Hi all. I have a question - but first some background.
I lost a bunch over a few years, and maintained for over 1 year.
In in the last year I have put back on 10-12 lbs and this past Sunday I decided to re-commit and get the last 30 or so pounds off.
So I decided that much of what I need to do now will be exercise since I am ttc and I don't feel comfortable limiting calories too much.

Here is the question - is it possible that I see 5 lbs gain from elliptical work? I logged 2350 calories on the elliptical since Sunday (500 sun, 1000 mon, 650 tues and 200 wed) and today I am up to 165 (I was hovering around 158-160 for a few months now)

Is it water in the muscle? I have not been exercising much for about 6 months so it was a bit of a shock to the body, but 5 lbs seems like maybe I'm doing something else wrong.

I know I have also been overcompensating with food, but Im unsure of what the appropriate intake is while ttc - I've been trying to stay around 1700.

Thanks so much!

normally if you gain that much over night it is usually water retention. However, to truely loose wt you need to monitor your food. I know its a pain but if you don't than you could easily overeat. Just because you are exercising, doesn't mean you can intake a large amount of food. also, 2350 cal logged??? was that the machine that calculated or you?? watch the machines..they are natoriously wrong usually they are too high. i say log all your food ensuring you are staying in your cal range and not over eating. good luck. As you start loosing more wt you may have to decrease your calorie intake.

Thanks for the reply.
My machine may be reading more calories than Im actually burning - but I'm just using it as a guide.
It reads 500 cals burned in 60 minutes. I looked into a couple of websites and it does look a little high.

You're right, I have to get back on track with writing down my calorie intake - that really helped when I started losing.

I'm hoping this is water retention, but it is just such a shock to see the number climbing! I'm really scared because I've also been having unhealthy thoughts about (not) eating because the scale jumped.

I'm sure it is water retention... But are you drinking all you recommend water, 8-10 glasses/day? Also make sure the food you are eating is lo to no sodium that could make a big difference in weight fluctuation... From yesterday to today I lost 4 pounds, but I KNOW that's just water, nothing else... I also try to average my weight loss over the week... Some weigh-in only once/week ...

I agree it's a very good idea to write and monitor what you are eating... I use fitday.com to count calories...

Hope this helps keep us posted on your progress...

i personally can't wiegh everyday. it would stress me out...others can...but they know that variation are just flucuations in wt. I recommend making a once a week weigh to help keep away those "shockers" . or just know that you are going to have daily wt gain and looses. Just hang in there. If you do decide to weigh daily, then pick one day a week to take the "actual" weight

btw...lately i've been bad about logging in my calories...and its shown...i really havn't lost weight when i'm not journalling my food. I'm back on track currently and am more religious about my food intake. good lucl

Weighing daily or weekly is definitely a personal choice... Everyone is different...

i totally agree ilene..everyone has to find what works for some. I personally would "freak" out if i weighed myself daily...but that's why i recommend weekly for those that "freak out" but others do well with daily weighing..its is truely a personal thing..neither is right or wrong..just what works for them. (:

I think because it is the first week I should not be getting on the scale so often. Everything is out of whack right now - but it just didnt seem right to see such a gain.
While I was losing I would weigh in daily and that worked for me to help keep me on track. Even though I am used to seeing the changes daily, this was a shock.
Thanks for the water advice also, that is so important and I actually did forget about that. Come to think of it, the other day I had a strange thing happen on the elliptical - after an hour and almost 20 minutes I started having vision problems so I stopped. Bow I'm thinking that I must have been dehydrated.

you probably overworked yourself if you were on the machine for 1.5 hrs...esp if you haven't worked out in a while. exercise is good...but you can hurt yourself if you try to do too much too fast. becareful.

I weigh daily, but only record it weekly. That way if the day of my weekly weigh in happens to be an aberration, I notice. Sometimes I get upset with my daily weight, but I generally don't pay much attention to it except as a trend.

Your muscles store water to repair themselves. I gained five pounds from the 31st to the 1st. It's frustrating, huh?! (This morning I was down four from the day before, though, so that's always something to look forward to!)

Kara

The scale shows 1 pound loss versus yesterday.
Hopefully that means that the water I gained is starting to leave now.
I logged 500 calories yesterday (1 hour) on the elliptical and I had less than 1400 calories.
I figured if it was water that I gained it would come off much more quickly than this - but I guess it is what it is.

btw...make sure you are drinking plenty of water...seems counterintuative (sp?) but driking water will help flush out your body. espcially if you are doing so much working out...you'r body neds its

I wish! I can gain three to five pounds when I ovulate and then three to five pounds when my period starts. This month was the first time I've ever seen more than one pound come off at a time. You'd think there'd be a mass exodus or something when the water is no longer needed! Another thing I don't know a lot about but am interested in are those scales that can measure body fat. I'm sure it's not too accurate, but it might give you an idea of whether your body fat percentage is going down despite the actual weight gaining or staying the same.

Kara