Reverse Diet to Gradual Bulk > 5-week slow cut > Maintenance - Jumped 2lbs after cut?

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rachelbornstein13
rachelbornstein13 Posts: 11 Member
edited August 2021 in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
First off, my body goals: Build lean muscle, and maintain as much muscle while I lose fat

Since February I was on a reverse diet (escaping a long-term ~1400-1500 calorie cut where I no longer saw changes in my body and was too scared to eat more) by increasing my calories every month until I was eating 2050 calories/day (around May). I think at this caloric point was when I started bulking because I was gaining .4-.6lbs (fluctuating) every week.

With my workout regimen, my maintenance calories were ~1810.

Before I started eating the bulking 2050 calories, I weighed 117.6. After 6 week of eating like this, with 1 week I definitely wasn't eating enough because I was vacationing a week with my best friend and I could feel myself not hitting that caloric goal, I weighed 119.2 (I had one week I was at 120lbs, but again.. fluctuations).

I then entered a small cut just for 5 weeks (1565 calories rest, 1812 calories on workout days) of trying to only lose .5 lb/week. By the end of this 6-week cut I weighed 116.8lbs. I was happy my metabolism was responding to cuts again.

I then went back to maintenance this week so I could see how my body adjusted and then planned to go into the small -.5lb cut again for another week before then returning to maintenance for a few weeks while I move to Spain and find an apartment and find a gym.

In this ONE week I jumped back up to 119.2lbs on MAINTENANCE.

What are factors contributing to that increase in weight?

I think I'm going to eat maintenance one more week to see if my body will stabilize at this caloric intake.
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Workouts throughout all of this: 4-5x/week weight-lifting with one day of cardio.

Diet:
Maintenance: 1810 calories/day
Slow cut: 1565 rest days, 1812 workout days
Slow bulk: 2050 calories/day

On maintenance and bulking calories I was definitely eating at least 200g carbs/65g fat/at least ~113g protein everyday.

When I entered cut I definitely lowered to ~145g carbs/57g fat/ ~100g protein (I tried playing with vegan/vegetarian diets and the mix of that and trying to eat without going over cut made it hard to hit higher protein goals). On higher carbs I felt stronger and had more energy to get through my weight-lifting.

Why did I jump up the scale so fast returning to maintenance after only 5 weeks of cutting slowly? Like I wasn't even aiming for -1lb/week like most people because I want to preserve as much muscle as possible.

Replies

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,628 Member
    edited August 2021
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    You seem to be aware that you should be looking for a trend not just scale weight in isolation. Are you already using a weight trend app?

    You're also using fairly short-term adjustments and natural hormonal cycles might make it difficult to exactly compare 5-week time periods as you may be at different points of your cycle.

    While you seem to be quite in tune with how you're sculpting your body there does exist some uncertainty and variance and you're not an isolated machine.

    You can generally push for direction, and you seem to be doing so quite successfully; but expecting exact reactions to the exact calorie or gram maybe a bit iffy if you're freeform living.

    And as already mentioned your timelines are fairly short. February to August is six months barely. It sounds like you did a slow 0.5 per week, so 250 Cal, bulk for less than two months. Reading back you said 6 weeks

    I am not sure what studies may show about how long hormonal levels take to restore but I doubt it is a couple of months.

    Unless you're preparing for competition you may want to hang around expected maintenance for a bit...
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    In a week? That's water retention from a tiny bit more carbs, probably a tiny bit more sodium, increased average digestive contents in transit on their way to become waste, plus any other random source of water-retention changes that may be happening at the time (examples: changes in exercise, seasonal allergy inflammation, variation based on where you are in a monthly hormonal cycle, and many other possibilities).

    It's meaningless. If your logging is accurate, you went up around 250 calories in intake for a week. 25 x 7 = 1750 added calories over the week. Even if every single one of those added calories was stored as fat - which your personal history suggests they would not be - that would be 1750/3500 or half a pound of fat. So, the jump from 116 to 119 can't possibly be fat (within the normal laws of physics, unless you retreated to being immobile in bed or something), and it's highly, highly unlikely that there's even half a pound of fat. Likelihood: No added fat.

    Wait it out. It'll be fine. No point in stressing over water weight or waste.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,898 Member
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    Water weight. Many reasons for this, including being a female with a menstrual cycle:
    • A few years ago I regularly saw the scale jump 2-3 pounds when I ovulated and premenstrually.
    • Now that I am (hopefully) very close to menopause I've been seeing a 6 pound jump at ovulation.

    Also, you said, "move to Spain and find an apartment and find a gym."

    Moving is stressful (even if it is a happy move.) Stress can increase cortisol, which can also cause you to retain water.
  • rachelbornstein13
    rachelbornstein13 Posts: 11 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You seem to be aware that you should be looking for a trend not just scale weight in isolation. Are you already using a weight trend app?

    You're also using fairly short-term adjustments and natural hormonal cycles might make it difficult to exactly compare 5-week time periods as you may be at different points of your cycle.

    While you seem to be quite in tune with how you're sculpting your body there does exist some uncertainty and variance and you're not an isolated machine.

    You can generally push for direction, and you seem to be doing so quite successfully; but expecting exact reactions to the exact calorie or gram maybe a bit iffy if you're freeform living.

    And as already mentioned your timelines are fairly short. February to August is six months barely. It sounds like you did a slow 0.5 per week, so 250 Cal, bulk for less than two months. Reading back you said 6 weeks

    I am not sure what studies may show about how long hormonal levels take to restore but I doubt it is a couple of months.

    Unless you're preparing for competition you may want to hang around expected maintenance for a bit...


    Thanks for your reply. I am not doing any competitions but I'm finally at a point in my fitness journey where I am finally repairing metabolic damage i've done to myself with caloric restrictions and too much lifting with the restrictions. February-August is not that long, but it was enough for me to realize I can eat wayyyy more than I have been and allowed me to physically feel stronger once I was eating 2050 calories/day. I'm not scared of the scale when I weigh every week because I feel like I have control over all the variables and I understand there are bodily things happening inside me that affect the scale, but the jump was def catching me off guard because... there's no way 2lbs in one week was due to me overeating by 7000 calories!!! lol.

    I was only doing a super short cutting period to see if my metabolism has improved and would respond to it as well as try to lose any possible fat in that period before going back to maintenance again. I think maintenance is what is best for me these next few weeks-month because I will be in a different country and not have access to any weights until I find an apartment and get a gym membership— at least I'll be walking a lot. The only hard thing now once I'm in Spain is to "intuitively" reach my caloric goals for maintenance. D:
  • rachelbornstein13
    rachelbornstein13 Posts: 11 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Water weight. Many reasons for this, including being a female with a menstrual cycle:
    • A few years ago I regularly saw the scale jump 2-3 pounds when I ovulated and premenstrually.
    • Now that I am (hopefully) very close to menopause I've been seeing a 6 pound jump at ovulation.

    Also, you said, "move to Spain and find an apartment and find a gym."

    Moving is stressful (even if it is a happy move.) Stress can increase cortisol, which can also cause you to retain water.

    True I should probably take more conscious notes of days I ovulate and days I start my period in correlation to my weight fluctuations. I hate stress so much and I really wish I could trick my body to not feel stress lol. Any advice?
  • rachelbornstein13
    rachelbornstein13 Posts: 11 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    In a week? That's water retention from a tiny bit more carbs, probably a tiny bit more sodium, increased average digestive contents in transit on their way to become waste, plus any other random source of water-retention changes that may be happening at the time (examples: changes in exercise, seasonal allergy inflammation, variation based on where you are in a monthly hormonal cycle, and many other possibilities).

    It's meaningless. If your logging is accurate, you went up around 250 calories in intake for a week. 25 x 7 = 1750 added calories over the week. Even if every single one of those added calories was stored as fat - which your personal history suggests they would not be - that would be 1750/3500 or half a pound of fat. So, the jump from 116 to 119 can't possibly be fat (within the normal laws of physics, unless you retreated to being immobile in bed or something), and it's highly, highly unlikely that there's even half a pound of fat. Likelihood: No added fat.

    Wait it out. It'll be fine. No point in stressing over water weight or waste.

    Thank you for the reassurance!!! (: I might just have to hold on to maintenance calories for some time until I can settle in Spain and get a gym membership. I'm worried about hitting my goals abroad without a food scale and especially during the first few weeks I'm searching for an apartment and gym. I've been tracking for so long that I have great estimations of what raw meat weighs or what 3-4oz feels like. I know patterns of macro breakdowns for slices of bread, a serving of pasta, cheese, etc because I've tracked almost everyday and know what I enjoy eating.

    If that is you in your pic I ADMIRE you so hard. I want to look that lean!!! I'm only 5'0" so I feel like it would be hard to keep increasing my bulk calories past 2050 because I will feel so stuffed lol. I know many women who bulk eat in the mid 2500 calories.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    rachelbornstein13 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    In a week? That's water retention from a tiny bit more carbs, probably a tiny bit more sodium, increased average digestive contents in transit on their way to become waste, plus any other random source of water-retention changes that may be happening at the time (examples: changes in exercise, seasonal allergy inflammation, variation based on where you are in a monthly hormonal cycle, and many other possibilities).

    It's meaningless. If your logging is accurate, you went up around 250 calories in intake for a week. 25 x 7 = 1750 added calories over the week. Even if every single one of those added calories was stored as fat - which your personal history suggests they would not be - that would be 1750/3500 or half a pound of fat. So, the jump from 116 to 119 can't possibly be fat (within the normal laws of physics, unless you retreated to being immobile in bed or something), and it's highly, highly unlikely that there's even half a pound of fat. Likelihood: No added fat.

    Wait it out. It'll be fine. No point in stressing over water weight or waste.

    Thank you for the reassurance!!! (: I might just have to hold on to maintenance calories for some time until I can settle in Spain and get a gym membership. I'm worried about hitting my goals abroad without a food scale and especially during the first few weeks I'm searching for an apartment and gym. I've been tracking for so long that I have great estimations of what raw meat weighs or what 3-4oz feels like. I know patterns of macro breakdowns for slices of bread, a serving of pasta, cheese, etc because I've tracked almost everyday and know what I enjoy eating.

    If that is you in your pic I ADMIRE you so hard. I want to look that lean!!! I'm only 5'0" so I feel like it would be hard to keep increasing my bulk calories past 2050 because I will feel so stuffed lol. I know many women who bulk eat in the mid 2500 calories.

    That's so kind of you! Yes, that's me, a few years back at age 60 (though I don't think I look lots different now, at 65 - I'm 5'5", around 125 pounds, maintain probably around lower to mid 2000s depending on exercise.)

    I think the photo may be misleading, however: I get pretty thin ribcage & above while I'm still holding higher body fat between ribs and thighs. Overall, I'm probably mid 20s BF% (so-called Navy fat calculator and my BIA scale both claim around 23% but I don't care enough to get a more accurate test) . . . upper body looks maybe more high-teens so what little muscle I do have there gets a bit of definition, while lower body looks more like upper 20s percent IMO - no definition even where there's a bit of muscle under the fat layer.

    Unlike you, I'd have zero difficulty handling the eating side of bulking: With reins loose, I still have obese Ann's capacity, pretty much; though I can be sated on less, fortunately. I'd have trouble on the workout side, though: I just don't love lifting, so I'm lackadaisical at best.

    Stress reduction: All those normal things people tell you can work, such as meditation, yoga, exercise, journaling, CBT, spiritual practices for some, creative self-expression, even aromatherapy bubblebaths or similar sensory indulgences, among other things.

    I'm betting it won't be long before you get settled into a routine in your new location, figure out how to maintain or bulk in accordance with your goals and exercise options.

    Best wishes!

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