I gained 4 pounds this week....

If you work out and don't increase enough water your cells will hoard what little they have because they are dying of thirst literally. Make sure you have enough water to keep up with your exercising dehydration is a dieters nightmare. Hope this will help. keep it up.

so do you think the weight will just increase then? I know I've gained muscle, but not happy that I'm putting on and not losing

If you have been exercising it could be muscle increase and not fat. You could have lost inches, but just gained muscle.

You can't gain 4 pounds of muscle in a week.

You're probably just retaining water, this is part of the weight loss journey, it happens. Accept it, don't beat yourself up over it.

Keep up the great work!

No worries, probably went from fat to muscle, try doing tape measuring instead and feel how lose your clothes will fit. Stay away from the scale for awhile, try one month and then check again.

Haha. Impossible. If only it were that easy to gain muscle that quickly. Fat doesn't just magically turn into muscle after a week- especially since she's netting NEGATIVE calories some days.

Gaining 4 lbs of muscle in a week is impossible.

The same thing happened to me. I was working out like crazy and controlling my eating, but somehow gained 7lbs in 2 weeks! I felt horrible.

I asked around and found that I was doing too much weights and not enough cardio. I have now worked in pure cardio days every other day, and after working out with weights, I finish with cardio (ex. 30 mins weights, 30 mins cardio). The weight started falling off after that point.

I am going to stab a fork into the eye of the next person who says "gained muscle"..or worse, "turned into muscle."

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

If you work out and don't increase enough water your cells will hoard what little they have because they are dying of thirst literally. Make sure you have enough water to keep up with your exercising dehydration is a dieters nightmare. Hope this will help. keep it up.

Agree 100%. I can't tell you how much difference increasing my water intake per day has made. I feel better for it, my skin looks better and it's helping me reach my goals. Get that H2O on board!

I am going to stab a fork into the eye of the next person who says "gained muscle"..or worse, "turned into muscle."

Maybe you took my post wrong. When I said "Fat doesn't magically turn into muscle after a week" it was meant jokingly. As in, it would be pure magic if that could actually happen...b/c I know that fat doesn't just "turn into muscle."

totally didn't mean you darlin'

referring to the people who said she DID gain muscle. :flowerforyou:

you're awesome.

OKAY.. thanks for the positive posts- it is a lot to take in and I am going to try to fix it. BUT can you guys recommend some foods to fill up my calories but NOT my carbs? That's my biggest problem and often the reason I don't eat very many calories.

Egg whites are great on wholemeal pitta or bread. I would worry more about the nasty refined carbs than the wholemeal ones. We all need carbs. Also, I'm a fan of cottage cheese, though many aren't. I use a hand blender to turn it to a creamy mixture and then sneak it into other foods, like pasta sauce for example. It's so nutritious and packed with protein. I would not be without it. Plus if you are not a vegetarian (like me) you have plenty of good options like fish and lean meat. Good luck!

Also, the machines and MFP are all I have to go off of regarding calories burnt. I cannot afford a HRM (I'm a substitute teacher and it's summer time) but I can tell you I often work out almost 2 hours straight doing crossfit workouts monitored by my gym owner so I don't feel like the calories burnt are that far off.

If it's telling you to eat 1900 a day, that's 1900 a day pre-exercise. If you then log 1000 exercise calories for example, you're supposed to instead eat 1900+1000=2900 calories.

I'm afraid your situation puts you in a very difficult spot. MFP and the machine will give you a reasonable rough estimate, but it's still just an estimate that will likely be off (and typically is, sometimes by up to 30%). So you have an area of uncertainty there, and this area grows the longer you work out.

My recommendation would actually be to work out considerably less. I'm not saying exercise is bad. On the contrary, it's great. But two hours of it is overkill, especially when you can't accurately gauge how much progress you're making. This will also make your caloric requirements drop, so you won't need to eat as much. That should eliminate two concerns with one solution.

Your only real other option is to eat more. This option depends on getting an HRM for being able to accurately determine how many calories you've burned. Estimate high and weight loss will come to a crawl due to too small of a caloric deficit. Estimate low and you undereat (as is happening here), which results in muscle and skeletal tissue being consumed. That leads to organ damage and an overall loss of metabolism due to muscle loss.

OKAY.. thanks for the positive posts- it is a lot to take in and I am going to try to fix it. BUT can you guys recommend some foods to fill up my calories but NOT my carbs? That's my biggest problem and often the reason I don't eat very many calories.

Also, the machines and MFP are all I have to go off of regarding calories burnt. I cannot afford a HRM (I'm a substitute teacher and it's summer time) but I can tell you I often work out almost 2 hours straight doing crossfit workouts monitored by my gym owner so I don't feel like the calories burnt are that far off.

Also, I do drink lots of water in a day I just don't log it. I have a 32 oz water bottle that I drink 3-4 of per day.

feel free to follow my diary... i eat 1700 min- 2000 calories per day... 40/40/40 split

It's likely just a swing at the starting weight and ending weight.

Maybe you were a little too dehydrated when you started and holding too much water when you ended the week. No worries it wil even out. Just keep to your plan.

I never went over any of my calories, carbs, or sodium this week. I burned 3,000 calories in workouts this week. Yet this morning on my weekly weigh-in, the scale went up FOUR pounds!

I am really feeling discouraged about it because I have no idea what is going on. Can anyone offer any insight?

Thanks

*I do want to say that I am allowed 1,950 calories per day but I usually keep it down at 1,200-1,400.

Well, 4 pounds is 14,000 calories, so it's not real "weight gain." I vary by 2+ pounds throughout the day, just due to fluids and meals. Water weighs around an ounce per ounce, so a cup of water is half a pound or so.

OKAY.. thanks for the positive posts- it is a lot to take in and I am going to try to fix it. BUT can you guys recommend some foods to fill up my calories but NOT my carbs? That's my biggest problem and often the reason I don't eat very many calories.

Also, the machines and MFP are all I have to go off of regarding calories burnt. I cannot afford a HRM (I'm a substitute teacher and it's summer time) but I can tell you I often work out almost 2 hours straight doing crossfit workouts monitored by my gym owner so I don't feel like the calories burnt are that far off.

Also, I do drink lots of water in a day I just don't log it. I have a 32 oz water bottle that I drink 3-4 of per day.

Proteins have little nor no carbs: chicken, fish, beef, pork, cheese, nuts.
I don't think anyone here is going to recommend that you eat 300+ grams of carbs! That's huge!

Hang in there!

She says she eats 1200 - 1400 calories per day. 300 grams of carbohydrate is 1200 calories, so she's NOT eating 300+ grams of carbs. The math just doesn't add up.

I eat so few calories because I find it very hard to eat close to 1900 calories without going over on carbs. My doctor told me as long as I eat when I am hungry my body will not go into starvation mode. Could you guys elaborate on how I am doing severe damage to my body?

OK...I totally understand your dilemma. I struggle daily to get enough calories and keep my carbs low. How low are you trying to keep your carbs? Are counting net carbs or total carbs? I am trying to keep my NET carbs below 100g ( net carbs are total carbs minus fiber and any sugar alcohols). Although some people would blast me for it, I have been eating 1-2 atkins or metrx meal bars a day to boost my calories without too many carbs. Yesterday I ate an atkins baked square (140 cal/6 net carbs) as part of lunch and a metrx chocolate fudge *something* ( about 310 calories/also about 6 net carbs) for an afternoon snack and I DID manage to have a net intake of almost 1100 calories by the time I went to bed.