Gaining weight despite being on point

Your calorie calculation is off somewhere, and/or there's an undiagnosed medical issue going on. It's possible that your Fitbit is overstating your calorie burn, which happens sometimes. Even an HRM can get it wrong in some situations. You might also be unintentionally using bad MFP database entries. Still, 30 pounds in 5 months seems like more than just a few bad entries and a little bit of exercise calorie inaccuracy. That indicates an average surplus of approximately 700 calories a day [(3500 cals/pound * 30 pounds)/150 days], which is way more than what I'd expect from minor logging errors.

Here's what I'd do:
- Have folks double check your MFP food log by making it public.
- If you haven't had a medical checkup recently, do that and make sure everything's in order.
- Go back into a deficit to reach the weight you want to maintain.
- Once you get back to your goal weight, "reverse diet" by gradually adding calories back until your weight stabilizes. That's your maintenance calorie goal.

psychod787 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

psychod787 wrote: »

Well.... in kind of the same boat my man. Lost a lot of weight quickly. You did not destroy your metabolism. I will say something a great person told me recently. Sometimes your leanest weight is not your ideal weight. I am becoming a believer in bf settling range vs set point. There is a weight that your body will settle at over time with diet, activity, lifestyle all line up. I would go into greater detail, but it would take too long. I am currently doing an experiment on myself to see if it is true. Feel free to friend me and reach out. I would only leave you with one piece of advice. Reverse dieting will probably do nothing for you. Do the research.

Reverse dieting helps some people. Doesn't help everyone. Worth a try, maybe. Little downside.

@AnnPT77 well.. yes or no. If the OP is still having hunger/hormone issues, is it wise to advice someone to go back into a deficit? Ok... let's bring on the woo's here but.... (takes a deep breath).... we know leptin is produced by fat cells. Its concentration is directly correlated to the size of fat cells. Many people think that it is a master hormone not only controlling hunger,satiety, but also thyroid, sex hormones ect by acting directly on the hypothalamus. Jmho, but is it WISE to advise someone already having what COULD be considered malnutrition issues to go back into a deficit ???

A reverse diet can start from anywhere: It doesn't have to start from a deficit.

But personally, I wouldn't recommend a reverse diet for OP right now, either, physically or psycologically. (Reverse diets can be useful in the abstract for some people with a depressed energy level; OP reports depressed energy level but that was not the clearest or most helpful or most complete comment in this context, so for that I apologize.

First and foremost, I'd recommend a doctor visit, to look at thyroid and nutritional issues (blood tests), and perhaps a Registered Dietician referral.

Something is amiss here. OP reports being 5'6", male, starting at a goal weight of 146 pounds, and gaining 30 pounds in 5 months (if I'm reading him right). He eats 2000-2500 calories (QS calculates an average of 2214), he works out 3 times a week (we don't know duration or modality), and has eaten anything from 100% to 25% of the exercise calories back while continuing to gain. The exercise calories come from a Fitbit that has a HRM.

For discussion purposes, I'll go with that 2214 calorie estimate (which should include the exercise calories eaten back, more or less, based on OP's report of eating more on exercise days). With 30 pounds gained in 5 months, we're looking at a daily calorie surplus in the vicinity of 700 calories (30 pounds is 3500 calories X 30 pounds = 105,000 extra calories stored as fat, very roughly; divided by about 150 days in 5 months to get 700). The implication is that OP's TDEE is actually 2214 - 700 or 1514, which is only very slightly more than he reports eating while losing weight (1400, though he ate back no exercise, so if it was still around 3 x 500 calories weekly exercise, his effective daily average intake was 1400 - 214 or 1186.

I didn't see where he told us how fast he lost weight at that intake, but it seems likely it was fast. (If we had more data, we could do comparative "TDEE guess" estimates from that.)

Regardless, now at 176, he's still gaining at 2214 average calories, which is only 418 calories above the Scooby guess BMR (which admittedly could be a high estimate if he's materially older than 30). But it doesn't make sense.

(Curiously, he's about the same height I am, and I maintain at about that gross calorie level . . . while mid-130s, a little more active athletically, but female and 63 years old. That's part of what makes it so surprising to me, and makes me suspect something is wrong.)

He reports "still experiencing other symptoms like lack of energy, lethargic during my workouts, always hungry all the time, never feeling full (satiated) unless i eat tons of food and lack of libido". His TDEE (based on data reported about intake/gain/etc.) is very low. His intake was, a few months back, VeryVery low. Nutritional issues will have been likely at that intake, I would think.

OP is reporting careful logging, no cheats, nothing missed (not sure how to think about that "never full unless I eat tons of food" idea in this context, but if that's rare it's NBD in the big picture).

It's possible that OP's maintenance calories are lower than average, so that the calculators and Fitbit overestimate his calorie burn. That's possible, but 700 calories worth of it is a low probability proposition.

The only other possible source of variation I can think of is the exercise being significantly over-estimated (which HRM devices will of course do, in some cases, for weight training, HIIT, and even regular intervals; and depending on the nature of the exercise, the net vs. gross exercise calories issue could be in there too (if long-duration mild exercise). But overestimating exercise, if exercise is 500 calories X 3 times a week or 1500 calories, doesn't begin to explain a 700 calorie daily gap.

Doctor. I'd recommend doctor.

Reverse diet could have role sometime in the future, given low intake and depressed energy level.

But doctor first.

While waiting for the appointment: OP, how is your nutrition? Are you hitting protein, fats goals as minimums, routinely? Eating plenty of veggies and fruits (at least 5 servings daily, more if possible)?

Hang in there, OP, you can figure this out, and I'm betting you can eventually get to feeling better, while maintaining weight, too.

Best wishes!