I weighed in last mon. was down to 171, woot! Went to SanFrancisco for 5 days, made a couple of bad food choices, but didn't eat horribly overall. I did eat more carbs than normal. I managed to get lots of walking and a couple of aerobic workouts in. Weighed in this morn and the scale says I am up 3.5 lbs. Can this be right?

The walking and aerobic workouts probably caused you to gain muscle. And because muscle weighs more than fat, chances are you lost some weight and gained some muscle. Don't let it get you down, you've lost an amazing amount of weight, so keep going!

I suggest not worrying about it as you didn't gain 3.5 pounds of fat in 5 days. Traveling, along with the variance in diet, probably left you with water weight that will take care of itself in a few days.

Shhambo, it's the extra carbs. Each gram of carbs sucks up 3 to 4 grams of water, so the scale always goes up when we overindulge on carbs. But it's probably mostly water weight and will be gone within a few days.

Walking and aerobics are terrific cardio workouts but don't build muscle (only weights can build muscle), so I don't think the extra weight is muscle (it also takes a l-o-n-g time to add even a few pounds of muscle when you're lifting weights). Just get right back on track with your eating and the 3.5 pounds will be gone soon.

you could be just holding onto a lot of water. there might have been a lot of salt in what you were eating over those 5 days.

i *always* gain 2-3lbs the day after i have pizza (mmm, salty cheese LOL) for dinner, but it just disappears the day after that. don't worry, it's nothing you should be concerned about. you would have had to consume a LOT of food to actually gain those pounds.

just think, one lb of fat = 3500 calories...you would have had to consume 12250 calories (minus of course the calories you expended just to function) for you to actually gain 3.5lbs.

I can only reiterate what everyone else has said--water! And of all the crazy things, what to do to get rid of the water weight? Drink more water! I always drink TONS of water after I've gone and had more carbd or more sodium than usual (I always up the water the day after eating out for dinner because restaurant foods are good at hiding extra sodium), and the extra weight goes away really quickly. Just keep up the water intake, and I'm sure you'll see it'll be gone by your next weigh-in without any extra exercise or overly-strict eating

whew, thank you all for the reassurance. I am back to my normal eating and exercise routine. I will stay off the scale til the weekend and relax my brain. I heart 3fc!

Glad you're feeling better about it. There's just no way you gained 3.5 calories in a day. My scale said the same thing this morning, actually. According to my scale this morning I gained 4 pounds overnight. There's no way that's possible and I didn't drink enough water yesterday, so I'm ignoring it, sticking with my routine, and I'll stay away from the scale for a day or two so that that weight goes away.