Scale and measurements are increasing. HELP!!!
labridge71488
Posts: 21 Member
I am a 30 year old female. I am 5’5” and 185 lbs. I started working out out again about a month ago starting with 3 days and have now consistently been going to the gym 6 days a week for the last two weeks. I have been doing a lot of free weight exercises rotating muscle groups daily to give my muscles a chance to rest/recover. I do roughly 10-30 minutes or cardio before strength training, changing up the type or cardio daily between rowing, elliptical, interval running, incline treadmill, etc. when weight training, I use weights that are heavy enough that I am feeling the burn at about 75% completion of rep. I do 3 reps of 15 for every exercise and really feel like I am pushing myself and can feel the muscles “recovering “ for days after exercising. My problem is, I started at 186.3lbs and wrote down all of my measurements. I weigh myself every morning and track my weight and food. I measure every Sunday to see if there is any progress. I have only lost one inch and that is in my waist. I have only lost 1LB this entire last month that has me concerned that something is not right. I work a desk job but spend about 1-1.5 hours at the gym daily and I eat a fairly strict diet. I have never been much of an eater to begin with so over the years I’d say my “non-dieting” average of calories was anywhere between 1200-1600 Dailey without exercise and not really portioning my macros. Since getting back into working out I eat roughly 1200 calories with 25%f/45%c/30%p with anywhere between 100-150 fl oz of water daily. I don’t eat anything with high sodium. I stick to mainly eggs, lean chicken, spinach, cucumbers, apples and grapefruit, cottage cheese, and one protein shake a day. ANY, and I mean ANY advice would be greatly appreciated or ideas on why I’m gaining and not losing. It’s becoming extremely discouraging and honestly making me overly stressed and emotional which doesn’t help the process. I need help seeing the light because I’m starting to lose hope.
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Replies
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So the scale isn't increasing, you've lost 1.5 lbs
It sounds like you're not actually accurately logging your calories with a food scale.
It also sounds like you're not following a structured training program.
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1 inch reduction on your waist means that you've lost much more than 1lb of fat. Your muscles are just switching back on, so they are offsetting the effects of the fat losses. In my opinion, if you keep things going the way that you are you will see bigger reductions in the next few weeks.7
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Your muscles are retaining water for repair (most likely) - and that's a good thing. Don't worry about macros (except for protein - make sure you get enough of that). Don't worry about sodium unless you have a blood pressure issue. Don't worry about water retention unless you have a specific issue there either.
1200 is probably not enough.....but, you can tweak that if need be. Be sure to fuel your workouts.
Finally, it's been a fairly short time so far. Don't be in a rush. Can you do more than when you started? If so, you're on your way. "Feeling the burn" doesn't mean a whole lot when it comes to strength training btw.5 -
TriPaulCantRun wrote: »1 inch reduction on your waist means that you've lost much more than 1lb of fat. Your muscles are just switching back on, so they are offsetting the effects of the fat losses. In my opinion, if you keep things going the way that you are you will see bigger reductions in the next few weeks.
I'll be charitable and assume that you meant water retention and not muscle gain.5 -
Thank you........1
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If you're accurately logging your food/exercise (meaning not guesstimating portion sizes or using incorrect entries) it's most likely water weight is masking some of your loss.
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"It's worthwhile remembering that you're trying to lose fat, not water".
Gold nugget from that post.1 -
I honestly don't think you're eating enough. I bet your target calorie range even before working out is higher than 1200. 1200 is usually when you're close to goal weight. Add to that working out often and for a long duration, your body doesn't have enough fuel. Try calculating your exercise calories and consume them. I would be willing to bet you'll see the scale start to move.7
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Maybe try to do more cardio. Weight lifting is great and you should keep that up but if you incorporate more time doing cardio you will burn more calories. I do a minimum of 30 min a day4
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But are you using a food scale to track your caloric intake? I'll be honest I think you're eating more than you think. However, losing a pound in a month isn't bad. If you want to lose more you gotta be more consistent with your tracking. I've lost 42 pounds so far.2
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I think it's just water retention. You mentioned increasing exercise from 3 days to 6 days. That alone can cause water retention that will mask fat loss.6
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I agree with the above posts: you're doing fine, and starting new exercise or increasing frequency often leads to water retention. The last time I made a substantial change in my workouts it took about six weeks for the water-weight to drop. That said, I think you may want to take a hard look at your logging. If you were maintaining or gaining weight at 185 lbs, you were probably eating about 2000 calories a day on average, and that's assuming you have a sedentary job and were doing no exercise at all (I like this calculator for figuring out calorie levels, but most of them are within a couple hundred calories for most people). This is totally fine and very normal, but if you were underestimating then, you may well be doing the same now. 1200 is very low and shouldn't be necessary at your height and weight. In my experience at least, this process goes a lot smoother once you have a more accurate grasp on your intake. Water, macros, and sodium don't directly impact weight loss - only calories matter. Just don't give up - you can do this!3
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I portion all of my food, specifically scaling my protein and carbs, between fruits and veggies I stick to one apple a day or half of grapefruit, for veggies, it’s always one cup or more spinach or kale, and the occasional cauliflower, I always measure so that I can correctly utilize the nutrition infor to correctly track my macros and calories. I have done the biggest loser before at my job and lost a total of 27 lbs in 3 months... kept it off and maintained and now I’m trying to go for the other 30 I was originally aiming for. Just the scale is not budging at all this time. I’ve had three knee surgeries (2 left/1 right) so I have to watch what I do cardio wise otherwise my knees get irritated as they are both bone on bone already. I feel stronger and feel like there is developing definition. I just feel like everything is just growing underneath all of the fat. I can tell the inch I lost from my waist was definitely from the love handle area, it’s just my humongous butt and thunder thighs are just growing bigger and bigger.2
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All of my weight is south of my belly button. I’ve always had a fairly skinny waist but big hips, big butt, big thighs and big calves. I don’t do heavy weights with my legs because of my knee injuries but I do lunges, squats, leg press and quite a few inner/outer thigh and hip exercises.1
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But your weight IS budging. You lost 1 lb on the scale, and considering as everyone else has said you are most likely retaining water for muscle repair, you probably have lost more than that.
With your stats, you should expect to lose 0.5lbs - 1 lb per week. As a woman, you also should expect that you will see water weight changes tied to your hormonal cycle, your workout intensity, and your diet. I can gain or lose as much as 5 lbs of water weight over the course of a week, and that can easily cover up fat loss or gain on the scale. You need to patient. One month is nothing
You're looking for the trend over time. 3 -
labridge71488 wrote: »I portion all of my food, specifically scaling my protein and carbs, between fruits and veggies I stick to one apple a day or half of grapefruit, for veggies, it’s always one cup or more spinach or kale, and the occasional cauliflower, I always measure so that I can correctly utilize the nutrition infor to correctly track my macros and calories. I have done the biggest loser before at my job and lost a total of 27 lbs in 3 months... kept it off and maintained and now I’m trying to go for the other 30 I was originally aiming for. Just the scale is not budging at all this time. I’ve had three knee surgeries (2 left/1 right) so I have to watch what I do cardio wise otherwise my knees get irritated as they are both bone on bone already. I feel stronger and feel like there is developing definition. I just feel like everything is just growing underneath all of the fat. I can tell the inch I lost from my waist was definitely from the love handle area, it’s just my humongous butt and thunder thighs are just growing bigger and bigger.
How do you determine a portion?0 -
Using macros, I portion all of my meals to fit 25/45/30. So I pre-measure a days worth of food and then break it up between meals0
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labridge71488 wrote: »Using macros, I portion all of my meals to fit 25/45/30. So I pre-measure a days worth of food and then break it up between meals
Do you use a food scale?1 -
Yes0
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If you're only eating 1200 calories a day (and assuming that you are being accurate in that measurement) I'd actually say you're not eating enough if you're working out for 1 1/2 hours a day 6 days a week. 1200 is usually minimal calories without working out.
You do have to find what works for your body, but you have also significantly changed your workout routines in a short period - from nothing to now 6 days a week is a lot. Your body and muscles are still adjusting. It takes me a good 4-6 weeks to level back out to normal after a dramatic increase in my workouts (which, for me this winter, has meant I've never gotten to that point because as soon as my workouts weren't very difficult to complete I was upping the intensity and duration).
It's going to take a bit to figure out what works best for your body and your workouts, too. A month is way too short of a time to have that all figured out.1 -
I'm confused you say you lost a pound in a month which is good, but you say your weight is increasing. Are you gaining weight??? And are you gaining inches around your body?0
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Well I had managed to slowly get down to 178 but then every day I was gaining a pound back with no change in diet or water. I meal prep everything and check mark how many 24oz water bottles I drink to make sure I’m drinking enough. So there isn’t a change in my intake daily. It’s just alarming to me to see it continuously growing rather than fluctuating or staying the same. I’ve never had this happen to my body before where I literally feel like I’m going backwards. My clothes are tighter and the scale was going up and I worry that it’s going to continue to do so1
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labridge71488 wrote: »Well I had managed to slowly get down to 178 but then every day I was gaining a pound back with no change in diet or water. I meal prep everything and check mark how many 24oz water bottles I drink to make sure I’m drinking enough. So there isn’t a change in my intake daily. It’s just alarming to me to see it continuously growing rather than fluctuating or staying the same. I’ve never had this happen to my body before where I literally feel like I’m going backwards. My clothes are tighter and the scale was going up and I worry that it’s going to continue to do so
These are normal daily fluctuations. It's good that you seem to be tracking consistently, but you won't see a loss on the scale every day, even when you're doing everything right. All of this sounds like water retention and/or TOM increases, all of which are normal.
Keep an eye on things, but if you're spot-on with your weighing/measuring of food and eating in a deficit, then your weight will trend down over a course of several weeks.3
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