How is this possible??? Need opinions!!
lucid_wings
Posts: 11 Member
I'm so confused. I've managed to gain 1.6 lbs this week. I've been carefully tracking my food intake, weighing and measuring mist of what I eat. I've even been under my calorie goal. How can I be gaining weight if what I'm consuming is supposedly less than what I would need to maintain my weight? This has been something that I've been struggling with for years and it is so demoralizing.
Most days I'm so busy that I end up just eating dinner for the most part, but even so, I'm careful to not go over. I'm a mother of 5, so getting time to go work out is really difficult.
Thoughts?
Most days I'm so busy that I end up just eating dinner for the most part, but even so, I'm careful to not go over. I'm a mother of 5, so getting time to go work out is really difficult.
Thoughts?
1
Replies
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Water weight2
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I would say it's water weight as well. I typically fluctuate a couple pounds sometimes.3
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New work out? Time of the month? Lots of salt? Any of these things could result in water retention and that's completely common in the beginning. That's why most advice posts say not to freak out for the first few weeks.
I had a stall for 3 weeks one time because of a perfect storm involving all the above options and then lost 6 pounds in the 4th week.5 -
It's not my totm, I'm drinking 80+ ounces of water a day. Most days I'm under sodium limits. I did have 2 meals this week that were on the salty side though. Could that have derailed it?0
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Going thorough your diary, I see a lot of cup and spoons used for solid foods. Weigh everything that isn't a liquid.
Make sure you don't eat under 1200 calories. I see a few 800 calorie days.
Also, excess sodium and hormonal changes play a huge part in water weight.10 -
cerise_noir wrote: »Going thorough your diary, I see a lot of cup and spoons used for solid foods. Weigh everything that isn't a liquid.
Make sure you don't eat under 1200 calories. I see a few 800 calorie days.
Also, excess sodium and hormonal changes play a huge part in water weight.
@cerise_noir I agree.1 -
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weight loss is not linear.
ive lost 80+ pounds in 2 years. do you think every week was a loss? no. my weight naturally fluctuates within a 5 - 7 pound range. everyone has a range they fluctuate within.
that said, if you are not weighing, on a scale (or for LIQUIDS, in a cup), EVERYTHING you put in your mouth, you are likely eating more than you think you are....6 -
I agree with the others. If you're not weighing everything, you can't really be 100% sure that you're staying at or under your daily calorie goal.
Also, remember that our weight is in a constant state of flux. It's not uncommon to see 1-3lb fluctuations (or more) on any given day.
But yeah, first things first: tighten up your logging and see if that makes a difference in the next 3-4 weeks.2 -
Weight loss is not linear. There are a bunch of factors at play in terms of weight changes than have nothing to do with whether you are losing fat or not.3
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Also, before you get really discouraged - take your body measurements so you have additional data. We all can wind up being discouraged by the scale at some point... Hang in there!2
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rileysowner wrote: »Weight loss is not linear. There are a bunch of factors at play in terms of weight changes than have nothing to do with whether you are losing fat or not.
^ This. Look at long term trends rather than short term fluctuations.3 -
Maybe this is why people say slow and steady , this is a life style change , we gotta keep eating the correct calories no matter what the scale says
good luck1 -
A digital food scale is a must1
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I do have a food scale and weigh most things. I've run into the problem of not being able to find the correct unit when logging sometimes. I'll see if there are more things that I can weigh. It's usually just things like teaspoons and tablespoons that I'm measuring, or liquids. Can not weighing things like lettuce cause issues?0
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I should also add that the recipes I create, the ingredients are weighed. I'll try and be even more careful, it's just upsetting when you feel like you are and then it seems like nothing happens. Thanks everyone0
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lucid_wings wrote: »It's not my totm, I'm drinking 80+ ounces of water a day. Most days I'm under sodium limits. I did have 2 meals this week that were on the salty side though. Could that have derailed it?
If you're around two weeks before your period, you could be ovulating - many women retain water at this time as well. Weighing every day and charting this in Excel taught me that I gain water weight at ovulation as well as premenstrually.
When I eat foods like Chinese Pu Pu platters I can count on a water weight gain that takes almost a week to come off.2 -
Food, water, waste in your body at any given time will make your weight fluctuate.
IF you are logging accurately and staying in a deficit, your weight will go down. Just not as fast as you want and not in a straight line down.
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lucid_wings wrote: »I do have a food scale and weigh most things. I've run into the problem of not being able to find the correct unit when logging sometimes. I'll see if there are more things that I can weigh. It's usually just things like teaspoons and tablespoons that I'm measuring, or liquids. Can not weighing things like lettuce cause issues?
Volumetric measurements for anything other than liquids is an inaccurate way of logging your food. Even if the nutritional label on your food lists a serving in tsp or tbsp, you should still be weighing it. I can say with a good degree of confidence that the calories for the tablespoon of walnuts on your log from a couple of days ago is wrong.
And yes, not weighing things like lettuce can cause issues. It's not that lettuce is calorie dense and being off by a couple of grams will put you over on calories for the day. It's that the mentality of, "Well, I can weigh some things and not others," means you're likely taking other short cuts as well, and those short cuts can add up to a significant calorie hit. Logging is about accuracy and consistency so it's kind of an all or nothing thing, especially when you're first starting out.3 -
Yesterday you had 3.5 slices of pizza. That's a massive amount of sodium especially compared to the rest of the week. I'm surprised your weight isn't up by 3-5 pounds.2
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Tip #1 Stay off the scale - Try to weigh yourself less often than your doing. Keep up the good work and try not to be so hard on yourself.
Tip # 2 Eat
Do not skip meals. Eat light small meals if you have to but eat something each meal time.
Tip # 3 Make a workout plan
Being a Mom is always going to come first. However, we have to make time for ourselves. I wake up a little earlier just to do a 5min warm up workout.0 -
margaretadams96343 wrote: »Tip #1 Stay off the scale - Try to weigh yourself less often than your doing. Keep up the good work and try not to be so hard on yourself.
Tip # 2 Eat
Do not skip meals. Eat light small meals if you have to but eat something each meal time.
Tip # 3 Make a workout plan
Being a Mom is always going to come first. However, we have to make time for ourselves. I wake up a little earlier just to do a 5min warm up workout.
Skipping meals does not slow weight loss. Skipping a meal can cause some people to over eat at other meals, but skipping a meal will not cause metabolism to slow.4 -
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Looking through your diary there are some things that may be inaccurate. Examples:
1 tbsp walnuts. Nuts are very calorie dense and should always be weighed.
3.5 pieces of pizza at 788 calories. Are these very small pieces of pizza? Mine are usually about 300-350 per slice.
1 cup of rice. Rice should also be weighed because the cup measurement can be very inaccurate.
Tightening up your logging should help. And if you do want to weigh frequently, considering using an app like Libra to track your weight trend.
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The way weight loss works for me is I bounce up and down the same 3 lbs for a while, then one day I weigh a few ounces to a lb lower than my last low and when I resume bouncing the high isn't quite so high. I look at my weight as a trend over time. I have a 6 month history now so it's easier to see both the zig-zags and the downward trend. I have an aria scale that syncs with myfitnesspal, and in the beginning I didn't look at the scale when I weighed for a couple of weeks at a time, so that when I did look at the trend I could see some solid progress.1
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Ok, those are all really great suggestions. I can see where I can be more careful, some of it was sloppier than it should be. The pizza was from a local shop, NY style with a thin crust, just cheese. Eating out doesn't happen too often for me, last week was weird in that. The walnuts were a guess because I'd forgotten to add them into the muffin recipe, there were only a few bits in the whole muffin, 4oz. in the entire recipe.1
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It didn't have a lot on it, but it's hard to tell exactly how much it was to the gram without having made it myself. I'm pretty familiar with sizes of things, I was a professional chef in my pre-kids days. Unfortunately chef does not equal nutrition and fitness expert. 0
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Yes I always overestimate on calorie-dense foods like pizza and nuts.
Lettuce does not really matter so much. One cup of lettuce is 5 calories so a measurement mistake is not going to be such a big deal.0 -
rileysowner wrote: »Weight loss is not linear. There are a bunch of factors at play in terms of weight changes than have nothing to do with whether you are losing fat or not.
^ This. Look at long term trends rather than short term fluctuations.
Yep--weight-trending app like Happy Scale (iPhone) or Libra (Android). I weigh daily and it shows me how exercise, food, drink, etc., affect my weight. I can fluctuate sometimes 5 pounds.2
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