Weight loss plateau and now gain???

[Weaverbunch]

On April 13th, I put away all the chips, boxed foods, sugars (except for one cup of coffee in morning with sugar) and replaced those items with fresh fruit, fresh veggies, lean meats, poultry...I am no longer consuming any soft drinks or sugary drinks. I drink water...plain. I have exercised faithfully since that day and recently began coordinating holding 2lb weights with my walking workout in my hands. On May 9th, I started using fitbit. My weight on April 13th was 188 pounds. I am a 5"4.5 feet tall female with slightly muscular legs, smallish hips and butt. I carry all of my weight in my abdomen and have what I like to refer to as "the shoulders of a football player." My arms are not huge, but they definitely need toning!!

I started out on a treadmill on April 13th at a light pace and daily increased my speed. I am now comfortably up to 3.5-3.8 mph for 3 weeks, with bursts up to 5mph and I walk at this pace for an hour a day, sometimes all at once, other times I do 2 thirty minute workouts. I wear a pulse oximeter to be sure my target heart rate stays up. I can only maintain 5 mph for a minute or so at a time, as I am NOT a runner! I also began about a week ago adding inclining to my workout. I was up to 4-5 miles a day on the treadmill alone, not including the regular walking around during the day. On May 2nd, my weight was 181. I was excited to see that I had lost 7 lbs. On May 9th my weight was still 181 despite my consuming less calories and exercising. I spoke to my doctor about it and he advised me not to get discouraged saying this was a normal plateau.

This morning I got on the scale and I was shocked to see I had gained almost 5 pounds!

Now I am still getting used to Fitbit website so I have also been using Supertracker and have since April 13th. My BMR was 1543 I think give or take a few. I set the supertracker to keep me within 1500 calories and I only went over 1 time after enjoying 2 slices of pizza...I always average under. May 10, and May 11 were my first true tracking days on fitbit and the calorie load was very similar to what I logged on supertracker. It was only off by a couple of points. I had a calorie deficet on fitbit. The only difference I have made was that yesterday, I consumed 50 ounces of water, where I am used to only getting 32 typically. Surely, the almost 5 pounds did not come from that? My husband says I am building muscle, and while that may be true, 5 pounds seems less likely as a muscle gain in only a few days.

Prior to starting a healthier lifestyle I rarely ate breakfast or lunch and always consumed my calories at night with dinner and snacking. Now I eat breakfast most mornings and have a healthy snack around every 2-3 hours. By healthy I mean a piece of fruit (usually an apple). I am not eating any dairy products as I refuse to eat low fat cheese because I hate it. I am supplementing for that by chewing 2 viactiv.

My typical daily food menu is this:

AM-1 egg cooked with cooking spray

1 piece of whole wheat toast (the very thin kind from Pepperidge Farm---it's like the size of an extra large cracker

1 tsp peanut butter

1/2 banana

Morning snack-apple

Lunch- low sodium tuna fish (1/2 single serving pouch) with 1tsp light mayo

2 slices of the little wheat bread

lettuce

carrots

a few grapes

afternoon snack-5 sesame seed crackers or 6 triscuits

dinner-baked or grilled chicken 1/2 of small breast or very lean beef

2 vegetable sides cooked without fat

sometimes I replace one of the nonstarchy veggies with a very, very small baked potato with light margarine...just a pat

Evening snack-fruit, or triscuits with 1 tsp of sourcream based ranch dip, or popcorn (air popped no fat)

WHAT IN THE HECK AM I DOING WRONG?????

AVERAGING 10,000 STEPS A DAY OR MORE!

[whome]

Not to say you are doing anything wrong, but, it sounds like you don't really have enough data to track trends accurately yet. I may havemissed it but I don't think I saw a mention of your age. Do you still have a monthly cycle? If so, a sudden 5lb water weight gain does not sound unreasonable. 

Keep at it - be a tortoise, not a hare - and don't stress - life is a journey, enjoy the trip

Craig

[Snowflakepdx]

Based on the type of exercise and duration you are burning most of the glyogen and water in you muscles.  that can account for 3 or more pounds.  Plan on weighing yourself in the morning prior to your workout and continue weighing prior to your workout for consitency.

As you train your muscles to burn fat and perform aerobically they also are being trained to store glycogen.  When you work out the glycogen is burned right along side fat and this glycogen stored in your muscle tissues is stored with water molecules.  You must have weighed yourself when your muscles were fueled. This isn't fat...this is conditioning.   While you are working out you are releasing tons of water...it can make the scale a little tricky to read.  

This is normal...you are becoming an athlete and creating an unstoppable metabolism.  this is terrific news and a sign that your efforts are working. 

[Weaverbunch]

41 years old....I had a partial hysterectomy years ago, but I still have ovaries and hormones.

[whome]

Again, I can't see that there is anything wrong with what you are doing and if you are making a mistake it may be that you are stressing yourself by being impatient - personally I am a 60yo male 5'10" approx 140lb - it is very easy for me to jump up 3 - 4 lbs over a weekend of beer drinking and then wittle it back down over the next week - when you are just at the end of your 1st month you really don't have enough data yet to know if this is just part of a cycle you are likely to see repeat every month or something else - and actually stressing unnecessarily apparently can cause cortisol release which is counterproductive to weight loss

I know it is often easier to say "take it easy" than it is to do it - but right now that along with keeping on doing what you have been doing (assuming, of course, that you are being strict with yourself about your calorie intake logging)

Good luck

Craig

[MB32]

Try not to look at the scale, it is not going to help motivate you! The scale means nothing! Take a picture in the mirror. Front, back, side. Take all your measurments. I started Insanity almost 2 months ago. I have gained 7 lbs but you cant tell from the before and after pictures. One lb of fat and one lb of muscle is equal in weight ONLY! Muscle is a lean fat burning machine. Keep a picture and measurment log and you will be amazed at what the scale does not tell you.

As I already said I gained 7 lbs but lost a total 4 inches so far from waist and hips alone and gained an inch in both my calves and my arms.

Dont give up on yourself. Keep going!

[Weaverbunch]

Thanks MB32!! I did give myself an exercise rest day yesterday but I still ate very right! I did get on the scale this morning to see if it was just a fluke....I am sad to say that it appears that this ended up being a 2-3 pound weight gain...but you are right about the number! My husband says he can notice a big difference already. So I will avoid the scale and I will take those pictures and measurements. I did measure a  couple of weeks ago, but did not log them then. I will be more diligent!! 🙂

[josephz2va]

You eat 1500, but what about calorie burn? Your calorie burn should be 2500 to burn 2 pounds a week (-1000 deficit).

[Weaverbunch]

Let me clarify...I was using USDA Supertracker to help me keep track of my calories prior to purchasing fitbit. I had been using Supertracker for about 4 weeks before buying fitbit. I am still logging my food on supertracker and am now logging on fitbit too. Although I set my calorie load at 1500, I rarely ate 1000. It's probably too new to show a real trend on fitbit, but for example I currently have a 5000+ deficet for the week. I eat pretty much the same way everyday. I usually end up around 1000 calories, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. I am burning an average of 2,220 calories a day currently. Since Sunday I have burned 9000+.

[Heybales]

---

@Weaverbunch wrote:

Let me clarify...I was using USDA Supertracker to help me keep track of my calories prior to purchasing fitbit. I had been using Supertracker for about 4 weeks before buying fitbit. I am still logging my food on supertracker and am now logging on fitbit too. Although I set my calorie load at 1500, I rarely ate 1000. It's probably too new to show a real trend on fitbit, but for example I currently have a 5000+ deficet for the week. I eat pretty much the same way everyday. I usually end up around 1000 calories, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. I am burning an average of 2,220 calories a day currently. Since Sunday I have burned 9000+.

---

wow, hope you don't have a lot to lose then, because got some bad news.

You are no longer burning 2220 calories daily. Not if you eat in total about 1000 and are maintaining with current level of exercise.

Now, you could have some bad sloppy logging problems and are actually eating a fair amount more than you think, but I'll bet you've still obtained the 20-25% suppression to your system studies have shown.

Which means you are probably burning more along the lines of 1750.

Now obviously that still takes a lot of bad logging to make up for 750 calories, that should still cause 1.5 lb weekly loss.

But if you've caused some good muscle mass loss, then your metabolism is also lower than Fitbit is estimating, so burning less than 1750.

So probably a combo of all of those has you actually eating at maintenance right now, really badly suppressed maintenance. And it's higher than 1000 because of bad logging.

Hope you don't have a lot to lose still, because your TDEE drops about 75 calories per 10 lbs anyway. And then you have to eat less than that to actually lose weight.

You might do the math for your end game to see how bad it is.

But right now your decision is either to accept that suppression and hope it is maxed out - and start eating even less and hope you do lose.

Or fix it, so you can have long term success reaching goal weight, and maintaining afterwards.

http://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/truth-about-metabolic-damage

[cbecher]

So, I read the article posted on metabolic damage. Very interesting. But, I wonder how many calories I should eat if I am "eating more, exercising more," or vice versa. Currently I'm consuming 1350 and burn an average of 2300 calories per day.

[Heybales]

---

@cbecher wrote:
So, I read the article posted on metabolic damage. Very interesting. But, I wonder how many calories I should eat if I am "eating more, exercising more," or vice versa. Currently I'm consuming 1350 and burn an average of 2300 calories per day.

---

Well, your body isn't going to be really happing eating 59% of what it wants to be eating because that's what it's burning.

Move that more in to the 20% range for a reasonable level. 500 deficit is that level for a little bit, but 250 will be it very quickly.

See your workouts improve, your body get unstressed, hormones reset, body burn more.

It's not really metabolic damage - as the body is adapting exactly the way it was designed. You feed it too much less than you burn - it adapts so it's not really burning that much.

And the metabolism adjusts the least, other stuff adjusts more to compensate and leave more for the metabolism. But many do experience hair falling out and nails not growing and skin having problems - so the body can slow down some of that badly, normal body repair.

And you can unstress faster if you slowly start eating up to potential maintenance.

100 extra daily above current eating levels, 1 week at a time, until eating at what Fitbit says you burn. Do that for a month, then take a reasonable deficit.

See your workouts get stronger, and body transform more - even without scale weight dropping.