Have been gaining weight after eating clean, and working out. Need help !!!

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I eat atleast 80% healthy daily, and watch for my protein, fats. i eat 4 meals per day, 20% during dinner i eat a cookie or piece of cake, gets harder to control my last meal. I would say this happens 2 times a week.

I am doing my best to follow macros. I do at least 3 days cardio HIIT running and 3 days of strength exercise, one day includes slow motion fitness. I have been climbing up my weight, last summer i was 128 and today 138, increased 10 pounds. Need help. is there anything i can do to start seeing my weight going down? Feeling very low today.
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  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    edited May 2017
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    I eat atleast 80% healthy daily

    You realize that means nothing? Eating healthy means you probably are healthy. But you can be healthy and be overweight or healthy and out of shape. Only calories count, so if you aren't counting them eating what you think is healthy for you isn't going to help. Count every calorie, use a food scale, set your goals based on your height, weight, age, activity level, and eat at a caloric deficit if you want to lose weight.

  • mixedbag4444
    mixedbag4444 Posts: 189 Member
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    Are you weighing dry foods, measuring liquids? It also could partly be muscle gains. Or water retention from overexercising. Also make sure the calories on those desserts are accurate; it's easy to underestimate the calories in a piece of cake!
  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,575 Member
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    I eat atleast 80% healthy daily, and watch for my protein, fats. i eat 4 meals per day, 20% during dinner i eat a cookie or piece of cake, gets harder to control my last meal. I would say this happens 2 times a week.

    I am doing my best to follow macros. I do at least 3 days cardio HIIT running and 3 days of strength exercise, one day includes slow motion fitness. I have been climbing up my weight, last summer i was 128 and today 138, increased 10 pounds. Need help. is there anything i can do to start seeing my weight going down? Feeling very low today.

    Are you here to get serious about losing weight, or are you here just to blow off steam? You don't say what your stats are, whether you are actually counting calories/measuring your food properly. Hard to help without knowing that.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Are you weighing dry foods, measuring liquids? It also could partly be muscle gains. Or water retention from overexercising. Also make sure the calories on those desserts are accurate; it's easy to underestimate the calories in a piece of cake!

    not likely to the bolded.

    OP take a look at this...
    9rw267e4y4fj.jpg

  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    I eat atleast 80% healthy daily, and watch for my protein, fats. i eat 4 meals per day, 20% during dinner i eat a cookie or piece of cake, gets harder to control my last meal. I would say this happens 2 times a week.

    I am doing my best to follow macros. I do at least 3 days cardio HIIT running and 3 days of strength exercise, one day includes slow motion fitness. I have been climbing up my weight, last summer i was 128 and today 138, increased 10 pounds. Need help. is there anything i can do to start seeing my weight going down? Feeling very low today.

    Looks like you're going to have dig in and learn about how weight loss works. None of the information you've given gives us a clue as to whether you should be losing weight, maintaining, or gaining. But if you've gained, you've eaten more than you've burned. 100 calories per day over maintenance will gain you 10 pounds over a year (approximately).

    No matter the program, the science is the same. You have to burn more than you eat (in calories) to lose weight. In order to answer your questions, you have to know what you eat and what you burn. Just like maintaining your monetary budget. You have to know your income and expenditure to know where you stand.

    To get started, find out what you burn. (You can estimate - there are various calculators out there). Eat some percentage less than that. At your weight, don't be too aggressive. We don't know your age or height, but I would bet that 1/2 pound per week is all you need to shoot for. Go to the sticky threads and dive in. You'll be glad you did.
  • mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsa12
    mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsa12 Posts: 204 Member
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    Work out your TDEE (google it) then start logging everything you consume. Use a scale. Don't guess. Do that for a week or two and you'll soon see that you are consuming more calories than you use each day- that is the only way to gain weight.

    It doesn't matter how "healthy" the food is you'll still gain weight if you eat more than you need. You can eat more carrots than cake for 100 calories, but it's still 100 calories.
  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
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    "healthy" doesn't mean "weight-negative."
    Many "healthy" foods are very high in calories.

    As an example: My relative GAINED weight on Atkins once he discovered that Costco had all kinds of "low carb" snack foods. He was eating low-carb but still eating too many calories overall.
  • mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsa12
    mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsa12 Posts: 204 Member
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    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Work out your TDEE (google it) then start logging everything you consume. Use a scale. Don't guess. Do that for a week or two and you'll soon see that you are consuming more calories than you use each day- that is the only way to gain weight.

    It doesn't matter how "healthy" the food is you'll still gain weight if you eat more than you need. You can eat more carrots than cake for 100 calories, but it's still 100 calories.

    why work out TDEE...MFP does all that for you.

    Because it is better to understand why then just see a number on a screen. If the person posting wants to take control of their weight loss. I believe understanding the basic process will help, and they don't seem to, but you're welcome to disagree!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Work out your TDEE (google it) then start logging everything you consume. Use a scale. Don't guess. Do that for a week or two and you'll soon see that you are consuming more calories than you use each day- that is the only way to gain weight.

    It doesn't matter how "healthy" the food is you'll still gain weight if you eat more than you need. You can eat more carrots than cake for 100 calories, but it's still 100 calories.

    why work out TDEE...MFP does all that for you.

    Because it is better to understand why then just see a number on a screen. If the person posting wants to take control of their weight loss. I believe understanding the basic process will help, and they don't seem to, but you're welcome to disagree!

    You can take control of your weight loss while using NEAT. Both methods are going to give you an understanding of how many calories you're using.
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
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    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Work out your TDEE (google it) then start logging everything you consume. Use a scale. Don't guess. Do that for a week or two and you'll soon see that you are consuming more calories than you use each day- that is the only way to gain weight.

    It doesn't matter how "healthy" the food is you'll still gain weight if you eat more than you need. You can eat more carrots than cake for 100 calories, but it's still 100 calories.

    why work out TDEE...MFP does all that for you.

    I find TDEE helpful because it allows me to take the "long view" of things. Much like what @quiksylver296 said, if I go over my goal, it's easier to keep in perspective that as long as I'm still under my TDEE, it's still a 'deficit day'.
    Probably my favorite part is that it keeps my calories consistent from day to day. In the past when I tried to lose weight I got very frustrated (and HANGRY!!) on non-workout days, because I didn't get enough food and the MFP goals were a tad to low for me to sustain. It created a negative cycle where I would have to "earn" more food and if I didn't earn enough, I would get very down and unmotivated and end up overeating anyway and then feel bad about it and then say "*kitten* it" and have more cake. Using TDEE gives me the same amount of food day to day, without worrying about fluctuations in calories throughout the week. I've learned that I just do better with routine :). I'll adjust down if I miss more than one workout a week, but since my gym schedule is pretty consistent, TDEE works well for me.
  • EmbeeKay
    EmbeeKay Posts: 249 Member
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    Can someone explain to me the difference between figuring out TDEE and setting your MFP goal to "maintenance"? (Since it doesn't seem like OP is coming back...) @quiksylver296 @DamieBird
  • fitnurse09
    fitnurse09 Posts: 69 Member
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    Try a Keto diet. It appears to be wonderful!
  • allyphoe
    allyphoe Posts: 618 Member
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    EmbeeKay wrote: »
    Can someone explain to me the difference between figuring out TDEE and setting your MFP goal to "maintenance"? (Since it doesn't seem like OP is coming back...) @quiksylver296 @DamieBird

    TDEE would theoretically be the same number of calories every day. You eat the same on exercise days as on rest days. MFP maintenance calories use NEAT plus whatever exercise you happen to have done that day. You eat more on exercise days and less on rest days.

    Personal preference as to which better suits your goals.
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
    edited May 2017
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    allyphoe wrote: »
    EmbeeKay wrote: »
    Can someone explain to me the difference between figuring out TDEE and setting your MFP goal to "maintenance"? (Since it doesn't seem like OP is coming back...) @quiksylver296 @DamieBird

    TDEE would theoretically be the same number of calories every day. You eat the same on exercise days as on rest days. MFP maintenance calories use NEAT plus whatever exercise you happen to have done that day. You eat more on exercise days and less on rest days.

    Personal preference as to which better suits your goals.

    @EmbeeKay , exactly this ^^^. TDEE works best for either weight loss or maintenance if you have a consistent workout routine. It's basically an average of all of the calories that you would burn in a week (not sure about the time frame from a scientific point, that's just how I think of it) broken down into daily increments. For weight loss, you would figure out your TDEE and subtract 10-25%, depending on how aggressive you want to be. For maintenance, you just eat at TDEE.

    Using me as an example, I have three days of moderate to hard intensity exercise, 1 day of hard intensity exercise, and 2 days of light exercise/walking, and 1 day of basically not doing much of anything at all (in a normal week). MFP/NEAT would have my calories very different for each of those days, depending on my workouts. TDEE averages all of it out and I eat the same number of calories each day, no matter if it's a hard day or a lazy one. I personally work best with routine, and find that planning out my meals around the same number of calories each day is much easier than trying to adjust based on how active I am on a particular day.

    Keep in mind that TDEE is an estimate, and it takes about a month of good logging to gather enough data to make sure that you've set it correctly. If you're losing at the expected rate, then you have your TDEE right. If you're losing too quickly, you're estimating you TDEE to be lower than it is, and if you're losing more slowly than expected, you've estimated your TDEE to be too high.

    *edited because I tagged the wrong person