Frustration! Under Calories but Gaining?

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  • minniestar55
    minniestar55 Posts: 346 Member
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    Suggestions:

    Stop weighing every day. Weigh in weekly instead. No way to see real trends if you are staring at scale daily. Weight fluctuates, that's a fact...hydration, if you've had a bowel movement, if your muscles are holding water, if you've eaten salty foods.

    Make certain you are accurately weighing/measuring/tracking your food. Do not guess if you can possibly help it.

    I didn't see how you were measuring exercise calories, but I use a FitBit + a separate HRM & find my FitBit is fairly accurate; I use that to log exercise calories. However, I am suspicious about the number of calories earned by exercise...so I eat at most a third of them.

    Like above...just suggestions, how I reached & surpassed my goal.
  • xvolution
    xvolution Posts: 721 Member
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    If you're dead set on weighting every day, I would use a program that focuses on weight trends instead of day to day weight [like TrendWeight]. It adjusts weight to compensate for those ups and downs and just shows the trends. It helped me to realize that even with my ups and downs, the peaks of the ups keep going down steadily so I am losing weight.
  • babypunkprincess
    babypunkprincess Posts: 109 Member
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    Everyone is saying that a new exercise program can lead to some weight gain due to water retention. Good to know!! My weight went up a couple pounds this last week since I started working out...now it's coming off again.
  • thiosulfate
    thiosulfate Posts: 262 Member
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    it's 2 days. chill
  • hjlourenshj
    hjlourenshj Posts: 66 Member
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    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    edited July 2016
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    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double

    @hjlourenshj This is false. MFP's activity level takes normal, everyday activity into account. It does not factor in exercise. If the OP is exercising, OP should be eating some, if not all, of those earned calories back.
  • hjlourenshj
    hjlourenshj Posts: 66 Member
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    daniip_la wrote: »
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double

    @hjlourenshj This is false. MFP's activity level takes normal, everyday activity into account. It does not factor in exercise. If the OP is exercising, OP should be eating some, if not all, of those earned calories back.

    in every formula to calculate TDEE an active lifestyle is a simple multiplier factor and does include exercise
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    edited July 2016
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    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    daniip_la wrote: »
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double

    @hjlourenshj This is false. MFP's activity level takes normal, everyday activity into account. It does not factor in exercise. If the OP is exercising, OP should be eating some, if not all, of those earned calories back.

    in every formula to calculate TDEE an active lifestyle is a simple multiplier factor and does include exercise

    @hjlourenshj MFP does not calculate calorie goals via the TDEE method.
  • JustMissTracy
    JustMissTracy Posts: 6,339 Member
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    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double

    Wrong. Exercise is not factored in, your regular daily activity (walking around office, making dinner, cleaning etc) is factored in. OP, I'd suggest eating back 1/2 your exercise calories burned to start with...then adjust after a few weeks of following your trends.
  • Gena575
    Gena575 Posts: 224 Member
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    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    daniip_la wrote: »
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Do not eat the extra calories 'earned' with exercise because in your calorie goal in MFP you already put how active you are. It would be double

    @hjlourenshj This is false. MFP's activity level takes normal, everyday activity into account. It does not factor in exercise. If the OP is exercising, OP should be eating some, if not all, of those earned calories back.

    in every formula to calculate TDEE an active lifestyle is a simple multiplier factor and does include exercise


    Too bad MFP uses NEAT method or else your assumption would be correct.
  • Budjola
    Budjola Posts: 148 Member
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    could be some water retention, probably is. good 90 minute cardio session will get u rid of that. for me for example i eat 4-5 pounds of food a day, sometimes even more but im always under my goal and my weight goes up and down a lot but cardio sessions get rid of bloat at least
  • hjlourenshj
    hjlourenshj Posts: 66 Member
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    Sorry, i thought it was tdee
  • NancyYale
    NancyYale Posts: 171 Member
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    Sometimes this just happens, even when we are doing everything right. I would t ide it out g or a week or two. If you are still stalled or off track, switch things up. Eat more or less some days. Eat differant things. Cut salt. Cut carbs a bit. These little blips are normal. And they pass.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
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    AmberSpamber wrote: »
    This is why I don't weigh every day. I fluctuate from my cycle, from water intake, from salt and from intense workouts. The scale is just a number and it's not worth getting upset over it moving when there are so many variables. If this continues a 2 more weeks, then it will be time to evaluate things, but if not, I'd just let it roll off your shoulders and keep doing what you're doing.

    And that's why I do weigh every day. Seeing the fluctuations and what was normal for my body helped me not freak out over small gains. Pinning all my hopes on one weigh-in a week was a much more emotionally destructive for me.

    I use Happy Scale (iPhone) and it's helped me stop hating the scale.
  • terrinicolefit
    terrinicolefit Posts: 99 Member
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    Probably water retention... Also how about measuring body fat instead of pounds? If your lifting weights, you are going to be losing fat but gaining muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. Also take pictures and use that to track your progress instead of the scale. The scale sucks!!!

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