bad that I was going through a bottle of talcum a week and my walks were barely a mile. Now I'm up to jogging a mile or two out of every walk.

The first 70 pounds I lost was through lots of "cardio" walking and a severely restricted diet, read 800 calories a day 5 days a week , with cheat days on Wednesday and Sundays, Even now I'm only up to about 1400 calories a day and I'm just .6 pounds away from breaking 200 pounds down from nearly 300 for the first time in 15 years. By the way my son and I wear the same 36 sized pants, a year ago barely fit into 48's . A year ago I was also facing High Blood pressure medication and diabetes, My blood pressure was regularly 160/100 with a resting heart rate of 80+

Today my DR. tells me that I'm an inspiration, that I have done something very few people ever manage to accomplish. He tells me I now have the heart of a teenager and my local Gym offered me a lifetime membership if they could use me in their Advertising, which I think is dishonest because I didn't lose a single pound going to that Gym I only went there for the showers and the hot tub..

Anyhow not to shabby for a man in his late 50's.. By the way my Blood pressure this morning was 112/62 with a resting heart rate of 49. With these results in mind I thinks it's very irresponsible to make the blanket statement that 2-3 hours of cardio a day is crazy.

I wholeheartedly agree with most of the stuff you say, and I've pretty much done the same thing except for not yet graduating to jogging or running, and except for the fact that since I joined MFP in November I have been averaging 2100 to 2400 NET Cal IN a day to achieve similar results. Which makes me happy since I find 1750 (and much more so your 1400) quite restrictive for my tastes.

That being said, 90% of people who talk about 3 hours of cardio a day are NOT 280 or 300lbs at their start weight, and they are NOT talking about walking at 2, 3, or even 4mph.

We even have a running debate with Mr. Knight as to whether walking calories should be eaten back.

So please, when people say don't do three hours of cardio a day, don't think of it as don't walk/stand/move for three hours. Think of it as don't do 3 hours of zumba class!