Lesson learned...I am finally losing weight again!

wmweeza
wmweeza Posts: 319 Member
edited February 2020 in Health and Weight Loss
I have been religiously tracking every bite of food I eat for several years and going to the gym the last 9 months for 3 days a week and physical therapy 2 days a week. Oddly enough my weight loss COMPLETELY stalled! I had horrible pains recently in my back (unrelated, it's arthritis) and my doc forbade me from working out for almost the last month...and guess what? My 9 month plateau broke! Guess when I joined my gym? 9 months ago.
It was my muscles retaining water. I was working out every week without fail with no breaks, yet no weight lost, even though my clothes were fitting better. I have steadily been losing weight the last 2 weeks that I've had time off.
So, lesson learned: The scale may not budge even if you are doing everything right. My plan from here on out is to workout as usual for 2-3 weeks a month, and then take a week just for swimming and light yoga to give my muscles a break, I think that should fix the scale issue

Replies

  • jelleigh
    jelleigh Posts: 743 Member
    That's really interesting! Can I ask how many lbs of water you were retaining from that? I've been curious if I'm retaining since I started doing a weight routine 6 weeks ago. I feel/look better (which is enough honestly but I'm still curious) but haven't lost anything scale wise .
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,464 Member
    Arthritis could be the key here. Arthritis plus exercise could affect water retention, neat, and ??
    Someone else can state it better than I can.
  • JPaigeWatts
    JPaigeWatts Posts: 5 Member
    wmweeza wrote: »
    I have been religiously tracking every bite of food I eat for several years and going to the gym the last 9 months for 3 days a week and physical therapy 2 days a week. Oddly enough my weight loss COMPLETELY stalled! I had horrible pains recently in my back (unrelated, it's arthritis) and my doc forbade me from working out for almost the last month...and guess what? My 9 month plateau broke! Guess when I joined my gym? 9 months ago.
    It was my muscles retaining water. I was working out every week without fail with no breaks, yet no weight lost, even though my clothes were fitting better. I have steadily been losing weight the last 2 weeks that I've had time off.
    So, lesson learned: The scale may not budge even if you are doing everything right. My plan from here on out is to workout as usual for 2-3 weeks a month, and then take a week just for swimming and light yoga to give my muscles a break, I think that should fix the scale issue


    Sometimes our bodies just need rest from hard exercise, especially when we are under doctors care for an issue. I applaud you for knowing there are still ways for being physically active (ie, swimming, etc...) that can still help keep you physically fit without the added stress on your body when your body says “no”.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    So when your stall broke did the scale catch up completely with your fat loss? In other words if you were trying to lose 1 pound per week for 9 months you would have lost close to 40 pounds of water. Otherwise you were not retaining a pound of water for every pound of fat loss to zero out the scale losses.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    Another possibility: Over-exercise - too much volume, frequency, and/or intensity ** - tends to bleed activity out of daily life, in compensation. That can also lead to slowed weight loss.

    I'm not suggesting this would be the one and only thing going on, but could be a contributor.

    Five pounds or so would be high-ish water retention for someone at/approaching a normal bodyweight, and it doesn't just keep increasing and increasing to hide gradually increasing fat loss. I agree with others: Something else was going on, in a stall of 9 months.

    ** How much is "too much" exercise? Varies by individual, and especially varies with an individual's fitness level. "Too much" for a li'l ol' lady my age (64) who might be starting out on a new exercise program after decades of inactivity is not "too much" for a well-conditioned elite athlete, obviously. But there is some amount of "much" that's "too much" for each of them.

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