Gaining weight instead of losing

I'm pretty much your age and there are a number of reasons the scale can go up. However, if you are truly taking in fewer calories than you burn, you will see a negative weight trend over 4-6 weeks. If you are only looking at a week, fluctuations happen.

My weight went up 4 pounds the other day (see spike below) after eating a high sodium meal and a couple of drinks. I did not consume an extra 12000 calories, I just had to wait for my body to equilibrate. I weigh daily and though it fluctuates I can usually figure out why. Weight spikes when I eat late, eat high calorie dinner, Eat a high sodium dinner, have a hard workout that makes me sore, etc. It can be caused by water weight, excess waste in your system or even high stress. I see a new low about every 10-15 days, just how things work for me.

Below is the report of my weigh for the past month or so. I have a definite stair step pattern of loss with ups and downs, but the overall trend is down! Even with the spike on 5/4, the overall trend in down. You may want to try a trending app such as Happy Scale or Libra.

If you give us your stats: Height, weight, calorie goal, weight loss goal per week, and how you measure your intake and calorie burns many folks will chime in.

800 calories left over is significant for a 5’2” woman.

Are you logging everything? Are you weighing it? Or are you eyeballing it and guesstimating? How accurate are your “calories in”?

Invest in a fitness tracker like a garmin, Apple Watch, Fitbit etc. That will help you learn and understand “calories out”.

Are you logging stuff like housework, etc as “exercise”. I did plenty of that when obese, and I am a demon house cleaner. Logging that as an exercise would serve zero purpose.

what did you set your activity level at?

Have you eaten something salty, something high carb, are you in the run up to your monthly, have you been on a long drive, or a flight? I can easily gain five or six pounds on a flight, from cabin pressure. Are you suddenly stressed out over something? Have you had surgery or an injury recently?

did you start a new exercise? Are you doing the duck waddle after legs day, or dragging your arms like a leaden gorilla after upper body? Tweaked your back trying a new exercise?

I’m carrying a few extra pounds right now simply from arthritis and joint inflammation. Once the weather dries out, it’ll pass and those pounds will drop off.

I had a bad wreck on my bike last year (riding to the gym- how unfair was that?!😫), and had road rash, extensive bruising, bone bruise. I gained nearly ten pounds water weight over the next few days and didn’t drop all of it til the biggest bruise finally diminished, a couple months later

All of these can contribute to overnight or longer fluctuations. It’s water, not fat

Water cometh, and water goeth.

If you are drastically undereating in hopes of losing faster, that can also affect your weight, believe it or not.

I believe she said she was 52 years old, not 5 feet, 2 inches tall

maybe calories are doing okay but you must check nutrients as well and watch carbs,protein, etc..

I really dont think checking out fancier scales or checking nutrients is the likely solution to OP's issue.

Far more likely either

1. not enough time to see a trend
2. or issues with logging so she is actually eating more than she thinks/burning less than she thinks.

But without more info as to the time frame and the logging practices we cant really offer much advice.

This is more probable., but hard to say without more details.

The only piece that matters for weight loss is calories. When calories in < calories out the person will lose weight. It can be a diet of Twinkies and butterscotch candy, and this will still be true.