Please Need Some Advice!

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landeros5705
landeros5705 Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
First off i wanna say hi! My name is Miguel and i currently weight 427lbs. My problem is i started dieting and going to the gym for about 2 weeks now amd have been very strict to my diet and exercise. I weighed myself after 2 weeks and turns out i have gained 3lbs. Now i have always been super broad guy and have always had muscle even thought being overweight. It's been 2 years since I've ate and exercised right and now that i have begun again i definitely feel my muscles hardening again as well as being very sore. So could those 3lbs be muscle gaining or what? My workout consist of 30-60min on the treadmill and 45 min of weights. Am i doing something wrong or should i keep goin and hopefully start seeing some weight loss? Cause my shirts definitely fit a bit better as well as my jeans and shorts so i must be losing something @ least. Thanks for hearing me out and any advice will be much appreciated. Thank you

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  • dramaqueen45
    dramaqueen45 Posts: 1,009 Member
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    If you're not used to working out it may very well be your muscles retaining water at the beginning. It's not possible to gain muscle when you're eating in a deficit. Continue to log your calories (accurately- weigh your solids and measure liquids) and stay under your calorie goal and you should see results soon. And welcome to MFP!
  • GreenIceFloes
    GreenIceFloes Posts: 1,491 Member
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    Agreed with above poster. You mentioned that you started working out quite recently and that your muscles are very sore. It's definitely water weight that should wear off as your muscles get used to the stress. Good luck!
  • leahcollett1
    leahcollett1 Posts: 807 Member
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    it took me 3 weeks to have my whoosh from new exercise water retention - however just to make sure it is that and not anything else - you really do need to log log log and measure everything.
  • landeros5705
    landeros5705 Posts: 3 Member
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    Thanks so much for the advice, It has really helped alot of better understanding about water retention in the muscles as after hearing y'all talk about it i googled all the facts about it and now know how to go through this Swoosh effect. Now as to dieting how do i go about knowing how much water I'm supposed to be in taking? So far i do a gallon a day. Also if you could please help me as why is it so important to weigh my food and distribute right. As i do stay under the 1500 calorie diet i'm on.
  • Yi5hedr3
    Yi5hedr3 Posts: 2,696 Member
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    Keep carbs below 100 grams/day. You'll lose like crazy! :)
  • nlkklrocks
    nlkklrocks Posts: 26 Member
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    I'm curious as well - would perhaps taking an epsom salt bath to ease sore muscles and/or foam rolling them out help release the retained water sooner? I'm waiting for recent low back pain to subside so I can get to the gym to begin weight lifting so I'm sure I will have this question too! :)
  • AL4040
    AL4040 Posts: 5 Member
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    99% chance it's not fat but water weight from inflammation. When you work out it causes little tears in your muscle fiber. This is called microtrauma and that's why you feel sore. Your body floods the muscle with water to help with the inflammation. Give it a little time it should go away ,, hope this helps
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,022 Member
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    landeros5705 wrote: »
    Thanks so much for the advice, It has really helped alot of better understanding about water retention in the muscles as after hearing y'all talk about it i googled all the facts about it and now know how to go through this Swoosh effect. Now as to dieting how do i go about knowing how much water I'm supposed to be in taking? So far i do a gallon a day. Also if you could please help me as why is it so important to weigh my food and distribute right. As i do stay under the 1500 calorie diet i'm on.

    It's important to weigh your food because otherwise it's very difficult to be certain how many calories you are consuming. It is extremely common for people to underestimate how much they are eating. That's not a criticism of you (I say this because it is also extremely common for people to get defensive when anyone suggests they may be eating more than they think they are).

    It would be far more likely that you are underestimating what you are eating than that you are retaining so much water from exercise as to be outpacing what is at least a half-pound per day deficit. At 427 pounds and mobile enough to be going to the gym, your TDEE is certainly higher than 3000 calories, and may be closer to 4000 calories, but you say you're staying under 1500 calories, so that's a minimum of 1500 calories a day deficit, and may well be closer to 2500 calories a day deficit --or six to 10 pounds of fat you would have lost in two weeks. Six to 10 pounds of water--plus another three pounds of water to cover the three pounds you've gained, so a total of 9 to 13 pounds of water. That's an awful lot of water retention to attribute to muscle repair.

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