[vdaybaby]

Okay so I have only been maintaining for the last 3 weeks, no gain, but NO LOSS either!! And today I went to weigh myself and I gained 2 pounds!!!

I'm soooooooooooooooooooooo mad!
Do you guys know why this is happening?
I worked out 5 days in a row and I have been on points EVERDAY...

I feel so defeated

I'm not going to fix my ticker until my official weigh in day of sunday, but I am really feeling low...I haven't lost weight in 3 weeks and now I gained 2 pounds


I'm wondering if it is sugar. For the first month of weight watchers, I wasn't eating sugar treats like EVER. And the last 2 weeks, I have been eating a 2 point sugar snack every night. Like a pudding cup or 2 1 point cookies, or a little bit of frozen yogurt. I hope this isn't it, because 2 points of sugar seems like NOTHING, and it is really sad if I can't even have that much without gaining.

So to sum up: and

[SCraver]

well... my 2 cents:

1. Maybe you have hit a platea.

2. Make sure you are measuring your portions to be sure that there aren't any points sneaking in.

3. Make sure that you are also eating enough points. Especially since you are exercising.

4. Focus on things other than the scale: How do you feel? Are your clothes fitting better? Are you surpassing what you were doing when you started as far as exercising?

[suitejudyblueeyes]

I feel your pain, vday. Hang in there, okay, because this is 100% temporary. Trust that if you are doing the right things (which it sounds like you are) your weight will follow suit. The body doesn't WANT to let go of its comfy fat stores, and it may need time to adjust to the idea. Most people have to face this sort of bump in the road at some point. I know it's tough to just trust your body when you want to see results, but you're going to have to be patient, there's really no other way out of it!

My questions would be --

Are you eating your FPs or just your target points? What about APs, are you eating them? - If you are only eating your base target points, you may not be eating enough, prompting your body to be more reluctant to let go of its fat stores (and in fact try to store more if possible). On the other hand, if you have been eating all of your FPs and are gaining, make sure you're being honest with yourself about what you're eating to make sure you aren't getting too many.

Are you drinking enough water? Water will help flush out... well, water. If you're retaining water that can easily add up to extra pounds.

Could this be attributed to hormones? Is TOM coming? Hormones affect our body weight in ways we can neither predict nor control. I know approximately when I can expect to see a TOM gain (two weeks before, for me), but I never know how much, and the exact date of onset is pretty much a mystery. Nothing to do but ride it out.

Have you eaten anything particularly salty recently? Salt, of course, makes us retain water.

Are you doing a high level of exercise, disproportionate to what you did before? Are your muscles sore? You mention doing exercise five days in a row. First, good for you! That's amazing dedication. Second, if before you had been exercising less, or with less intensity, your muscles could be holding water in their attempt to repair themselves. This usually happens with the addition of exercise into a routine. Drink your water and keep doing what you're doing, it will even out.

Bottom line -- be patient with your body! If you are honestly doing everything right, the weight will start to come off. If you read the stories in the Goal forum here, you'll find a lot of people say that they go through 'stuck' periods like this, and then one day they step on the scale and bam, weight just starts dropping off left and right! (I think in particular it was Glory87's Goal post that said this, but I could be wrong...)

[vdaybaby]

Okay...I don't eat my flex points usually. If I do it is usually 10 flex points a week, and I eat them all in one day. I do eat my activity points though.

I drink TONS of water...so that is probably not it

It MIGHT be tom, because I am suppossed to get it in a week. But at the same time, last tom I gained while I was on it, and not before. And also, I haven't lost weight in like 2 or 3 weeks, so that can't really be explained by tom.

I haven't eaten salt...

I only exercised twice a week for the last three weeks, and then five times in a row this last week. So maybe that is it, idunno. Maybe I wasn't losing from not enough exercise, and then gained from too much exercise.

What do you guys think?

I hope I'm not on a plateau!!! =(
I'm trying to lose 17 pounds for my graduation on May 24th because my whole family is coming.

Do you think my sugar intake has anything to do with it? I don't eat a lot, only one serving of something a day (like a pudding, or low fat frozen yogurt). But I wonder if daily sugar intake can effect my weight loss.

Thanks for your help, and any more thoughts would be very appreciated.

[ifindhope]

just as a suggestion to try it out... VARY your points. kinda like the wendie plan suggests, plan to eat most of your flex points but add a certain number of these to each day so that you're eating a different amount of points each day and in the middle of the week have a high point day..like 10 of your flex... then the rest add here and there making your points be high low high low... throughout the week.

sorry word vomit .. but just basically bottom line vary your points between high and low each day for a week and see how that works.. planning points from your flex.

it sounds like you possibly just aren't eating enough. i know it sounds SOOO counterintuitive but most of the time it works!!

good luck

[kelijpa]

Everybody's giving you great ideas.

Make sure you're drinking your water, and eating your points...

If you're not weighing and measuring (like you think you know how much 3 oz. of something is) then go back to weighing and measuring...

I gained 6 lbs. over 2 weeks on my work trips, but it's coming off quickly, you'll get there if you stick with the program. Sometimes we have fluctuations due to water retention, stress, etc. It can be a number of things like others have suggested, eating salty things, not drinking enough water.

Also, if you're eating the same thing every day your body can get a kind of immunity, what worked will stop working, that's why you have to mix things up.

Main thing, we're in it for the long haul and overcoming these bumps in the road (talking to myself as well here ) will lead to long term success. Life has bumps...

One thing I've learned with the scale, try to compare week to week, even if you weigh everyday, compare wednesday to wednesday, tuesday to tuesday, like that...

Best of luck!

[aerotigergirl]

One thing I've noticed: The SmartOnes/Lean Cuisines are great in a pinch, but when I make a habit of eating them (which is easy to do since they're so quick and easy) I tend to hold water. Generally speaking, things that come pre-packaged (except for frozen veggies and the like) tend to be high in sodium. I try to steer clear of canned veggies and soup for exactly this reason.

Sorry to hear you're so frustrated. Just keep trying. It will work again eventually.