Hi all

After umming and aaahing about it I have finally taken the plunge, hired a personal trainer and I am going to start weight training as of tomorrow. I am TERRIFIED! Not because how hard its going to be (am worried about that too... I hate exercsie) but because i've heard that there is an initial period when you gain weight before you lose it. Now confession... i am one of those people who weighs themselves every day. I know its bad, I know its obsessive and ive been trying to take my focus away from weight and more to size but I LOVE seeing the numbers go down. When it goes down (even by say 50g, I am ecstatic and when its up i am crushed but its how I gauge my progress. But when scale goes up my immediate thought is "whats the darn point?!" and have to fight urge to eat. So now I worry about weight gain from training. Whats been your exprience? Did you exprience initial gain? how quickly did you notice your size dropping? Do you have any advice?

Thanks in advance

Initially your muscles may draw water into them to assist them with the repair process, which can bump up your scale weight. Just remind yourself that water weight is temporary, this isn't fat. And it doesn't last long. Resistance training will help tighten everything up and give you a boost in all the right spots. You'll love it.

You can weight train at a deficit and lose weight. I did that.

Some folks retain water from lifting while others don't. I've found weight training makes me a better runner and I can carry heavy loads that I would need several trips to transport before. Also I look much firmer than before I did any weight training.

With my experience the scale did not move for a long time when I started lifting because I was losing fat and gain muscle. I ended up putting the scale away so I am unsure about water weight.

At the same time I was getting smaller, tighter and more leaner so I was dropping sizes. I believe it took me a solid month of consistent lifting 2 - 3 times per week before other people started noticing I was shrinking.

Your weight is going to fluctuate throughout the day, and every day. Realistically, you should train yourself to be "OK" with a 1-3lbs (maybe even more!) fluctuation per day as there are so many things that can hinder what the scale says. As many have said on this forum is to go by measurements AND weight.

You're stressing your muscles with weight training (in a good way!) and for them to heal they can hold water and cause the scale to move up a bit.

Important lesson for myself to learn: ONE pound of FAT, is 3500 calories. Now the scale might go up 4 lbs in 2 days. Does that mean you went over by 14 000 calories? Probably not. Just relax and it'll come off eventually.

I gained three pounds in two days when I started weight training. MAD.

And then my weight dropped like a rock and hasn't stopped since.

It's even broken my weekly stall that I used to have.

But regardless, think of weightloss as something you do in the kitchen and fitness as something you do in the gym.

I seem to get both from the gym, but luckyarse me.

So keep weighing daily (I do) but learn to accept a bit more volatility in the number. Shitit may go up one or two days. But then WHOOSH!

Here's me (results not typical):

4/30 - 223.4lbs
5/1 - 225.0lbs (OMG)
5/2 - 224.0lbs
5/3 - 222.0lbs (Whoosh)
5/4 - unable to weigh in
5/5 - 219.6lbs
5/6 - 218.8lbs
5/7 - 217.8lbs

And get the cardio in. DO TREADMILL even on your rest days.

Thanks everyone for your response. They made me not panic this morning when I saw my weight was up by half a kilo! It was a great session and I'm so glad I did it. Haha I'm sure it's all in my head but I actually feel more toned!