ate all my cardio calories and gained 2lbs

Are you sure your calorie count for exercise is correct? MFP is a bit high. Also, how are your sodium levels?

Are you sure your calorie count for exercise is correct? MFP is a bit high. Also, how are your sodium levels?

Yup, and cardio machines are notoriously wrong for giving you accurate calorie counts. Unless you are wearing a heart rate monitor, calories burned is just an estimate.

A HRM is still just an estimate and a lot are not very accurate. To the OP: I would give that method another week before giving up on it.

Maybe try eating half the calories back? I always have the same problem. If I eat them all back I gain weight.

Same here, I only eat about half of mine back, and I've been pretty steady in my weight loss. You could also just be plateauing or retaining some water. Keep an eye on your sodium, and try maybe only eating back half of your exercise calories. Good luck!

Unless you ate 7000 calories more than your maintanance calories would be you did not gain 2 lbs of fat. Probably water weight. Or your calories burned estimate is too high and you are eating too many cals back based on that. Still though you would have to eat 7000 cals on top of maintenance to get that 2 lb gain...

one week is not long enough to judge if this is working. give it 1-2 more honest weeks. I lost most of my weight eating 1,000+ under my tdee and when I started upping my calories, I would gain 2-6 lbs for up to 10 days, then I would lose it plus more. I now can lose weight eating 2,000 calories a day at the same rate that I was losing when eating 1,400-1,500 a day.

Give it time, I know it is hard. keep in the back of your mind that it would take around 7,000 a week of excess calories or more to gain 2 lbs.

1 week isn't a very long time to assess if eating back your exercise calories will work (or not).

I would wait at least 2 weeks to a month and then assess how my body is adjusting to the new levels.

You only gave it one week.. personally I don't think that is long enough to say that eating those calories back was really the cause of your weight gain. IMO I would give this a go for at least a month before just giving it up . Good luck :flowerforyou:

I'm surprised only one person has mentioned muscle water retention. You mentioned increasing weight. Your muscles could be retaining water to help repair themselves. Don't give up on eating exercise calories, it works!

EDIT: make that two people...:flowerforyou:

It takes more than a week to gauge if an approach works. You just started weight training, even 3 days is enough to stimulate 2lbs of water gain.

I was undereating a bit when I started dieting/exercising. I would only eat 1600 a day, regardless of how much I exercised.

As I got more educated near the end of my weight loss, I slowly bumped up my calories, a week at a time, and now I'm eating 2600~ a day and maintaining my weight.

Try it for a solid month.

I fluctuate more than a few pounds a week.... especially if i become...ahem.. irregular. The week before TOM, I gain at least 5 lbs of water weight. I gain water weight from eating a few corn chips.

Are you sure your calorie count for exercise is correct? MFP is a bit high. Also, how are your sodium levels?

Yup, and cardio machines are notoriously wrong for giving you accurate calorie counts. Unless you are wearing a heart rate monitor, calories burned is just an estimate.

A HRM is still just an estimate and a lot are not very accurate. To the OP: I would give that method another week before giving up on it.

are there any really accurate hrms? (the science side of my brain needs to get to the bottom of this)

Based on studies, an HRM that had your Age, weight, gender, height, along with your average HR, have been shown to account for just over 70% of total calories burned. The other 30ish% is estimated by your HRM based on what is known (this ends up in an 85+% accuracy.

If you have an HRM that allows you to enter V02Max and you enter it correctly then the calories burned that can be account for is around 85%, with 15ish % being estimated. This type of HRM usually ends up being 95+% accurate (so it is possible that you burn 5% more or less).

This being said you should also be advised that more HRMs give you total calories burned, which would include calories you would have burned had you not exercised. So to get the most accurate reading you would need a HRM that has V02Max input and you would have to back out maintenance calories from the total to get cals burned from the just exercise as some of those cals you would have burned anyway.

So say your HRM says you burned 700 cals in 60 minutes, but your maintenance is 2400 cals/day. If you enter 700 in MFP you would double count the portion of 2400 that would have been burned in those 60 minutes (100 calories). So to do this correctly you would enter 600 cal in MFP, not the 700 that your HRM shows.

A very good reason why that happens.

If you are exercising almost every day decent pace, and not eating much or specifically much carbs, your glucose store will lower over time, just never getting filled up.

You can run at 500 cal worth of stores, even though 2000 is possible.

By feeding the workout finally, those store finally topped off.

And 1500 calories worth of carb storage, with the water that goes with it, is 3.3 lbs.

So that is good weight.

Because as glucose stores are low, and you exercise decently day after day, you will run out, and then muscle must be broken down to provide glucose to burn fat for energy and the brain. And muscle only provides 600 cal, so much easier to lose a lb of muscle than lb of fat at 3500 cal. I thinking it was a good weight then, part of normal body function to have full glucose stores.

The "wall" recreational marathoners hit after they go through glucose stores can occur if you go day by day not refilling enough for your level of effort.

Quick math.
Eat 1400 cal day.
BMR is 1600 (or at least could have been, if eating at 1400 constantly and no hunger, it has lowered).
At rest, 70% of energy needs can be met by fat, rest carbs, tiny bit protein, we'll leave that out.
So 1400 at 30% carbs means 420 calories of carbs used by metabolism at rest.

You eat 1400 a day, say 60% carbs in diet.
840 calories worth of carbs.

Great, you can supply your carb requirements by diet.

Except you actually move during the day. Let's say activity calories of 400 (if that estimated value has any bearing on reality), and since not rest, 40% from carbs.
160 additional carb calories required. Now 580 total needed.
You have supplied it with 840 - still good. Got 260 spare, used for immediate energy needs after eating, or stored as fat if not needed.

Now, you exercise and do NOT feed the workout.
60 min, 500 calories accurate as can be estimate. At a decent pace (even the "fat-burning zone" is really 50/50 at best, top is 60/40) 60% from carbs.
300 calories from carb stores, you liver has around 400-450 that is supplied, your muscle stores are for backup when that runs low.

So on your diet, you had extra 260 to spare, exercise just took 300, you depleted your stores by 40 calories.

No big deal for one day you might think.
But after exercise depletetion a tad more as elevated metabolism for a bit, so more there.
Also, if your exercise was out of the low zone, easily 70% carbs.
And if your daily activity is more intense then slow walking, more there too.
If your diet really isn't 60% carbs, less there.
If your diet is really 1200, less there.

You could easily be in negative balance by 100-200.
Workout 6 days in a row, that's 600 to 1200 deficit to your stores. Waiting for more to store that you don't immediately use up.

Take a rest day, feed your workout for a week, ect, you are topping off.

Oh, think of that weight loss or gain too. 4 calories of carbs, 1 gram, will be stored with 2.7 g of water.
So weight loss during this glucose storage depletetion really isn't real weight, neither is the gain.
While real pounds, that is weight associated with just the way the body functions.

If you want to lose that kind of weight - might as well just cut off an arm.