I had a gain on my weigh in day this week, 3 pounds! 4 if you count that on Friday I was down a pound... well Saturday and Sunday came along, and while I didn't eat the best, it could have been SO much worse. I went over on Saturday by 400, but was under on Sunday by 200 calories... so how does that work??
The only thing I can think of to explain this is that I didn't eat my "regular" diet. So my question is this... is it normal that you have to be "on" every single day to see a loss? If I mess up one little thing, whether its having carrots instead of broccoli for dinner, or having a 100 calorie can of pop with lunch.. it seems to cause a gain, and I tell yah, it's hard to be 100% perfect all the darn time!! Its frustrating, and makes me not want to lose weight, because I get tired of eating the same thing every day!! End rant...
I have written about this SO MUCH in my blog. I eat right for a week. I lose a pound. I overeat for 3 days at dinner only, and I gain FIVE pounds!! Then it takes me 2 weeks to get it back off. SO frustrating!! But if you just stick with it, and keep working on have less and less "off plan" days, it does eventually come off and start adding up. If you stick with it MOST of the time, like 90%, usually that is good enough.
How are you tracking your calories? It could be that your estimates are off, and you are eating more than you think.
Carrots instead of broccoli won't make much of a difference--but you can plan meals ahead of time so that you have variety built in. No need to eat the same thing every meal.
How did you come up with the amount you need to eat to lose weight? Perhaps that amount isn't right.
I hope you can figure it out! Let us know if you do!
I think it takes a few days to gain weight after overdoing the calories. My weight is exactly the same, so I just avoid going on the scales because I then obsess and get frustrated. Just do you best and you will see the difference!
As I've said many times before ... your body is not a machine and weight loss is not something that is that predictable. There are so many things that can affect your weight other than just calories: time of month, time of day, water retention, barometric pressure ... all kinds of things.
And an extra 600 calories is not enough to gain 4 lbs. To gain 4 lbs over the weekend, you'd have had to have eaten an additional 14,000 calories!
Maybe this will make you feel better .. I weigh myself every morning, but Monday is my official weigh tracking day for purposes of my ticker here, my official log, etc. This is what my last couple of weeks looked like:
My weight fluctuates wildly around the weekends when I don't track as much and get a lot more exercise due to my job ... but the general trend is downwards over a length of time, so I don't sweat t too much.
And an extra 600 calories is not enough to gain 4 lbs. To gain 4 lbs over the weekend, you'd have had to have eaten an additional 14,000 calories!
Don't worry yourself too much! As PhotoChick said you'd have to eat waaaay over to gain 4 lbs. of actual fat. 3500 calories that you do not burn translates to 1 lb. of fat.
Most likely it's water retention which can be caused by eating salty foods, working out (muscle fibers need to hold onto water to repair themselves), TOM, etc.
My weight fluctuates 2-4 lbs. in just 1 day!
My recommendation is to not live by the scale! Take your measurements and keep track of that as well.
Lyn - glad to hear I'm not the only one who is like this!
Jay - it's taken me years to figure out the amount of calories it takes to lose - I started with 1,200 thanks to a fitness magazine about 5 years ago, I did NOT do well. I increased to 1,600, still nothing, so I ended up at 1,800 - 2,000 and that seems to work! I have about 10-15 servings of fruits and veggies a day.
PhotoChick - mine looks the same, but with higher numbers, until this week. It's truly weird!!
My boyfriend also thinks its water retention, but it's been quite a few days now and I haven't seen the scale go down yet. I'm trying to drink more water, thinking it'll force it out.. nothing yet! I also went and bought broccoli for my dinner tonight!
Scales jump around...and depending on the quality of yours, sometimes humidity can alter the weight.
I too have found that the only way not to get crazy is to "count" my weight only once a week. That way it smoothes out the daily fluctuations. I do weigh myself during the week, but try to focus on how happy I am that my weight is so much less than it was at the beginning, rather than to focus on the weight day to day.
Also, having also had a big jump every now and then...my doctor reminded me that those are almost always artificial, water, constipation etc. A pound takes 3500 calories...it is very hard to eat enough in any one day to have a significant impact. (He actually said to worry about small slow gains more than big ones, the small ones are more likely to be real.)
Last edited by Pandora123a; 05-22-2008 at 03:04 PM.
See the attachment for an example of fluctuations (my daily weights). Sorry it's an attachment, I wasn't sure how to get it out of my spreadsheet into an image I could embed in the message. You can see that there have obviously been some times I worried a bit, but being able to see the big picture (seeing how it fluctuates) really helps me not worry so much as long as I know I've been eating well and been active.
Plenty of bumps up, and yet, here I am at 5 1/2 weeks and down about 13 pounds.
April 1, 2008 weight was 224.6
May 1, 2008 weight was 220.2
i was on my plan food wise 100% for the entire time. I've been doing this plan for over 2 years now so my loss is slow....
but between April 1 and May 1 I saw:
226.4 (up 2 pounds) and that stuck around for three days... just keep on going
then i dropped to my lowest weight ever but the next day bounced right back up and stayed up for three days till the next day when I went up another pound where i stayed for 2 days
then down to 223 for one day
then a new low 221 but only for one day
cause the next day right back up to 222 for a couple of days
221 for one day
222 for two days
221 for one day
222 for a day
220 NEW LOW woo-hoo...
oh never mind 222.4 the next day
oh wait back to 221.4 the day after that
ah 219.8 not getting excited yet
219.4 the next day.. hey this is good
219.2 oh ok must be the right thing 219 three days in a row
yep 219 again an again and again...
rut roh... 221 this morning... and the next
219 last day of april
220.2 may first.
like i said daily weighing is just a game for me. a data point only...
and i was ON PLAN every day even with the ups and downs....
my best advice is to just keep on doing the right thing and it will eventually work.
Am I normal??
