Help! Why am I gaining weight???

[PanthersLuke]

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?

[A_Lurker]

@PanthersLuke- Okay, stop for a minute and breathe. 

First, you should weigh yourself at roughly the same time of day to compare.  Without getting too detailed depending on when you normally have a bowel movement you can be carrying some, ummm, waste.  See what your weight is in the morning.

How did you lose the original 39 pounds?  Did you follow a specific plan?  I see a lot of information about calories burned, but honestly, you can't usually out train a bad diet.  You don't need to starve yourself to lose weight but it doesn't sound like you are tracking your food.  If you lost the original weight without tracking you might need to now to continue losing weight.  Eating healthy is a good start but you still need to eat less overall than you burn to lose.

As to the water, your body is pretty good at maintaining an average level.  You can retain water after working out, or eating a salty meal, but usually as long as you keep drinking water you flush it out.

[PanthersLuke]

While I'm not counting every calorie, I find it hard to believe that I'm eating more than the 3,200 or so calories I use on an average day.

I do eat out often, and occasionally Taco Bell. But even those Taco Bell runs I can limit to 700 calories. And if I eat something like M&Ms I make sure to burn those off when I work out.

I haven't had a good poop in a few days. Could that explain it?

[A_Lurker]

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@PanthersLuke wrote:

I haven't had a good poop in a few days. Could that explain it?

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Absolutely.

Also, restaurant meals can be higher in salt, which causes water retention.  If you eat a higher protein diet, then eat candy and carbs it can mess with your glycogen stores.  Not saying that you shouldn't eat them, but if your diet varies that can explain it as well.  I keep meaning to look for a good article that covers big swings in weight.  I think I found one tonight.

http://primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/weight/scalelies.htm

[AndyDandyPandy]

You have to understand that you can gain weight easily and also lose them easily. Because added weight the next day is nothing more than water weight so don't worry. Fat doesn't increase overnight. By what you are eating I can tell your diet consist of high sodium. Sure, if you eat junk food fast food and be under deficit you can still lose weight, just not effificiently. The sodium in those food will give you poor health and make your body retain water weight and make you bloated. Though your body is still burning fat, all those weight you gain is from sodium+water. Eat cleaner if you wanna see better result is all I'm saying. Watch your sodium intake and you won't gain 5lb in a day.

Just because you're at a deficit and working out doesn't mean you can eat whatever you want and still see 2lb loss every week.

I Rarely ever eat out and 90% of the time I'm on a cold turkey diet and I can still gain weight. You just have to accept that this journey is not going to be a smooth one and just keep on going.

[Dominique]

You need to look at the big picture: the big picture is having lost 39 pounds in six months (an amazing achievement, btw). Having gained two pounds overnight (or in a few days) is just noise, in the grand scheme of things. Usually, weight loss isn’t linear, so no need to be upset by your little gain, or to over-analyze it. It’s most likely water gain anyway (for instance, a sudden increase in exercise can cause water retention).

In order not to be obsessed by short term variations of your weight, I strongly recommend using Trendweight, a free service you can link your Fitbit account to. It’s especially convenient if you have a Fitbit Aria scale (or another "smart scale" that can automatically sync to your Fitbit account), but it also works with any scale, as long as you manually log your weight in your account.

Also, if you look at other people who have been successful at losing large amounts of weight (eg. 100+ lbs) over longer periods of time (eg. 1+ year), they tend to have a long-term plan. I’m thinking of people like @A_Lurker and @tamado, but there are others. My impression is you don’t have a very structured plan. I’m not saying you’ve lost 39 pounds by luck, but if you want to go beyond that, you’ll probably need to start planning your journey in more details. 

[PanthersLuke]

How long does it take sodium water weight to wear off? Or exercise intensity water weight to wear off? 

I've burnt 3,000 calories from working out alone Friday and Saturday and so this is obviously frustrating.

[Dominique]

It’s normal for your weight to fluctuate one day to the next. This is my weight for the past year, as plotted with Trendweight (the service I mentioned in my last reply):

As you can see, individual weigh-ins (grey curve) are up and down all the time. There’s no point in trying to find an explanation for each of them, what really matters is the trend (red curve).

If you want to continue losing a lot of weight, you need to have a longer-term approach.

[SunsetRunner]

My suggestion would be to start cooking at home. Limit the number of times you eat out. It's likely what you are eating and how much when you eat out. When I was working as a merchandiser I use to eat out a lot. I easily ate around 3,000 calories or more when eating out twice a day, plus 4 energy drinks, plus whatever I ate at home and that was on a daily basis. At the time I didn't care because I had a job that was very physical and was able to burn it off. I really think you are under estimating how many calories you are eating when you eat out.

[sarajenivieve]

multiple things may be at play here, or perhaps a combinations of the 3. Unlikeliest first, if you are burning to much vs your intake you body can store fat. 2. measure yourself, when you build muscle your weight can spike upward while your size goes down, the 2 even out after 2-3weeks if that is the case.

Lastly its much harder to become dehydrated than most people believe, in fact the commonly pushed 8 glasses a day is not based on anything and is rubish, over hydrating can lead to weight gain and other health problems down  the road and sounds like the most likely issue at play given your description.

[Koeberg1601]

Try the 5/2 diet. 2 days per week, plate of porridge for breakfast and plate of porridge for dinner and 4-5 helpings of fruit. And as a reward make those your alcohol days. You'll feel great, lose weight but don't drink and drive.