Weight gaining with exercise - help!

fknlardarse · February 2016

I'm eating a deficit, exercising, but gaining weight, what am I doing wrong?
I'm 5ft6ins female, age 44. I weigh 143lbs and goal weight is 138lbs so I'm close to goal and know this last bit will be slow but heeeelp I can't get past 141lbs and keep 'bouncing' back up to 142/143lbs.
I started exercising properly about 5 weeks ago, previously to that I've swam a little bit and lift weights (mainly squats and bench presses) but not much cardio. In January I got a fitbit and now get my steps in every day and try to do 30 mins of cardio 5-6 days a week. I also started trying to jog a little on the treadmill (2x 5 min jogs during a speed walk) and have done 2 pilates classes this past week, swim once a week. As I'm not very fit naturally this equated to some decent work outs for me and I can feel the difference in my body, my muscles ache and I'm definitely toning up.
I am weighing absolutely every thing that passes my lips and sticking to 1450 calories a day. I even measure the almond milk that goes in my cups of tea and each cup of tea is only 6 calories but I count every single one. My calories are not out. I don't eat back my exercise calories either as I'm doing the TDEE method. I think I probably burn around 1800/1900 calories a day (my fitbit says 2000 but I think it over estimates, my BMR is only 1350 because of my age) but I'm definitely eating at a deficit.
BUT over the past month I gone from 144lbs to 141lbs and then bounced back up to 142lbs which I've weighed all week so I thought maybe I need more calories, yesterday I ate 1600 calories (all unprocessed nutritionally balanced good food, salmon, beef, veggies, fruit, nuts, porridge) and this morning I'm up to 143lbs!!!!!
It's so demoralising I could cry. I really thought the extra effort would shift those last few pounds while retaining lean muscle mass. Am I gaining weight as in retaining water due to the muscle toning or something or am I gaining muscle? How can I get below 140lbs? Less exercise? More? I thought it wasn't possible to gain muscle while eating on a deficit, only retain and tone what muscle you have, so how can I be gaining weight??

mimieon · February 2016

New exercise regimes can make you hold on to a lot of water for muscle repair. Maybe that is masking some of the loss. Have you been taking measurements/progress pictures?

fknlardarse · February 2016

Thanks Mimieon. Sadly I didn't take photos or take measurements. My clothes are looser I guess, my friends/family say I look trimmer, it's just that psychological need to see the scales move, I was so close to being under 140lbs and now I'm getting further away, I thought the water retention for muscle repair, if that's what it is, would have eased off after a month or so, not get worse. Especially as I took it easy yesterday but the scales went up.
Can water retention for muscle repair account for 3lbs or more? Is this common? If it is I will chill out and just keep going.

mimieon · February 2016

You can hold on to that much water if you just started or had especially intense workouts (It happens to me on occasion, not for weeks). You can also think about if the totm may have anything to do with it, I can hold on to a lot of water for about a week around that time (e.g., about 1-2 pounds). Even on normal days I can fluctuate about 1 pound from morning to evening. It could be a combination of factors.

It is possible, if you are new to exercising, that you have gained some muscle - but this is quite unlikely if you are eating at a deficit and you do not have much weight to lose.

Regardless, if you are looking trimmer, and your clothes are looser, THAT is the thing to focus on, not some arbitrary number on the scale. I suggest that you keep going, while working on relaxing more about the scale numbers (get a more healthy relationship with the scale - it is just a tool to help you track things, it should not be controlling your emotions a lot). Start tracking your progress with pictures/the way your clothes fit.

You can use the scale as a tool to make sure you do not keep gaining more and more over time (or losing more and more over time when you should be in maintenance), keeping in mind that you may fluctuate a couple of pounds from day to day.

steph2strong · February 2016

Hi I'm 5'6 115 lbs, I work out intensely. My weight fluctuates from 114-117lbs on a daily basis (I weigh daily) despite pretty much eating the same every day. Some weeks it stays up on the higher end for a few days, some weeks it stays on the lower end, sometimes I can jump up 2 lbs overnight. Sometimes I will do a super amazing 2 hour high intensity workout and not eat that much and the next morning I will expect to be on the lower end of my weight fluctuations and it will be at it's highest. You are close to maintenance weight, you have to expect these fluctuations. Stay at it for a while, don't get demoralized. Oh and after I had my baby I stopped exercising for a bit. I lost all my baby weight in about 2 weeks and was back at 115 lbs. Then I started exercising again and all of a sudden my weight jumped to 120 lbs for a week. That was demoralizing. After a week my weight went back down. Who knows what that was from, maybe restarting exercise. Because I have weighed myself daily for many years I'm used to random weird weight shifts up and down and I don't make much of them anymore unless I stay that way for like a month.

fknlardarse · February 2016

Thanks so much! Really appreciate it. I'll keep at it.

CeeBeeSlim · February 2016

Wow. Your post was almost an exact cut and paste from one I posted days ago. Upon my trainer's advice, I upped my calories from 1200 to 1400 based on all my new activity and because I introduced some new foods (grains, oatmeal) and I "gained" three pounds of scale weight. Was 131 and today was 134 in about a month. What a blow to be about 6 lbs from goal weight and now close to 10 lbs away. Clothes are looser tho but if only the scale would cooperate!! I know the feeling. Let's hang in there! Or a trainer is gonna get hanged!!

fiddletime · February 2016

Same problem. Two pounds from GW and just gained 3 more cuz I derailed because I got frustrated after a month of up and down 2 pounds. So, I've put myself on maintenance and will see if I can creep down slowly to GW. I'm logging but won't weigh myself daily anymore. Not like I can't tell when I've gained or lost by my clothing! We know how to do this. The key is to not get frustrated and trust the process. And log honestly

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Yi5hedr3 · February 2016

You need a scale that measures % Body Fat. Only then can you figure out exactly WHAT you are gaining (Fat or Muscle).

Weight gaining with exercise - help!

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