How frustrating is it to see the scale go up!?

[trailrunnergirl]

So, I've been on this healthy lifestyle change since 7.6.15 (coming up on 2 months now) and so far its gone well!  I've been super encouraged by using the fitbit charge and my aria to track my progress.  Down 18 pounds so far, but my 3 month goal is 27 pounds so I have about 9 left to go.  My 6 month goal is to hit GW losing a total of 42 pounds... fingers crossed of course.  Anyways, the last week and a half I have continued my diet program following my fitbit calorie allowance (1,000 cal deficit) and every morning I weigh myself,  I used to see a steady decline in weight but now my weight is all over the place!  How frustrating!!  I get on the scale and expect a loss and I am up a pound...sometimes more!  I feel like I have no way to gauge what my weight will be each morning.  Sometimes I am up, then I am back down then I go up even higher.  (I weigh myself same time every morning when I get up before breakfast etc. to maintain same enviroment).  What gives?! I follow the food allowance to a T, I eat very healthy, no processed, very little added sugar, primarily veggies, fruit, lean protein and few complex carbs.  And on top of all of that, I am training for a half marathon so I am running anywhere from 25-30 miles a week (and throwing in weight training on Wed Fri and Sun). I am at a total loss for words on what has gone wrong... please help!! Trying to stay positive and not throw in the towel.

Spoiler

[Annie-NH]

I have been battling since July, was losing steady, dropped 21 lbs then suddenly up 4, yo-yoed for 4 weeks, now finally moving down again.  it isn't a perfet science, we follow the rules but the scale isn't the best measure of how we are doing.  If you are working out that hard you are probably burning fat and building muscle, how do your clothes fit?  Are you eating enough protein, and calories.  I finally started losing again after I started eating more,  so many people suggested it but I ignored it for 4 weeks, then gave it a shot, and I am losing again

[Raviv]

I don't know if it helps any (other than knowing you're not alone) but when I started running I lost at the same rate as before I ran, then about a month and a half later I stalled out for a couple of weeks.  My weight would go up and down and then back up again, which was really frustrating because it was right at the stage when people started asking me how much I had lost.  And it never changed. 

I have noticed that I do better when I add in a little more protein.  Yesterday I had 84g which was about 28% of my calories, and the day before was a little bit more at 31%.  It seemed to help somewhat, along with just plain hanging in there while your body adjusts.  This morning I was down a little, further than I had ever been before.

And don't forget that your weight will usually go up a little after a hard workout.  So if you work out pretty hard on Monday, you won't see the results on Tuesday morning.  If anything, you will have added on a little water weight.  Then maybe Wednesday morning you'll see a impact on the scale.

[Farica]

I'm in the same boat, I guess, over the first couple of months I lost 23 pounds quickly and easily, then it just stopped happening - up two pounds, down half a pound, then up one, down a quarter, etc., etc.  I know everyone will say I'm cheating or lying but I obsessively weigh everything, I almost always eat fewer calories than Fitbit allows, I've given up most sugar and processed foods and, if nothing else, I know I'm eating much less than I was before. I am quite overweight so I have it to lose. But, nope, for the past month it just sits around the same number.

About all I can say is don't give up! I think it will start moving in the right direction again. But, yeah...frustrating doesn't begin to describe it.

[Wanch]

Never "throw in the towel"!!!  STAY FOCUSED!  

I've been running consistently now for 5 years now and I can tell you that I've seen my weight go up and down. Not gonna lie that it has been frustrating expecting the scale to go in one direction only to see it go in the other.  Ultimately ... for me ... it's about how I feel when I'm out on my run.  I've lost almost 50 lbs in those 5 years and feel so much better today than I did then.  I guess my point is that it's not so much about how much weight you lose ... it's about how well you feel. If you feel better today than you did yesterday then you're going in the right direction. Hang in there and keep working... life is a marathon not a sprint!

[SunsetRunner]

I totally agree - it's super frustrating. I've been at it for a year now and have dropped three sizes and several pounds - but I'm now heavier than my original goal weight. In fact I'm smaller (thinner?) than I was at my lightest! It's not an exact science and I can't tell you how frustrating I find it when I jump on the scales (even now I still have that curiosity to see what I weight despite knowing that any odd number could appear despite all my efforts to stay on track and so on) to find i've jumped up 8lbs! 

Only this morning  a workmate asked me how much I'd lost cos I looked smaller and I told her that i've put on over half a stone in the past week. I think she thinks I'm lying. Since I've got better at nailing my diet, and work out harder I've found i pay less and less attention to the scale as it doesn't seem to accurately reflect how I feel/look and what I'm capable of doing now that I wasn't a year ago. 

Please try not to get too caught up in the numbers, by all means play around with your diet (I certainly eat more now than I ever did - even at my biggest) and be aware of how much better you're treating your body now you run and weight train. You will have built up muscle from strength training - don't let the scale fool you into thinking you're not doing an amazing thing! 

[awood08]

I just hit 28 pounds lost since June 16th 2015. My weight has gone up and down by 1-2 even 3 pounds some weeks. Check your body measurements, even though I had times my weight crept up a bit I always had inches dropping. Your weight in pounds can be anything from water weight to just a bad time of day. I always weigh myself at the same time of day (first thing in the morning) and wearing the same exact thing that way there is less variables to throw off my numbers. My first 20 pounds I lost like nothing, now it takes alot more work. I stalled for nearly 2 weeks with pounds going up and down. I just recently bumped my calories from 1200 to 1500 and I just lost 3 pounds this week! I'm roughly at a 1000 calorie deficit as well. Good luck!

[pcobb8]

stick with it, you are doing a great job.  My personal opinion is not to weight in daily.  I fell into that trap at 1st, and i was all over the place and it made me mad.  I am down to once a week and it is working so much better.  Ideally I would like to be down to every two weeks but mentally I can't do that. 

[dumbbunny]

Weight loss is not linear.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10084670/it-is-unlikely-that-you-will-lose-weight-co...

[EmJen]

Thank you so much for posting this! 

My journey began in June 2015, and while the number had steadily been moving down I, too, have sort of hit a plateau. I was also getting frustrated, but had to remind myself that my body is changing - adjusting the way it needs to in reaction to all of the nutritional and physcial changes happening. 

One thing I've had to learn to incorporate are rest days. I was working out six times a week, giving myself one day off, but started to wonder how effective it was given the type of trainging happening. (Sunday: Definitions/weight training, Monday:Cycling, Tuesday: Pump N Power/weight training, Wednesday:Cardio, Thursday:Cycling, Friday:Cardio, Saturday:rest.)

I was/am realizing that it was too much too soon. (I hadn't quite been that physically active beforehand.) I'm now in the process of breaking up my regimen, to help keep things fresh for my body AND to be able to rest and recover effectively. 

Please stay positive! It's so wonderful that you came to the Community for help! 

[dumbbunny]

As long as you are in a calorie deficit (burning more calories than you are
eating), you WILL lose weight. Record your weight each day and over the
course of say 10 days, you should see a downward trend of weight loss.
Think of this - a person walking downhill while playing with a yo-yo. The
up and down of the yo-yo represents the daily fluctuations and the person's
walk downhill represents the overall weight loss.

Checkout trendweight.com - you can link trendweight to your Fitbit weight
log.

db

[Mermaid3011]

It's frustrating as HXXX (insert your chosen worst word here). 

I've been on this journey for 8 months now and some days I could have just dropped on the floor and cried. Especially on those when I felt I had really been good and then the scale went up 2 lbs! UGH!!!! 

What helped me was getting a personal coach (online, for free) and following her as a role model. She had lost 60 lbs at that time (and is still going strong)  and gave me daily advice if I needed it, had me think about all the different aspects of my new "lifestyle" and what it meant to live healthier (water, food, exercise, rewarding yourself without food, celebrating little steps etc). She has a secret group on FB where we all share experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly and it really helps to keep me motivated on a daily basis.