Scale going up. Need help!

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marebear31485
marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
edited December 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
I'm trying to figure out what I've done wrong. I've lost 12 lbs so far in about 3.5 weeks. I did a bit of drinking on Saturday night, and expected the scale to reflect that. I also danced for about 3 hours straight but figured I'd retain at least a bit of water due to the alcohol. The next morning the scale was up 1.4 lbs. this morning it was up another 1.2. I rehydrated myself really well yesterday. I also have slacked a bit on the exercise for the last week because I haven't felt well. But I'm still at a major deficit. Pre-dieting I was probably taking in 2500-3000 calories daily. I've been taking in between 12-1400 now with the exception of one day. Am I cutting back calories too much and throwing my body into starvation mode, could it still be the alcohol I consumed? Any advice or input would be appreciated!!

Replies

  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    It sounds like it's still water retention from Saturday night, to me. That can take a little while to go away. I'd give it a week before tryimg to adjust anything, imo.
  • Mavrick_RN
    Mavrick_RN Posts: 439 Member
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?
  • Mavrick_RN
    Mavrick_RN Posts: 439 Member
    It's fun to see people with no coping skills get snarky.
  • ridge4mfp
    ridge4mfp Posts: 301 Member
    Water weight. It will be temporary. Such fluctuations are perfectly normal.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Have you had a chance to read through the Most Helpful Posts thread (must reads) stickied to the top of this forum yet? There's some really good information there: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-diet-and-weight-loss-help-must-reads#latest
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    ridge4mfp wrote: »
    Water weight. It will be temporary. Such fluctuations are perfectly normal.
    Thank you! Hopefully that is all. I am getting back on track with the exercise tonight so hopefully that will help also. I appreciate the answer.

  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    Have you had a chance to read through the Most Helpful Posts thread (must reads) stickied to the top of this forum yet? There's some really good information there: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-diet-and-weight-loss-help-must-reads#latest

    I haven't but I will look at them when I get back home. Thank you! And thank you for your reply. I'm a bit new to all of this so don't really know how all things affect my body yet.
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    I don't know. I have found reading and listening to nutrition podcasts and learning on my own very helpful. I don't think he meant it the way you took it :) Telling you it's a myth doesn't teach you anything about it either.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    Have you had a chance to read through the Most Helpful Posts thread (must reads) stickied to the top of this forum yet? There's some really good information there: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-diet-and-weight-loss-help-must-reads#latest

    I haven't but I will look at them when I get back home. Thank you! And thank you for your reply. I'm a bit new to all of this so don't really know how all things affect my body yet.

    The must reads stickied to the top of the Getting Started board are good too (each section has its own set of links stuck to the top of the board).

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    I don't know. I have found reading and listening to nutrition podcasts and learning on my own very helpful. I don't think he meant it the way you took it :) Telling you it's a myth doesn't teach you anything about it either.

    Perhaps not. Things can be misconstrued on the Internet. Thank you :)
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    The General Diet "must reads" include two separate discussions about it if you're looking for somewhere to start. Also a good link on why weight loss is not linear (stalls and water weight and such) and some good links about plateaus.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    I don't know. I have found reading and listening to nutrition podcasts and learning on my own very helpful. I don't think he meant it the way you took it :) Telling you it's a myth doesn't teach you anything about it either.

    Perhaps not. Things can be misconstrued on the Internet. Thank you :)

    Definitely.

    Here's a link if you're interested :smile:

    http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    The General Diet "must reads" include two separate discussions about it if you're looking for somewhere to start. Also a good link on why weight loss is not linear (stalls and water weight and such) and some good links about plateaus.

    Great, I'll take a look. It will definitely help keep me motivated to know that stalling, etc are normal. And what I can do to help prevent it.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    This is good to read

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10257474/starting-out-restarting-basics-inside/p1

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1290491/how-and-why-to-use-a-digital-food-scale/p1
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,249 Member
    Is it around your period?
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    Is it around your period?

    No, I'm on BC and don't get one.
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    marebear31485 wrote: »
    Mavrick_RN wrote: »
    Look up "starvation mode myth". That should keep you busy for awhile.

    I'm okay. New here and looking for advice, not criticism for my possible lack of knowledge. If you don't have helpful input why reply?

    It IS helpful input?

    I tend to disagree. Telling me it is a myth would be helpful input. Telling me I can keep myself busy by reading about it is not. But regardless, I am just looking for advice on my original post. I have read many places about it, including on here, so my apologies if I don't know better.

    The General Diet "must reads" include two separate discussions about it if you're looking for somewhere to start. Also a good link on why weight loss is not linear (stalls and water weight and such) and some good links about plateaus.

    Great, I'll take a look. It will definitely help keep me motivated to know that stalling, etc are normal. And what I can do to help prevent it.

    Please do read the stickies. I think one of the best things you can do is understand the basics - that you need an energy balance to maintain, an energy deficit to lose, and an energy surplus to gain; weight fluctuates and you can't do anything about that; logging accurately is going to be very important for must of us on this site as we get smaller.

    If you understand those things, hopefully the fluctuations won't bother you. You'll understand that you're in a deficit and eventually there will be a loss. I eat higher calories on Saturdays - usually about 3,000. Sometimes it can take until Wednesday or Thursday to lose the water weight from that. Between that and exercise, I probably see my low weight only a couple times per week. Then there's water retention with my cycle each month. So, I'm looking at maybe a quarter of the month when I see a low weight. You're not going to have a maintenance weight so much as a maintenance range because of all those fluctuations. So having a range you fluctuate within as you're losing isn't a big deal, so long as your weight is trending downward over significant periods of time (I always suggest looking at 4-6 week periods).
  • Sunny_Bunny_
    Sunny_Bunny_ Posts: 7,140 Member
    Hi OP. I'm sorry you're feeling frustrated by the increase the scale is showing you. If you're confident about your calorie deficit being accurate, I really think water weight, hormones, TOM are probably your explanation. I don't believe in the starvation mode idea, but I do think that eating too low calories for a long time does have a negative effect on metabolism, but 3.5 weeks is probably not a long enough time to even begin to have any effect. And I think that it's mostly related to very long term low calorie diets and the resulting muscle loss that occurs.
    Anyway, I have had many many times where the scale shoots up for no apparent reason over the last 11 months of my journey and I fully understand how cruddy it feels. Especially after a great couple weeks!
    Don't lose sight of the fact that you just had such an amazing successful couple weeks. Even when you're doing everything right, sometimes the scale doesn't show us what we want to see because we aren't fully in control of every little thing that influences our weight. Like water/inflammation, hormones and gut content. It doesn't mean that your body hasn't lost any fat this week. If you're following your plan, even allowing a day of drinking every now and then, you will make progress. It's the long game that matters.
    I like to weigh daily because it actually helps me to understand the daily variations of weight. It helped me to get over being disappointed by the scale suddenly showing a gain. I use a weight averaging app called Happy Scale to see my average weight and I consider the average to be my real weight. But, even the average doesn't go down all the time. As of today, I'm up 0.2, but even that happens at least once a month. It will go down. I've changed nothing and I know it's not real gain because I have 11 months of daily weight data that helps me to see and understand the variations.
    I highly recommend it. I'm not familiar with it, but Libra Weight has s similar app for android if you don't have an IOS device. There are probably others too. Idk
    Best of luck to you.
  • blues4miles
    blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
    Agree it is still the alcohol. I've noticed the third morning after a big meal or high sodium etc. my weight will finally drop back down. Since I tend to eat more (intentionally) on the weekends, it takes until Wednesday morning before my weight normalizes.

    But also agree with others suggesting apps that will average out your daily weigh-ins. TrendWeight, HappyScale, Libra...all good options on the same theory. The scale tells you the total mass of your muscles, fat, water, food in your stomach/intestines. It can't separate out the water and food. So it's not always the best daily gage of what's going on. Better to use a trend/average, or only weigh once a month if you can't handle the fluctuations (I'm not saying YOU can't, just that some people can't).
  • kandeye
    kandeye Posts: 216 Member
    Just think of it this way....did you consume over 7,000 calories above maintenance? If not then it's not fat. It's easy to get worked up over the little fluctuations, but mostly they are nothing to be worried about.
  • marebear31485
    marebear31485 Posts: 36 Member
    Thanks for all of the replies. They definitely helped. And this morning I had dropped 2 of the pounds that the scale went up so I definitely think it was the alcohol and probably water! Hopefully I can become more knowledgeable about everything as my journey continues!
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