Can someone help me understand this weight gain?

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Grasschopper
Grasschopper Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ok so I've been focused on my health pretty seriously for the last year now. Started out last summer at 262-265 lbs (I'm 45 yrs old, 5'9") and knew I had to get my act together. Fast forward to now, I'm down ~45 lbs (yea me), I eat MUCH more healthy and exercise regularly. Since February I've been doing intermittent fasting and using MFP to track my calories. Currently have it set to 1 lb a week weight loss (last month) as a break from the calorie deficit of 2 lbs per week. I weigh myself nearly every day on my Nokia Body + wifi scale. I'm a cyclist I play volleyball and recently bought a half rack, bench and a bunch of weights to do strength work.

My weigh in's are consistant: wake up, go to the bathroom, shower, get on scale (Nokia suggests take weight within 30 min of waking after bathroom use, before eating and with damp feet for best measurements)

Yesterday: 216.0 lbs - 60.6 lbs fat mass - 147.7 lbs muscle mass - body water 109.8 lbs
Today: 218.4 lbs - 62.3 lbs fat mass - 147.8 lbs muscle mass - body water 110.5 lbs

So in 24 hours I gained 2.4 lbs and it was nearly all fat?

My day yesterday: Drank my superfood/protein smoothie around 1:00p and splurged a bit with a pack of pop tarts total 860 calories. Got home from work and had a couple Shakology no bake cookies (247 cal) before getting on the bike for a workout 51 min/469 cal burned (that number is accurate BTW, measured with power meter). Lifted arms (bench press, curls, skull crushers) did some planks. Went out for Chinese with about 750 calories remaining (after adding back the exercise cal) and probably went over by about 750 calories (hard to tell but I'm intentionally estimating high with that from what I can see on MFP and knowing what I ate).

How in the heck does that add up to 2.3 lbs of fat gain? Or even weight gain? Yes it was a bit of a splurge day...but not thousands of calories over. Help me understand what happened...thanks.

Replies

  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    The body composition measurements aren't very accurate. Any weight you gained in 24 hours is more food in your digestive system and water retention.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    It's likely due to high sodium meals and water retention, or water retention from your muscles repairing themselves after heavy exercise. 2lbs is nothing. Expect a +/- 5lb fluctuation on a normal basis. Weigh in once a week at the same time and track your progress over several weeks. Also, eating out can't be accurately logged. Use a food scale always, and expect calories logged when eating out to be under-estimated always. The fist thing a restaurant will do (pretty much any of them) is use tons of oil and tons of salt for flavor, etc. Also, re-calculate your calories every 5 lbs lost because your required calories to maintain your weight will go down. Don't wait for MFP to auto-adjust this for you, do it yourself by running the wizard after every 5 lbs lost.
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
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    Your high sodium dinner. Chill dude, you’ve got this. Awesome progress so far!
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,069 Member
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  • Amy8Lyn
    Amy8Lyn Posts: 27 Member
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    Those smart scales can have a significant error rate +/- several %. while its good to see progression don't let those small changes get to you, there is no way you gained over 2lbs of fat overnight. water retention can effect the readings on these devices, so as many say...a salty dinner, or for women monthly hormonal changes can affect the reading. So, don't sweat it, you're doing awesome! And anytime you worry about weight gain, a pound....a TRUE pound requires aprox 3,500 calories ABOVE your maintenance! Keep on rocking!
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
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    Water retention can cause +/- 5lb swings on the scale. Other things than contribute are time of day, if you've used the toilet, how much food is in your digestive system. Monitor weight for more than a month to see the real change. Weight loss isn't linear

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