Gaining weight, help!

You are probably grossly overestimating your burns and underestimating what you eat. I would start by not adding any calories for your workouts and measuring with a scale everything you eat, and aim at reversing what happened in a month or two.

As much as I love Leslie Sansone’s workouts, I found I had to step up my workouts to see any results. I used to do the half hour workouts too, and found they were useful for maintenance, but not long term weight loss results. You may have to step up to her 4 or 5 mile walk.
Also, the number of miles registered on my Fitbit were not the same as what the exercise claimed. For instance, when I would do the 4 mile walk, it would only register as 2 miles, around 200 calories burned. I wonder if you could be overestimating your calorie burn.

Your may not need pre and post mini meals for the sansone walks. The food scale is your friend.

sijomial wrote: »

cmentis182 wrote: »

I am not really qualified to give any advice but just my experience, I have been working out for about four days. *Note, I used to be an active kid, just turned a couch potato for the last 5 years* I also bought this cheap wrist band, Xiaomi Band 4 which counts steps and have a few ranges of exercise sections that shows how much you burn. So, the first day, I jump roped about 2000+ and it took me somewhere between 24 minutes and I burned 120 calories. The next day, I did 2500+ jump rope and it took me around 27 minutes and I burned 145+ calories. On third day, I jump roped for another 2500+ times and it took me 33 minutes and it was a 220+ burn and today I jump roped 3600+ in 32 minutes and I burned 206 calories.

My point being, I think our body become efficient in doing the same sort of movements and it requires less energy, hence less burn.

Sorry but your point is false and your faith in the calorie counting ability of your band is misplaced.
To make that conclusion from 4 days of exercise doesn't make any kind of sense.

I dont think s/he was being conclusive of anything since s/he clearly said being an active kid and starting out again, instead s/he shared the point of the experience. Besides, the point definitely has some edge to it. No wonder its called cardiovascular health for nothin.

sijomial wrote: »

cmentis182 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

cmentis182 wrote: »

I am not really qualified to give any advice but just my experience, I have been working out for about four days. *Note, I used to be an active kid, just turned a couch potato for the last 5 years* I also bought this cheap wrist band, Xiaomi Band 4 which counts steps and have a few ranges of exercise sections that shows how much you burn. So, the first day, I jump roped about 2000+ and it took me somewhere between 24 minutes and I burned 120 calories. The next day, I did 2500+ jump rope and it took me around 27 minutes and I burned 145+ calories. On third day, I jump roped for another 2500+ times and it took me 33 minutes and it was a 220+ burn and today I jump roped 3600+ in 32 minutes and I burned 206 calories.

My point being, I think our body become efficient in doing the same sort of movements and it requires less energy, hence less burn.

Sorry but your point is false and your faith in the calorie counting ability of your band is misplaced.
To make that conclusion from 4 days of exercise doesn't make any kind of sense.

So you are saying that doing the same movements over and over again does not make it less strenuous for ourselves?

What I'm saying is that doing the same movement burns the same calories, strenous is a feeling and calories don't have feelings
Now if a person does exactly the weight bearing exercise and drops weight then yes their calorie burn drops. Not really a factor in 4 days.

That lifting 100lbs weight feels easier as you get stronger is still the same calorie burn - physics of mass moved over distance takes energy.
That running/cycling/rowing feels easier as you get fitter doesn't change the calorie burn in a significant way - it's just feels easier because your capabilities become higher.
That my heartrate dropped 20% doesn't mean I burn 20% less calories - my heart just pumps more efficiently.

Even for sports/exercises that involve improving skill levels and efficiency (swimming or rowing as examples) what actually happens is that you use the skill to go faster / go further.

Let me do the math. For someone starting over, four days of calorie deficit, with added exercise definitely has some mass deduction which might not be so apparent on someone working out for weeks or months. So there goes some calorie. Second point being calorie burn is somewhat correlated to heart rate and that is why we do HIIT workout. So the efficient you are, the less energy you have to use. The less the energy you use, the less your body has to use up to fuel it.

I meant I changed from a protein-centered breakfast to whole grain centered breakfast. I wait a little bit to digest and then do my workout. Afterwards I have water and some lean turkey cause I’m hungry, and it’s awhile until lunch.

As I said above, I use a metric digital kitchen scale. I’m not sure how much more precise I could be with weighing my food besides using grams? I cook from scratch and weigh everything and check loads of database entries to find what seems most accurate.

In the month I’ve been doing this, I’ve gained 10lbs! What the heck.

There's a disconnect somewhere and that's what we're trying to help you figure out. It would be difficult to gain 10 lbs in a month with the weighing and measuring accuracy you're describing. What kind of drinks do you like besides water. Can you think about some hidden calories somewhere that might be missing from the equation.

cmentis182 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

shirazumdraws wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

cmentis182 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

cmentis182 wrote: »

I am not really qualified to give any advice but just my experience, I have been working out for about four days. *Note, I used to be an active kid, just turned a couch potato for the last 5 years* I also bought this cheap wrist band, Xiaomi Band 4 which counts steps and have a few ranges of exercise sections that shows how much you burn. So, the first day, I jump roped about 2000+ and it took me somewhere between 24 minutes and I burned 120 calories. The next day, I did 2500+ jump rope and it took me around 27 minutes and I burned 145+ calories. On third day, I jump roped for another 2500+ times and it took me 33 minutes and it was a 220+ burn and today I jump roped 3600+ in 32 minutes and I burned 206 calories.

My point being, I think our body become efficient in doing the same sort of movements and it requires less energy, hence less burn.

Sorry but your point is false and your faith in the calorie counting ability of your band is misplaced.
To make that conclusion from 4 days of exercise doesn't make any kind of sense.

So you are saying that doing the same movements over and over again does not make it less strenuous for ourselves?

What I'm saying is that doing the same movement burns the same calories, strenous is a feeling and calories don't have feelings
Now if a person does exactly the weight bearing exercise and drops weight then yes their calorie burn drops. Not really a factor in 4 days.

That lifting 100lbs weight feels easier as you get stronger is still the same calorie burn - physics of mass moved over distance takes energy.
That running/cycling/rowing feels easier as you get fitter doesn't change the calorie burn in a significant way - it's just feels easier because your capabilities become higher.
That my heartrate dropped 20% doesn't mean I burn 20% less calories - my heart just pumps more efficiently.

Even for sports/exercises that involve improving skill levels and efficiency (swimming or rowing as examples) what actually happens is that you use the skill to go faster / go further.

Let me do the math. For someone starting over, four days of calorie deficit, with added exercise definitely has some mass deduction which might not be so apparent on someone working out for weeks or months. So there goes some calorie. Second point being calorie burn is somewhat correlated to heart rate and that is why we do HIIT workout. So the efficient you are, the less energy you have to use. The less the energy you use, the less your body has to use up to fuel it.

4 days of assumed weight loss leading to a significant difference in weight? Seriously?
As you say - lets do the math - let's say a 200lb person drops 1lb in 4 days - half a percent difference!

Heartrate and calories have a very loose correlation and only for some exercise. Not at all for strength training, can be reasonable for SOME people who happen to have an average exercise HR doing an appropriate exercise (mostly moderate and upwards steady state cardio).

I've seen three experienced cyclists producing the same power/actually burning the same calories but with HR up to 50% different. That's how variable it is.
And HIIT (true HIIT) is a perfect example of how not to use heartrate to estimate calories - it's likely to be massively over-estimated.

Does your car become more efficient and use less fuel because you use it every day to get to work?

Guys, all I wanted to say was that the exercise we do gets easier with time and like I previously mentioned I am not qualified to give advice, its just my experience, that too with a cheap wrist band of over just 4 days. Wasn't making any conclusion of whatsoever. And this calorie estimates are all too weird for me. I have recently started logging and I just realised I eat less than 1200 calories. And MFP says to maintain I need to eat 1440 calories. But then I have gained about 15 pounds over the course of five years. So the wrist band's estimation has not much value to me either. I guess I was just trying to say exercise gets easier. And I assumed that as we exert less force, we use less energy. But anywho, good to know the calorie burn doesn’t significantly change. So many new knowledge from around here only! Thanks!

You (and the OP of this thread) might learn some useful information from reading these things:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

That first one is old, but still true and informative.

On this thread, the advice from sijomial about exercise, heart rate, and calories is correct. In brief, as we get fitter, our heart and body get better at oxygen utilization, so our heart rate is lower when doing the same exercise. But that exercise is the same amount of work (in pretty much the physics sense of "work", unless influenced by moving around a smaller bodyweight), so requires the same amount of fuel, and calories are that fuel.

As we get fitter, the same exercise (at the same bodyweight) feels easier because we're better adapted to it **, but it burns the same number of calories. The fitness device may claim we burned fewer calories because our heart rate is lower, bu that's among the limitations of those devices: Their estimates can be wrong in that way. (Yes, they only estimate calorie burn; they don't measure it.)

** That adaptation is pretty much the definition of "improving fitness".

OP, I think the advice about using the Pacer app with your Apple watch and MFP could be helpful. Also, I'd repeat that calorie expenditure estimates - even from expensive devices like yours or mine - are still just estimates, and can be wrong. If you gained 10 pounds in a month, you'd need to have eating around 35,000 calories over your maintenance calories, in order for that to be fat - over 1000 calories extra per day - or to have moved that much less in daily life.

It's very unlikely you ate that much extra without noticing. Some people are moving quite a bit less lately in daily life because of "stay at home" orders or other such lifestyle changes, and haven't really clicked that that effects calorie expenditure as much as it does. But if you think it over, you'd know if you started somehow doing 1000+ calories less movement per day, or a combination of moving less and eating more that gets you to that same !000+ extra daily calories. If 1000+ daily calories isn't possible, then the 10 pounds isn't fat. (Assuming, as you say, that you're logging accurately, of course).

Someone may tell you that muscle growth is the explanation, but muscle mass gain is much slower than that (sadly), so that's not the explanation either.

That pretty much leaves some kind of water weight or digestive contents weirdness as the explanation. The "fluctuations" article I linked earlier in this post may be informative, in that respect.

A month is a long time for a water weight effect, but I'd consider waiting it out for another few weeks, if you had been losing at a reasonable rate before this.

Best wishes!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

OP, I think the advice about using the Pacer app with your Apple watch and MFP could be helpful. Also, I'd repeat that calorie expenditure estimates - even from expensive devices like yours or mine - are still just estimates, and can be wrong. If you gained 10 pounds in a month, you'd need to have eating around 35,000 calories over your maintenance calories, in order for that to be fat - over 1000 calories extra per day - or to have moved that much less in daily life.

I do not know OPs stats, but if I do this exercise for myself, middle-aged mum, 3 kids, office job, no opportunity to move much during lockdown unless planned, eating 2K calories per day would put me at 500 over my maintenance, and I can easily imagine a gain of 5-6 lbs in a month because of it. Adding a bit of water weight or constipation etc, it sounds totally normal to gain 10 lbs this way in just a few weeks.

The OP's exercise was 30 minutes of walking. If whatever device is giving enough calories to even bother [1] questioning what percentage to eat back, or [2] cause a huge weight gain, then pretty safe to say the device is flat wrong (unless the OP was already very, very over weight).. if memory serves, walking burns a net 30-something calories per mile per lbs weight of the walkee, and you can't walk all that far in 30 minutes.