I don't understand how I'm gaining weight
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utomjordingen
Posts: 20 Member
Hello! I've been suffering for an eating disorder for years, but started eating about a year ago. I'm vegan and I eat the right amount. I also walk a minimum of 15.000s steps a day, average at 20 000. How can I be gaining weight despite this? I don't understand... I'm at a healthy weight. I'm 158 and weigh 56 now, and I'm 20 years old. I don't want to become overweight by eating healthy and exercising.
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Replies
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Over what period of time have you gained weight? Your maintenance isn't one specific weight it's usually a range, you will see normal fluctuations of a couple of pounds, particularly around TOM or if you've eaten something more sodium or carb heavy.4
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It could be due to gained muscle in legs from all the walking you do, like you walk a lot so I wouldn't be surprised as muscle weighs more than fat.56
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It could be due to gained muscle in legs from all the walking you do, like you walk a lot so I wouldn't be surprised as muscle weighs more than fat.
Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat, it's more dense and even with a progressive strength training program you wouldn't expect to see a particularly large gain on the scale for a female, let alone from walking.
A useful explanation of why this is one of the worst diet myths bandied about https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/weight-loss-plateau-myth-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat/11 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »It could be due to gained muscle in legs from all the walking you do, like you walk a lot so I wouldn't be surprised as muscle weighs more than fat.
Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat, it's more dense and even with a progressive strength training program you wouldn't expect to see a particularly large gain on the scale for a female, let alone from walking.
A useful explanation of why this is one of the worst diet myths bandied about https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/weight-loss-plateau-myth-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat/
To your previcious comment, I was at 42-45 kg a year ago. Since then I've gained to 56, where I am today. I thought that it would stop at about 52, but it just kept going.
The muscle things, I've been hoping it was that....but I still don't know or understand.3 -
If you've gained it over the year then you're eating just slightly over maintenance. Your previous eating disorder may have you at a lower TDEE than you might normally have for your stats.
You've gained just under a half pound per week which would be approximately 250 calories a day over maintenance.
Healthy eating doesn't necessarily imply weight management, you can still overeat healthy things, without knowing too much about your disorder I wouldn't want to suggest getting too obsessive with numbers or food, maybe just be mindful of any higher calorie "healthy" foods you're eating.
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The road to recovery is not an easy one. I'm so proud of you for your strength and determination. A few questions: how long have you been vegan? And what's your calorie intake average?
Be patient as your body heals. You have to continually remind yourself that it's okay to be kind to your body. It's only been a year since you've increased your calorie intake to healthy levels. After a period of limited calorie intake, your body will need to rebound, often seeing a period of weight gain before maintaining a stable weight. Have you seen a counselor/nutritionist? Part of recovery is rediscovering hunger cues. Perhaps consider setting the scale aside for a period and allowing your body to tell you what's normal. Most of this battle is mental.
All that being said, I know that it's incredibly frustrating. This is new ground and it's hard to tell if you've overshot as you recover. I'd love to give some input based on your answers to the above questions.
You're a rockstar!6 -
The road to recovery is not an easy one. I'm so proud of you for your strength and determination. A few questions: how long have you been vegan? And what's your calorie intake average?
Be patient as your body heals. You have to continually remind yourself that it's okay to be kind to your body. It's only been a year since you've increased your calorie intake to healthy levels. After a period of limited calorie intake, your body will need to rebound, often seeing a period of weight gain before maintaining a stable weight. Have you seen a counselor/nutritionist? Part of recovery is rediscovering hunger cues. Perhaps consider setting the scale aside for a period and allowing your body to tell you what's normal. Most of this battle is mental.
All that being said, I know that it's incredibly frustrating. This is new ground and it's hard to tell if you've overshot as you recover. I'd love to give some input based on your answers to the above questions.
You're a rockstar!
Thank you so much for your kind comment...it means a lot to me, really. I've been vegan for about 8 months, vegetarian for all my life. Myfitnesspal says that I should be eating 2000 with the exercise I'm doing, so I eat about 1500-1700-ish. I set the scale for a while, but was so frustrated once I stepped on it again
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tinkerbellang83 wrote: »If you've gained it over the year then you're eating just slightly over maintenance. Your previous eating disorder may have you at a lower TDEE than you might normally have for your stats.
You've gained just under a half pound per week which would be approximately 250 calories a day over maintenance.
Healthy eating doesn't necessarily imply weight management, you can still overeat healthy things, without knowing too much about your disorder I wouldn't want to suggest getting too obsessive with numbers or food, maybe just be mindful of any higher calorie "healthy" foods you're eating.
But Myfitnesspal says that I should be eating 2000 with the exercise I'm doing, so I eat about 1500-1700-ish, so I shouldn't be gaining weight...Some weeks I eat less and I gain more weight those weeks than the weeks I eat 1700! I just dont get it...1 -
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A few more questions:
1) Do you mind sharing what types of foods you eat on a regular basis? Since you're vegan, your food groups are limited -- do you focus on whole foods more (grains, fruits, nuts, beans) -- or do you use a lot of prepared/processed foods? Perhaps a balance of both? And do you limit fats at all?
You're bound to get several people insisting that CICO is king, but I firmly believe that food type is incredibly important in fat assessment. This is speaking from 140 lbs loss experience.
2) Do you take measurements as well as scale readings? This will help you as you wonder about muscle/fluid/fat gain. Remember that even your bones will increase in density, as your body is healing from the "years," as you've described it, of eating less than your body needs.
3) Just out of curiosity, your average step intake: is that due to your daily movement or added exercise? How many steps do you normally get without added exercise?
4) Perhaps TMI, how regular are your bowel movements?24 -
First off, you're 20, so the possibility exists that you're still gaining because you're still growing.
At 120 lbs, you're probably burning a lot less than the step counter estimate that MFP is using. If your only activity is the 15-25k walking steps a day, that's 7-12 miles. and so 400-800 calories per day. with and estimated BMR of around 1300, that puts you to maintain at 1700-2200.
Acknowledging that you're coming from and ED background and not knowing what might trigger recurrence, it's difficult to make good suggestions other than to point out that you're probably underestimating how much you're eating... as others have said.
It doesn't matter how or what you eat. It only matters how much. You can become overweight as a vegan, keto, IF, etc.
For you, I would suggest adding or adjusting your activity to have a bit more variety and a bit of strength training. Bodyweight is fine for now. Pushups, pullups, squats, dips, etc.
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A few more questions:
1) Do you mind sharing what types of foods you eat on a regular basis? Since you're vegan, your food groups are limited -- do you focus on whole foods more (grains, fruits, nuts, beans) -- or do you use a lot of prepared/processed foods? Perhaps a balance of both? And do you limit fats at all?
You're bound to get several people insisting that CICO is king, but I firmly believe that food type is incredibly important in fat assessment. This is speaking from 140 lbs loss experience.
2) Do you take measurements as well as scale readings? This will help you as you wonder about muscle/fluid/fat gain. Remember that even your bones will increase in density, as your body is healing from the "years," as you've described it, of eating less than your body needs.
3) Just out of curiosity, your average step intake: is that due to your daily movement or added exercise? How many steps do you normally get without added exercise?
4) Perhaps TMI, how regular are your bowel movements?
1) For breakfast I usually eat fruit, oats or cereal. Maybe a toast with pb & tomato if there's nothing else, but i prefer oats or cereal. I never eat lunch because I'm just not hungry in the middle of the day, but I'll have a fruit or some nuts or something like that. Dinner is usually some kind of carb like potatoes with vegan meat (brand anamma right now because we've got the whole freezer full haha!) but sometimes I have breakfast for dinner. In the evening I'll often have some chocolate or maybe crisps if my boyfriend also has some. I snack some too during the days but often on some dry cereal or fruit, but I keep track.
2) I do, and it says that my body fat is lkie 22 or 21% if I remember correctly.
3) I usually just walk alot with my boyfriend, out here on the country where we live or in city with friends and it adds up to about 20 000 steps and it says on my step counter that I burn about 600-1200 calories from it depending on how fast I walk. The other day we walked 45 000 and ofc that was alot!
4) Every other day I think, sometimes less if I eat less, sometimes daily when I eat more3 -
Your body has to recover. Let it. IMHO....10
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utomjordingen wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »If you've gained it over the year then you're eating just slightly over maintenance. Your previous eating disorder may have you at a lower TDEE than you might normally have for your stats.
You've gained just under a half pound per week which would be approximately 250 calories a day over maintenance.
Healthy eating doesn't necessarily imply weight management, you can still overeat healthy things, without knowing too much about your disorder I wouldn't want to suggest getting too obsessive with numbers or food, maybe just be mindful of any higher calorie "healthy" foods you're eating.
But Myfitnesspal says that I should be eating 2000 with the exercise I'm doing, so I eat about 1500-1700-ish, so I shouldn't be gaining weight...Some weeks I eat less and I gain more weight those weeks than the weeks I eat 1700! I just dont get it...
Myfitnesspal can only do an estimate based on your stats, it can't take into account any damage you have done to your metabolism as a result of your eating disorder, and even without that it's still only a loose estimate and you have to adjust based on real world data.
It's quite easy to underestimate food intake and overestimate calorie burns. But the weight trend is the true reflection of what you're doing and gaining 24lbs over a period of around 52 weeks is just under a half pound per week, which means you're eating more than you're burning - simple.
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psychod787 wrote: »Your body has to recover. Let it. IMHO....
I guess so....I just don't want to get overweight by keeping this up.6 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »utomjordingen wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »If you've gained it over the year then you're eating just slightly over maintenance. Your previous eating disorder may have you at a lower TDEE than you might normally have for your stats.
You've gained just under a half pound per week which would be approximately 250 calories a day over maintenance.
Healthy eating doesn't necessarily imply weight management, you can still overeat healthy things, without knowing too much about your disorder I wouldn't want to suggest getting too obsessive with numbers or food, maybe just be mindful of any higher calorie "healthy" foods you're eating.
But Myfitnesspal says that I should be eating 2000 with the exercise I'm doing, so I eat about 1500-1700-ish, so I shouldn't be gaining weight...Some weeks I eat less and I gain more weight those weeks than the weeks I eat 1700! I just dont get it...
Myfitnesspal can only do an estimate based on your stats, it can't take into account any damage you have done to your metabolism as a result of your eating disorder, and even without that it's still only a loose estimate and you have to adjust based on real world data.
It's quite easy to underestimate food intake and overestimate calorie burns. But the weight trend is the true reflection of what you're doing and gaining 24lbs over a period of around 52 weeks is just under a half pound per week, which means you're eating more than you're burning - simple.
I usually overestimate on my calorie counter just to make sure. Like if I've had a cup of crisps I'll write that I had 2 cups just to be sure I didn't count more than I had ...So it shouldn't be that?
Will my metabolism never be okay? Do I have to like live of 800 calories just not to gain weight because of my ed in the past? 6 -
utomjordingen wrote: »psychod787 wrote: »Your body has to recover. Let it. IMHO....
I guess so....I just don't want to get overweight by keeping this up.
Of course not. But right now you’re at a healthy weight for your height, so breathe. This is a process, and it’s going to be a long one. You have thousands of weeks ahead of you. There will be plenty of time to try things, learn things, make mistakes, and make adjustments. It’s not going to just stop and let you go on autopilot the second you’ve reached a number you can tolerate seeing on the scale, and it’s also not going to suddenly stop the second you go over. Your body, its quirks, its needs, and its changes are yours for life.
For now, your focus needs to be on convincing it, in all good faith, that it is safe. I know you’re doing really difficult things against your instincts and that’s a strain, but you have to keep it up. Stop trying to overestimate your food and start measuring it. Eat it all. Take a rest now and then. Rebuild your body’s trust, and it will be better able to respond.4 -
utomjordingen wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »utomjordingen wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »If you've gained it over the year then you're eating just slightly over maintenance. Your previous eating disorder may have you at a lower TDEE than you might normally have for your stats.
You've gained just under a half pound per week which would be approximately 250 calories a day over maintenance.
Healthy eating doesn't necessarily imply weight management, you can still overeat healthy things, without knowing too much about your disorder I wouldn't want to suggest getting too obsessive with numbers or food, maybe just be mindful of any higher calorie "healthy" foods you're eating.
But Myfitnesspal says that I should be eating 2000 with the exercise I'm doing, so I eat about 1500-1700-ish, so I shouldn't be gaining weight...Some weeks I eat less and I gain more weight those weeks than the weeks I eat 1700! I just dont get it...
Myfitnesspal can only do an estimate based on your stats, it can't take into account any damage you have done to your metabolism as a result of your eating disorder, and even without that it's still only a loose estimate and you have to adjust based on real world data.
It's quite easy to underestimate food intake and overestimate calorie burns. But the weight trend is the true reflection of what you're doing and gaining 24lbs over a period of around 52 weeks is just under a half pound per week, which means you're eating more than you're burning - simple.
I usually overestimate on my calorie counter just to make sure. Like if I've had a cup of crisps I'll write that I had 2 cups just to be sure I didn't count more than I had ...So it shouldn't be that?
Will my metabolism never be okay? Do I have to like live of 800 calories just not to gain weight because of my ed in the past?
It may just be down to the entries you're choosing in the database, or the exercise you're logging, if you're eating around 1500-1700ish then no you don't need to live off 800, you're only a little way over maintenance not a 1000 calories over it. You're still bang in the middle of a healthy weight range at the moment so no need to panic.
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i recommend you reach out to your treatment team and talk to them - you are always in recovery from an ED, and they can potentially help you with some of the conflicting thoughts going on in your mind22
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I may be way out of line here Tinkerbelle, but perhaps logging calories after years of an eating disorder is maybe not such a good thing to be doing? It might be more beneficial to just try to eat 3 times a day, healthy food and don't worry about the scales/calories for a bit.7
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