Unintentional weight gain-Why is this?

[Maggie1125]

Hi, I bought myself a Fitbit Alta for my 50th birthday almost a year ago and since I began using it I've seen an increase in weight gain approximately 8-10 pounds. My goal in the beginning was to lose about 10 pounds and track my activity. My BMI usually falls between high in the "normal" range or low in the "overweight" range. I've always considered myself a healthy eater and have been moderately active most of my life. Is this an issue for anyone else? 

[USAF-Larry]

@Maggie1125, I moved this post to the Be Inspired Discussion Forum, since it is not a tracker problem. It will get more discussion here.

An unintended consequence of exercise is that after a good workout we tend to eat more food than we should.  Weight loss or maintenance is all about calories in vs calories out - if we burn more calories than we consume, we lose weight; if we burn fewer calories than we consume, we gain weight; and if we burn about the same calories as we consume, we maintain our weight.  So, journal you calorie intake and compare it to your daily/weekly calorie burn - then you'll know where adjustments need to be made.

[Dominique]

@Maggie1125: I hope you didn’t draw the conclusion your Fitbit Alta somehow caused you to gain 8-10 pounds in a year. Weight management is a very fine equilibrium: if you gained 8-10 pounds in a year, it means every day you ate 78-98 more calories than you burned in average. It’s not much: a typical full-fat cheese (taking this as an exemple as I’m a cheese lover) has about 350-400 calories per 100 grams, so that’s 20-25 grams of cheese, which is just one small portion. 80-100 calories may also be what you burn with 15-20 minutes of brisk walking. So you see what it takes to reach equilibrium: just eat a tad less, or move a tad more. If you manage to do both while keeping everything else the same, you could well be on your way to losing your 10 pounds in 2017.

[A_Lurker]

@Maggie1125 - healthy eating can still be eating slightly too much.  Have you done any kind of food tracking?  Sometimes a good idea is to write everything down that you eat for a couple of weeks.  You can log this into any food logging program (Fitbit, Myfitnesspal, etc.) just to get an idea of where you actually are.  It's hard not to modify your food while you're doing this,  but try.  This will give you an idea of where you are, and how you 'spend' your calories during the day.  Then as @Dominique mentioned you might need to only tweak a couple of things to bring you into a deficit.  It may be as simple as cutting out a coffee (cream and sugar) or chosing to take it black.  A small coffee black has 3 calories.  The local double/double favourite of most of my coworkers becomes 140 calories.

I'm currently comparing a Flex 2 (no HR) to a Charge 2 (which has the heart rate monitor).  I think a number of people have found that without the HR the numbers are low, with them they can be high.  I'm hoping to do a longer comparison as I go back to weight loss mode.  For now though, figure out what you're eating and what your Alta says you're burning.  3-4 weeks should give you an idea of how accurate your numbers are.  On high calorie/low density foods (oils, cheese, sugar, peanut butter) try and be as precise as possible.  To lose 10 or so pounds you don't necessarily need a food scale, but it can be eye opening to see the difference between say a level Tb of peanut butter and a heaping one.