Discouraging Week
BrookeLynn18
Posts: 22 Member
I started actively trying to lose weight about a month and a half ago. I'm almost down my first 10 pounds (sitting right at 7), but this week it seems like the weight just won't come off. I'm always in a calorie deficit, I exercise 3-6 days a week, and so far I've been pretty motivated. I've had a few ups and downs, but I've learned a lot about myself and how to be successful on this journey.
This week I've been really discouraged because over night I "gained" three pounds. I suspect it's water retention after a salty day, but it was still really discouraging. I've been telling myself that it's just water weight, and it will come off naturally in time. This morning I only lost about a pound of it and I was still really discouraged. It's around that time of the month and I know I can get bloated during this week too. I guess my question is how do you look past that? I thought about starting to weight myself every day to see natural fluctuations instead of once a week, but I don't want that to discourage me also. What are other women's "normals" in regards to weight during their time of the month? I'm not trying to only focus on the scale because I want to achieve overall health, but a scale is so easy and convenient.
This week I've been really discouraged because over night I "gained" three pounds. I suspect it's water retention after a salty day, but it was still really discouraging. I've been telling myself that it's just water weight, and it will come off naturally in time. This morning I only lost about a pound of it and I was still really discouraged. It's around that time of the month and I know I can get bloated during this week too. I guess my question is how do you look past that? I thought about starting to weight myself every day to see natural fluctuations instead of once a week, but I don't want that to discourage me also. What are other women's "normals" in regards to weight during their time of the month? I'm not trying to only focus on the scale because I want to achieve overall health, but a scale is so easy and convenient.
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3-5 lbs was normal for me every month.0
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Typically I gain 2 or 3 around that time of the month but it has been as much as 7. I do weigh myself every day for the very reason you stated. I helped me get over the disappointment of the once a week weigh in when I didn't lose. Now I realize that I may have actually lost that week but that particular day I was probably retaining water for various reasons. I realize that it doesn't work for everyone but it really helped me.2
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Sounds about right. Water weight doesn't magically come off the next day - sometimes it takes a couple days - and yeah, put Shark Week in the mix and you may as well just hang in there. It's annoying as heck, but keep eating at a deficit, keep up your exercise, make sure you are hydrated and keep an eye on how much sodium you consume...and just push through. It will be OK.
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If your weight has only gone up once in 6 weeks then you're doing well.
Weight loss isnt linear. Be more patient.6 -
This is me.
Weight loss isn't linear. Weight is not fat. Overall trends can take weeks to show. Work the system, believe in and encourage yourself. This community will be here for you to support you and offer advice for as long as you are trying. If you hit a wall for four weeks, let us know and we'll help you figure out what's going on as well as encourage you to reach out to a doctor.12 -
Oh, also many folks experience a sudden rush of weight loss when they just start out that won't be their experience with their weight. Remember that a loss of 0.5 lbs per week will add up to a loss of 26 lbs this time next year.7
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Don't obsess on the daily weight. You can still weigh daily and check-in with your daily weight. That's nice data, but don't obsess on it. Be aware that your menstrual cycle imposes waves of water retention, hunger, and water discharge which are quite independent of your dietary intake. Everything from salt, cortisol, exercise, and even carbs eaten within your calorie budget can modulate your water retention. Water is dense and heavy, and moves in and out of your body quickly. Daily weighing mostly observes the changes in hydration you are constantly experiencing.
The weight trending apps which you can install and use will help you see the true trend of your weight. But even then, it's not accurate to say that it tells you your weight. It's only going to smooth the graph of your weight trend. The most you can use this data for is to determine if your weight trend is moving in your preferred direction or not. If it's not, you can make some changes.7 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Don't obsess on the daily weight. You can still weigh daily and check-in with your daily weight. That's nice data, but don't obsess on it. Be aware that your menstrual cycle imposes waves of water retention, hunger, and water discharge which are quite independent of your dietary intake. Everything from salt, cortisol, exercise, and even carbs eaten within your calorie budget can modulate your water retention. Water is dense and heavy, and moves in and out of your body quickly. Daily weighing mostly observes the changes in hydration you are constantly experiencing.
The weight trending apps which you can install and use will help you see the true trend of your weight. But even then, it's not accurate to say that it tells you your weight. It's only going to smooth the graph of your weight trend. The most you can use this data for is to determine if your weight trend is moving in your preferred direction or not. If it's not, you can make some changes.
I like this post.1 -
Either you accept that weight loss isn't linear, or you get frustrated and give up. Unfortunately, a lot of people go for door number two. One thing I do is to keep notes whenever I experience a sudden unexplained gain with my best hypothesis for the gain. As time goes on, the patterns have become more clear, although not perfect. It seriously took me way longer than it should have to realize that eating pizza, no matter the calories, consistently led to 1-2 pounds of water weight the next day. You just have to be patient. You can do this!7
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^^^^ What everyone else has said about weight loss not being linear and daily weight fluctuations. I saw a 4lb overnight swing last week after a family dinner out where I chose an old favorite and followed-up with two brownies at my in-laws' house. You just have to treat it as any other data point, keep your chin up and your nose to the grindstone (hooray for metaphors!) and you'll get where you want to be eventually. I've never bothered with weighing daily before but started in late July in an effort to really dial in my true TDEE with daily weighing and logging. Day 1 I weighed 182 lbs... same as days 12, 13, 16, 18, and 50. Scale today (day 86) said 174 lbs.
Keep at it, slow and steady, get a little better everyday (independent of the scale), you got this!8 -
Last week I was 128.4lbs. On Friday I had a salty meal out and it’s ovulation week. On Sunday I was 129.8lbs. This morning i was 131lbs! I certainly haven’t eaten the excess calories to have put that amount on (3500 above maintenance per pound). Have you?
If not try to look at the gain calmly and rationally: it’s only water. It’s masking your true loss which will show itself soon. Keep the faith!3 -
I weigh 3x/week, with Tuesday as my arbitrary official day to update MFP. I update Libra (an Android app that does weight trend graphing) each time I weigh in.
Sleep quantity/quality, salt, volume of food consumed, meal timing, digestion, stress, and my period all affect my weight in ways that have nothing to do with my calorie count or gym habit. Over the last year I've shifted into a sort of science experiment mentality - I know I'm doing the right stuff with food and exercise, but given that there's a lot of other random inputs, what's the scale say? Based on what I know about myself over the last few days, why do I think that is?
My period tends to induce one of two things: gain 1-2 lbs before period, then drop 5 lbs after period (or net -3 from where I was before my period) OR gain 5+ lbs before period, then return to where I was before my period. Either way, I know I'm not eating that far over maintenance, so it's weird to see the numbers, and it's annoying to destroy my trend in Libra, but I know it'll correct itself in a few more days.1 -
One observation that might help with the "mind game" aspect...
Unless you ate at a surplus of ~10,500 calories, you certainly didn't gain 3 lbs of fat!
I've been in maintenance mode for a while now, and I still weigh myself every day. (I like to eat, I like to exercise, and I like charts!) Lately, I've been maintaining a deficit during the week and splurging a little bit on the weekends. It all balances out, but I do frequently see weekly fluctuations of up to 7 lbs.4 -
I usually gain 2-3 pounds and 4-5 when eating salty foods during my period. The fact that your only gain 2 after eating salty foods is good. I only weight daily at first when I changed my eating habit and as I started to workout because i wanted to see how my body retain the water and when it let it go. However, I notice that once my period started the second day I lost 2.5 pounds of water... I was so amazed??? That was how much i was retaining. Also, since I was consistent with eating ok and working out i lost another 2 pounds a few days later.0
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This is definitely my struggle with staying motivated too. I can kill it (eating healthy and working out) and just not see the constant downward numbers that I think should follow. Some days I just don't get on the scale for the fear I will be more discouraged after than if I was to just wait and weigh another day when I felt more positive out of the gate. This plan of selective weighing has helped me mentally stay in the game more. I'm just over 1 month into logging calories everyday and I have seen 1-2 lb loss each week but it will go up and down within that week. I might have made this up, but I am pretty sure other people do this too #selectiveweigh-ins2
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Yup. From Thursday to Sunday I gained 10#. Did I really eat 35,000 calories over my goal in 3 days??? No, of course not-- I'm actually 600 calories *under* my goal for the week. I *did* eat 10,000mg over my sodium goal, though, *without* drinking enough water. So I drank my water on Sunday, was up in the night and woke up Monday morning down 8 of those pounds. The last 2 are a combo of my normal daily fluctuation and the fact that I'm over my sodium goal for the week.
In the "old" days, I would have totally freaked and given up over those 10 pounds, but these days, I keep calm and log on.5 -
I had to find a different way to measure success. Those stalls come, and YES, they are discouraging. I hate them a LOT. Before I started losing weight I decided that I needed small goals that I could reach every single day. I knew that diet and exercise are the recommended "things," so I made a goal to exercise 10 minutes or more per day, EVERY DAY, and a goal to always come in under my calorie goal. I started counting how many days IN A ROW that I met thise goals and that became my new goal. I knew that the weight would come off in time if I did those two things.
Now when I stall like that, I remember that my success is measured by my exercise and calorie goals, not the number on the scale. It doesn't always make me happy, because I still want the scale to go down, but it is still SOMETHING on those days when the scale jumps 3 lbs overnight.
I have lost 46 lbs and have 89 to go. I have met my exercise goal every day for over 5 months, and my calorie goal for over 4 months. I know it's a long road, but I imagine how exciting it will be when I can say that I exercised every day for a year, or some other length of time. That is a win even if the weight loss doesn't come as predictably as I would have hoped.
Be encouraged. And when you have discouraging weeks, come back to the forums and ask for encouragement again. 6 -
It sounds like you are doing amazing!! I know that, around that time of the month, it can be extremely frustrating, as the numbers do fluctuate on the scale. Know that you are NOT alone there! It is easy to get disheartened, but just try the best you can to breathe through those moments and refocus on all of the great progress that you have made so far!! Those “period pounds” will come and go, so just remember to stay positive and focus on your goals for the long run 4
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This week is my first real discouraging week in 2 months. I was sick last week and hit my low of 214! Finally feeling better and driving this weekend I had fast food. Now I am sitting around 219, I know I didn't eat that many calories to have gain 5 pounds. At first I was frustrated. Then I look at my diary my sodium and carbs have been high all except yesterday so I know there is some water weight hanging there. So I refuse to record it. I am guess tomorrow or Friday I will wake up to a 5 pound maybe more loss. Now if I am still at 219 next Thursday it means I need to relook at my pass week because I am logging wrong somewhere if he 5 pounds are not gone.0
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hydechildcare wrote: »This week is my first real discouraging week in 2 months. I was sick last week and hit my low of 214! Finally feeling better and driving this weekend I had fast food. Now I am sitting around 219, I know I didn't eat that many calories to have gain 5 pounds. At first I was frustrated. Then I look at my diary my sodium and carbs have been high all except yesterday so I know there is some water weight hanging there. So I refuse to record it. I am guess tomorrow or Friday I will wake up to a 5 pound maybe more loss. Now if I am still at 219 next Thursday it means I need to relook at my pass week because I am logging wrong somewhere if he 5 pounds are not gone.
It may also be water weight that you originally lost while you were sick1 -
hydechildcare wrote: »This week is my first real discouraging week in 2 months. I was sick last week and hit my low of 214! Finally feeling better and driving this weekend I had fast food. Now I am sitting around 219, I know I didn't eat that many calories to have gain 5 pounds. At first I was frustrated. Then I look at my diary my sodium and carbs have been high all except yesterday so I know there is some water weight hanging there. So I refuse to record it. I am guess tomorrow or Friday I will wake up to a 5 pound maybe more loss. Now if I am still at 219 next Thursday it means I need to relook at my pass week because I am logging wrong somewhere if he 5 pounds are not gone.
It may also be water weight that you originally lost while you were sick
I am not super worried. I started lifting this pass week. I will give myself a week to even out before I start trying to change things around.0 -
Work on your calorie deficit- that is all that you can do. If your logging accurately reflects your intake (this is of utmost importance), and your calories burned are sufficiently greater than what you have taken in, then you have been successful. Let the weight come off as it does and appreciate non-scale victories: clothes feeling looser progressing to needing a new outfit, feeling more energetic, having people notice and ask if you have lost weight, and finding a new challenging activity (ie walking/running a 5k, 10k, half? picking up a tennis racket and nailing that backhand return? pole dancing? belly dancing? square dancing?) Don't just exercise- enjoy it, love it, live it! Don't give the scale that much power.... it will create unnecessary grief. Please know I am not suggesting you not have any idea of what your weight is, I am saying not to use that downward trend as the measure (or the sole measure) of your success.
If you have a day or two where you mismanaged your deficit, your goal/success should be getting back on plan quickly. Do this a number of times and you will have learned the necessary skills to manage this forever.0 -
When I realized the scale was discouraging me, though I was doing the work, I stopped getting on it until I was emotionally ready to accept the number presented to me. I've been back on MFP for 36 days and I'm not going near the scale. If your doing the work, your body will change. Weighing yourself is fine, but if it's discouraging you, it could derail your motivation, thus minimizing your weight loss efforts.
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