Sugar is a big culprit

While I agree that too much sugar can lead to excess FAT gain, it's really not true that if you stay in your calories but eat too much sugar, you will gain weight.

What usually happens is that people don't know how many calories they REALLY need, sugar exacerbates the issue when eaten in excess because it leads to the body storing more fat, but let's be perfectly clear, you cannot gain weight while in a caloric deficit. Now, that assumes you are TRULY in a caloric deficit. Many people use the averages, eat the amount of calories associated with those averages, and then gain weight, but that's not because they are doing the wrong things, it's because their body doesn't confirm to the average, and usually their maintenance calories and metabolic rate are outside the norm (generally lower, but in some cases they have just eaten badly for so long that their metabolism is stunted, and what would normally be a deficit, is now an excess of calories).

Anecdotal evidence is abound about this, which doesn't make it conclusive. Lookgreat, you're case is common.
Specifically, 1 lb over 6 weeks is a tiny amount of weight, and can be attributed to many things that have nothing to do with permenant weight gain, such as water retention, glycogen level increase, stored waste, and yes, muscle increase (over 6 weeks it's absolutely possible to gain a lb of muscle). I wouldn't say that you definitely gained a lb of fat over this period, it's possible, but if you're eating and exercising as you say you are, I wouldn't say that's a definite.
Also, there's a very large difference between fruit sugar and processed white sugar. Fruit sugar uses a different process to be transformed into energy, a process that takes hours to complete, there's no spike in blood sugar with fruit sugar, and thus, it's a slow release of energy, which is exactly what the body wants.
And while 40 to 50 grams of sugar is high for many women, that's only true for woman who are average height and weight or below. If a woman is 5 foot 10 and 165 lbs (a good weight for an athletic woman of this height) then she could easily handle 40 grams of sugar over a day, as long as at least 1/2 of it is fruit sugar and it's not eaten all at once.

I'm not extolling the virtues of sugar, it's not really a great tool for caloric energy, but it's not Satan either, it's just part of the equation that we need to be aware of.

Well what you say may be perfectly true - But all of us do not have the deep understanding that you have.

Look at it from my point of view - in the last six weeks I should have lost 6 pounds - but I gained 1 pound - so actually I am 7 pounds behind schedule - reason I think was sugar going way over 70 mg per day - as I was unaware and not tracking it . Now I am and the moment I control it I am back to losing 1 pound in a week !
All I wanted to point out was that it needs to be tracked - that's all.
Thanks for the informative post SHBoss.

That's why I posted (in regards to your first statement)

Yeah, I see your results, and like I said, anecdotal evidence is abound. But I question your statement about you thinking you should have lost 6 lbs. Why do you say that? I'm truly curious and just want to know a little more about how you came to that conclusion. Are you just going by deficit and what this site says? If so, you may need to examine that a little more. And remember, again, 1 lb loss may truly be a 1 lb loss, or it could be any number of the other things I stated.
Remember, this site is a great tool, but it's very generalized for the average, not everyone can conform to it's numbers exactly. It takes a lot of tweaking. It's quite possible you have a sugar sensitivity, and your body reacts strongly to sugar intake, I don't know this and I'm not a doctor to be able to diagnose these types of things, but if, over the next month or so, you continue to lose again, then AWESOME! You may have found your trigger.

All I'm trying to say is there usually isn't just one culprit to the plateau dilemma.

But I hope this works for you. I really, truly do!

best luck.

-Banks

Sorry, double post

I found this article to be extremely useful to me. I don't have a problem with sugar......I am however a pasta freak. I now try to limit my pasta intake and I try to make sure it's brown, and or/ whole wheat, although I still prefer white spaghetti.

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/nutritionbasics/a/glycemicindex.htm

don't we all marm!

I struggle with too much sugar, too. If you're under on your calories, but you've eaten all bad foods like sugary snacks and cheeseburgers... you're gonna gain weight. That's why a lot of people (includign myself) struggle. They don't watch their sat. fat and their sugar.

I have to respectfully disagree. And this may be just a semantics's issue, but it's important for people who are just learning to know the differenc. You cannot gain weight while in a caloric deficit. It's physically impossible. The only way this can happen is if you have set the wrong amount of calories as your maintenance calories, and that's not being under in calories, that's being incorrect in your determination of how many calories you need.

What you CAN gain while in deficit, is fat.

I'm just putting it out there in support of Banks.

I eat about 120g of sugar a day. Mostly from yogurt and sugar I put in my coffee. I have been losing weight consistently every week since I increased to this amount. So sugar is not necessarily the culprit. It could be that you just changed your ratios which gave your metabolism a little bump. Like Banks said it can be a lot of different factors not necessarily sugar.

You can lose weight on bad food (not that I'm advocating that). When I first started I ate pizza hut for lunch Wendy's for dinner and still lost weight because I stayed within my calories. Every body is different.

I found this article to be extremely useful to me. I don't have a problem with sugar......I am however a pasta freak. I now try to limit my pasta intake and I try to make sure it's brown, and or/ whole wheat, although I still prefer white spaghetti.

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/nutritionbasics/a/glycemicindex.htm

Curses on pasta!!!!!!

I found this article to be extremely useful to me. I don't have a problem with sugar......I am however a pasta freak. I now try to limit my pasta intake and I try to make sure it's brown, and or/ whole wheat, although I still prefer white spaghetti.

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/nutritionbasics/a/glycemicindex.htm

Curses on pasta!!!!!!

While we're cursing: Curses on bagels!! Curses on Cake and Pie!!! :devil:

Lookgreat, with all due respect, I would like to point out that one mg, which means one milligram- or one thousandth of a gram, is a very, very small amount. I think you mean grams, not milligrams. I think that accurate values make for a safe blog. Good luck to all!