So our meeting yesterday was about Activity - and my leader said that it often takes 2-4 weeks for a person's body to equalize and start losing again when she begins to exercise.

I have to admit that this scares me. I'm going to do it, I'm going to plow through it no matter what. But I am terrified of gaining.

I'm going to start this week with DVDs - I have an easy pilates and a Walk Away the Pounds. Would love to walk outside but its just too snowy to walk the baby (can't even get the stroller down the sidewalk!) , so its inside for me right now.

My goal is to do a DVD at least 4 times this week. Even just 15 minutes. I am REALLY out of shape so I need to start slow.

So I am wondering - do most people gain when they begin exercising? I just need to brace myself, mentally, for this. Thanks.

I did not gain when I began exercising. But I do have weeks when I exercise really hard and eat on plan and lose nothing. You're muscles will retain water to repair themselves after a hard workout. So don't be too dicouraged if you don't lose or have a smaller loss than expected. The loss will catch up to you later.

You probably won't gain from walking and pilates. I tend to see a steady weight or a slight gain on the weeks I do more snow shoeing and cross country skiing, or more weight training. With walking and yoga I lose.

During the first week or two of unaccustomed exercise muscles aren't used to working and it is common to have fluid retention which can look like a gain but isn't really.

Also, I would not do a heavy strength training workout on the day before weighing in. When I was working with a trainer I found that sometimes I would retain fluid for a day or so after a heavy workout.

The overall benefits to me and my weight loss were very good from exercise so I stayed with it but just would not do heavy workout the day before I weighed in (I would do the exercise bike for example which is not that heavy).

I've thought of this too (ok and I am struggling with the motivation and time management to make it happen) but I have been losing at a steady rate and am scared to get a gain. This seem like such a stupid reason not to exercise, I am aware of that lol

I gained about 5 pounds but I was doing intense workouts. I don't think I've ever gained from something like Leslie Sansone workout DVD.

When I first began exercising I did not gain and still have not! I just added in strength training and was really hesitant at first because I thought I'd definately gain but surprisingly every time I lift, I show a nice loss the following day.

I look at exercise a LOT differently now than when I did a year ago, I wanted to see rapid results on the scale every week and while I did have many nice losses, I noticed it was helping my depression and overall mood! Now I use exercise as a tool when I'm feeling sad, angry, tired, bored, etc.

I haven't really lost a lot in the last 2 weeks, and I wasn't really working out too hard. This week I was in the gym for 5 days. So we'll see tomorrow how that paid off. But in order to boost your metabolism, you need to build muscle, it bumps the fat burn! So weight lifting is a good thing! GL!

I haven't noticed a gain and I've been doing banish fat, boost metabolism for 4-5 days a week for 3 weeks total so far. I did, however, maintain my weight this week...actually had a .2 gain, BUT I was also on my time of the month and went over my flex pts. Even so, I see a huge change in my body already, even if the scale didn't move last week. Definitely exercise! Like ashley said-it will catch up to you later.