(I posted this in another forum, but it doesn't appear to be very active tonight. I decided to post here too. Sorry if you're seeing this twice.)
I've been following Weight Watchers for almost 2 months now, and I've consistently lost at least 2 pounds per week. I did really well last week with my eating and exercise, and I lost about 2.6 lbs. I've been saving "splurge" time for the weekends, but I always keep it reasonable. I didn't eat any more (or really anything different) this weekend than I have over previous weekends. I even worked outside some... lifted rocks for landscaping. But I hopped on the scale this morning and was up 3 lbs since Friday! WTF?!
I'm not expecting my period for another 2 weeks AT LEAST. I've been drinking plenty of water. I don't understand where this came from. And I'm suddenly feeling a bit discouraged. I know it's a small hiccup, and I'm overreacting. My husband keeps telling me to not worry, chill out, yadda yadda. But it really upset me, especially after I worked so hard last week. This type of stuff makes it hard to see the bigger picture. I suddenly want to eat anything and everything just to spite myself.
Has anyone had something similar happen? Any ideas what might have caused it? I know it is normal for a person's weight to fluctuate throughout the day, but this isn't a little fluctuation. I've never been up 3 pounds in 2 days, especially while weighing first thing in the morning after a pee! :-(
It happens to me all the time, especially if I've had more salt than usual. I wouldn't worry about it. You don't typically gain fat that fast (especially since you haven't been eating out of control), I would say it's water weight and should go away in a day or two.
Another thing to think about is that your hormones fluctuate at different times during the month. It's possible that you could have a bit of water weight gain that is hormonal, but not be near your period. In fact, the time hormones are least likely to affect your weight is right after your period when your estrogen levels are low.
Sodium honey!
Pounding water can't totally keep your body from bloating.... Sometimes you eat something that may be low in calories, but you totally forget that it could be sodium-infested. For example, my wheat-free pretzels... made it look like I gained 2 lbs over night.
I started adding ALL the nutrition facts to my food journal (I use an excel spreadsheet I made myself, so it was easy to add extra columns) and for example, I did ok on calories and exercise today, but I had about 4000 mg sodium! So no matter how much I drank water (and I had a lot), I'm sure my weight will skyrocket in the morning.
If you do pre-packaged weight watchers meals, they seem to have a lot of sodium. Especially any of the frozen dinners. Lean cuisine, healthy choice, etc are no exception. I don't LIKE seeing the scale go up but now I know when to expect it and when not to take the gain too seriously. When the scale jumps up 2 pounds I tell myself I'm holding 4 lbs of water
But it's easy for me to sit here and type that. In reality, even when I know better, I still get discouraged. I know sodium is MY culprit, I don't know if it's yours. The trick is figuring out how to cut it from my diet, since a lot of my lower cal foods are high in that evil stuff.
Last week, I experienced the very same thing! I went to weigh in and did not lose near as much as I expected to. I worked out hard every single day that week. When I weighed in, she could tell that I was discouraged and asked me a few questions. When I told her how much I worked out, but that I didnt eat any more than my usual points - she said that was the problem. Because, it you work out or in the yard more than normal, your body is expecting more food - especially protein. Hopefully this helps. I have lost weight by doing this - they are called activity points if you are on the current program. Good luck
In addition to the usual water/waste fluctuations, when you exercise harder than usual, your muscles get inflamed, adding more water weight. It can last a day or two and in extreme cases add several pounds. But in the mean time, even though the scale is higher, you look buff because that water is in muscles not fatty areas, so it's not all bad. It's very frustrating to see the scale go up (specially if you lose weight slowly like I do) but that temporary gain means you worked hard and in the long run will have better results!
Thanks for the feedback and encouragement everyone. I'm trying not to let it get me down. It's still a little mysterious to me, but you're right... it could be any number of reasons. Just gotta keep on truckin'!
I am convinced this is due to ovulation! I've never really noticed it before, but that's probably because I try not to weigh myself every day. I've just been hypersensitive about it recently. The funny thing is that I had a slight gain around the same time last month, but I attributed it to eating out while I was out of town for a few days.
I've never really been "in tune" with when I'm ovulating. (I've also never been pregnant or been trying to get pregnant.) I also never knew I could have PMS-type symptoms around ovulation, but everything I've been reading confirms this. Interesting. I am actually a bit embarrassed that I'm 26 and don't know my own body as well as I thought I did!
Weirdness
