From sedentary to working again.
Akmauser
Posts: 51 Member
Wife was in an auto accident two years ago resulting in multiple surgeries, seizures, etc. She was not (still not really) able to care for herself or our children alone and my job was not willing to work with my families new time requirements.
For the last couple months my settings have been set to sedentary while finishing the semester and caring for my family. That setting worked great and lost a estimated two pounds a week. However, now that I've returned to work and with an average of 6-10 miles walked a day (phone app), I've only lost 2 pounds in the last 3-4 weeks. I have been adding 1/3 of what MFP burned calories state, and if my settings are changed to active 400 calories/day are added, which is 100 more than what I am typically adding. Therefore my weight loss should've stayed relatively consistent (I know weight loss is not linear), but 3-4 weeks of little loss makes one wonder what could be causing this issue.
Could this weight gain be from rebuilding muscle possibly? I am walking rather quickly and lifting a lot of weight, but have no way to figure out if any calories are being burned from lifting.
Any ideas?
For the last couple months my settings have been set to sedentary while finishing the semester and caring for my family. That setting worked great and lost a estimated two pounds a week. However, now that I've returned to work and with an average of 6-10 miles walked a day (phone app), I've only lost 2 pounds in the last 3-4 weeks. I have been adding 1/3 of what MFP burned calories state, and if my settings are changed to active 400 calories/day are added, which is 100 more than what I am typically adding. Therefore my weight loss should've stayed relatively consistent (I know weight loss is not linear), but 3-4 weeks of little loss makes one wonder what could be causing this issue.
Could this weight gain be from rebuilding muscle possibly? I am walking rather quickly and lifting a lot of weight, but have no way to figure out if any calories are being burned from lifting.
Any ideas?
1
Replies
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It could definitely be from adding muscle. Maybe you should switch to measuring yourself, rather than focusing on the scale.2
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Thanks for responding. Thinking I may need to measure to insure weight loss is still taking place and I am not harming myself by not having enough calories. Hopefully this will level off soon and didn't think muscle would build quickly. Thought it would take months for any gains.0
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Wife was in an auto accident two years ago resulting in multiple surgeries, seizures, etc. She was not (still not really) able to care for herself or our children alone and my job was not willing to work with my families new time requirements.
For the last couple months my settings have been set to sedentary while finishing the semester and caring for my family. That setting worked great and lost a estimated two pounds a week. However, now that I've returned to work and with an average of 6-10 miles walked a day (phone app), I've only lost 2 pounds in the last 3-4 weeks. I have been adding 1/3 of what MFP burned calories state, and if my settings are changed to active 400 calories/day are added, which is 100 more than what I am typically adding. Therefore my weight loss should've stayed relatively consistent (I know weight loss is not linear), but 3-4 weeks of little loss makes one wonder what could be causing this issue.
Could this weight gain be from rebuilding muscle possibly? I am walking rather quickly and lifting a lot of weight, but have no way to figure out if any calories are being burned from lifting.
Any ideas?
I suspect you may be retaining water from the change in routine.
It's unlikely that you're actually building muscle when eating in a deficit with walking as your exercise (unless there's a lot of hill/stair climbing involved and, even then, it wouldn't be more than a pound or two). But when your muscles are newly stressed, they'll often hold water for a while. When I started weight lifting many years ago, I gained 5 pounds almost overnight. It was all water weight. Some people gain more; some people gain less.
So, if we assume gain of 5 pounds of water weight and an overall loss of 2 pounds total weight, you could have lost about 7 pounds of fat - which would be consistent with what you were observing before. The next month will be key to see if this is what's happening or if it's something else.
The "something else" that could be happening would be that you were more active than you thought when you were caring for your wife and children and you've therefore overestimated your increase in activity level. Keep that in mind as a possibility if you rule out the water weight theory.5 -
Good points. I am lifting about 30-70 pounds and pulling heavy loads throughout the day with some ladder use. I can say that my activity estimation was spot on prior to returning to work.
Thanks, didn't think about retaining water.0 -
My average 5 day week is about 15k - 23k steps/day - my phone which is fairly accurate for those steps when compared with other means of measurement such as walking on a designated loop that has been properly measured may or may not be accurate with calories burned. App usually puts me in the 600-1000 calories burned, while MFP puts me around the 900-1300 range.
Usually as stated in my first post I am adding roughly 300 calories a day with some days being more and others the calories are added but not eaten back.
What would a good estimate be? How many should be added on a daily basses throughout the week? Is 200 safe or not enough? The weekends are sedentary still because my body is sore from returning back to work and lack of funds to go do anything lately.0 -
Protein+complex carbs= muscle gain protein+veges=fat loss keep working don't give up I also find myself to over eat when I have a new job because of stress stay active and make healthy food choices best wishes!0
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My average 5 day week is about 15k - 23k steps/day - my phone which is fairly accurate for those steps when compared with other means of measurement such as walking on a designated loop that has been properly measured may or may not be accurate with calories burned. App usually puts me in the 600-1000 calories burned, while MFP puts me around the 900-1300 range.
Usually as stated in my first post I am adding roughly 300 calories a day with some days being more and others the calories are added but not eaten back.
What would a good estimate be? How many should be added on a daily basses throughout the week? Is 200 safe or not enough? The weekends are sedentary still because my body is sore from returning back to work and lack of funds to go do anything lately.
Do you mean 200 calories over and above "active"? That seems like an underestimate. If you mean 200 calories over and above any "sedentary" or "lightly active", it's definitely an underestimate.
For me, a 15,000 step day is about 300 calories over "active" while a 23,000 step day is about 700 calories over "active". So, based on those figures, if it were me, I'd split the difference and call it 500 calories over "active". But I'm 150 pounds. If you're heavier than me, the increase will need to be bigger.0 -
philyflyazz wrote: »Protein+complex carbs= muscle gain protein+veges=fat loss keep working don't give up I also find myself to over eat when I have a new job because of stress stay active and make healthy food choices best wishes!
Thanks for the encouragement. I am actually taking the weekend off and staying at what my maintenance would be at for this weekend. First time I have ever taken a break since starting.
@SusanMFindlay: Put some old pants on today that have not fit in a year and did not fit 4 weeks ago. They are size 38 and my wife stated "I think you're losing inches and not weight right now."
She thinks its because of how crazy inactive I was while she recovered from the auto accident and now suddenly I am walking up and down ladders at work and lifting a lot of not heavy weights, but weight that is far heavier than used to over the last few years.1 -
Yes if you have enough available fat amd it is a novel stimulus you can be building muscles in a deficit.
And based on measurements it sure sounds like you are.
If you were previously averaging ~5k steps for your sedentary, you better believe that anything above 15K steps probably exceeds the very active setting.
Of course if your previous sedentary was for example 10k steps you may have to scale...
A good chunk of this will of course be water and even some extra waste from some extra food. that extra water for muscle repair may not go down for quite a while until you find yourself having a few sedentary days.
It does sound like in general you're on track... And it sound like you're noticing that there's more to this game than straight up scale weight!3 -
Went through my last couple weeks and noticed my sugar intake has doubled while still staying under my calories. This is from drinking coffee again (2 tbs of sugar) and having a cliff bar for lunch every day - they are cheap and quick.0
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