Gaining weight!?! Please help!
 

I'll try to be brief, but the basic sum of this post is, I've started gaining back a couple pounds suddenly and I don't get it. Please help explain why!

So back on June 19 (the day of the NBA Finals) I decided I wanted to eat more healthily and hit the gym. I'm a (now) 27-year-old man and went from clinically obese at 224 pounds to slightly obese at 185 pounds earlier this week.

Over the last few weeks I've upped my workout intensity. I've been working out seven days, mostly cardio, and averaging about 1,000 calories or slightly more per day in calories burned.

While I still eat some junk, I've cut out soda and alcohol. But I haven't been starving myself, or really counting calories.

But I had a steak, salad and baked potato from Texas Roadhouse two days ago, and despite burning just under 9,000 calories this week I'm up to 191 pounds as of a few minutes ago. (When I got down to 185 it was in the morning, so weighing myself at 8 p.m. may not be optimal.

But the thing that makes zero sense to me is why am I gaining weight at all with the intense workouts. Am I broken? Will the weight gain stop?

Also, I'm using a Fitbit to estimate the calories I burn from exercising.


Any possible explanation?

Also, I think I may be drinking too much water. I've had about 110 ounces per day the last four or five days, and I think I may be tacking on water weight.

Thoughts?

One of the aggravations of weight management is the poor "signal to noise ratio." On any given day, you could be up several pounds from factors that have nothing to do with how much fat your body is storing.

Water weight is a big culprit. One way you will temporarily retain water immediately is through an increase in your level of exercise. If you exercise more, your muscles retain extra water as parts of the healing process. If your muscles are sore, it's a sign that this is happening. Folks who want to lose weight often hit the gym, calculate how many calories they think they've burned, hop on the scale, expecting to see that drop, but see an increase instead. I've been there and it's very frustrating. It sounds like this might be happening to you.

Of course there are other reasons for retaining water, and any extra sodium intake is another frequent cause. However, drinking a lot of water should not lead to retaining water. I do not know if you are drinking too much water but you really don't want to drink *too much* water because it will throw off your electrolyte balance which in extreme cases is dangerous.

Other than water weight, you might also consider the how regular you are. One reason for picking a consistent time of day for weighing is that you are more likely to be at the same point in the cycle. There is a lot of weight in the food pipeline, and variations in that can also swing several pounds.

You might try to weigh yourself at the same time each day and track a 14 day moving average which can help reduce the noise in daily measurements if you want to weigh daily.

Don't hit the panic button yet. If you have been low carbing and then go off that WOE, it could be water. Also, as mentioned above, it could be your body holding water due to the added exercise. Deep breaths! I use an online program called TrendWeight. It is free and links to your fitbit account (I am not associated with the site.) It calculates your trend over time. Also, stick to weighing in the morning and take into account your bodily functions - if you know what I mean... Good luck!

It sounds like you're definitely doing some intense workouts, so the weight gain makes sense. It's not fat you're gaining though. As the two previous posters mentioned, your sore muscles are most likely what's making you retain water. Or, while you may be burning fat you may also be gaining muscle.

The Texas Roadhouse meal most likely contained a lot of sodium as well, which can also be what's attributing to the water weight. If you start to get really discouraged by the scale, you should try measuring yourself for a couple weeks instead, then try weighing yourself and see if there's a difference. While there's not a loss on the scale right now I bet your measurements might be shrinking.

Also, at the same time you may be plateauing. I've gained a few pounds during a plateau, then eventually I'll start losing again.

And: never ever ever weigh yourself at the end of the day! You're always going to weigh much more in the evening vs the morning. Good thing though is that by the next morning you're going to weigh way less, so don't fret!

It's not physically possible to gain fat weight if you're burning more calories than you're eating (unless you have an underlying health issue like thyroid problems, or if you just started taking a new medication that makes you gain as a side effect), so keep that in mind.

So as you can see, there may be many reasons why you've temporarily gained, but it's nothing to fret about. Keep calm, you got this! :)

What does your workout look like ? Is it pure cardio or are you doing some weight training/ steep walks/runs ?