Why isn't the weight coming off?

[coyotedave]

I'm running 3 times a week and biking 5 times a week. I'm watching what I eat why am I gaining weight?

[Colinm39]

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@coyotedave wrote:

I'm running 3 times a week and biking 5 times a week. I'm watching what I eat why am I gaining weight?

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@coyotedaveYou will probably find it will be portion size in your food. The exercise gets you in condition and you need a great deal to lose weight. 70-80% of our Calories burned/day is just keeping our body functioning and the remaining is our exercise, metabolism/genetics.

There are many Fitbit posts over the last few years about this and the type of food we eat, I have a leaning towards Johnathan Bailor's "The Calorie Myth", quality eating, eat more, exercise less and lose weight.

I put weight on in the first 4 weeks and then I gradually mastered the portion size. I woke up to this when I had a franchised carrot cake and a coffee and found it was about 800 calories (enjoyable), but the penalty was, I would have had to walk for 9 miles at 3 miles/hour for 3 hours, just for the 10 minute snack. We don't like to admit this but that is the issue for most of us.

[Heybales]

Everyone watches what they eat - well, except for those with sleep eating disorders, but otherwise.

But are you weighing and logging what you eat, only measuring liquids?

You can't out exercise a bad diet. Studies have shown that without the controls on the eating side of the equation, exercise alone rarely causes weight loss.

As to current effect - did you just start going extreme on the exercise like that, or always have been?

If just started, your body is going to increase blood volume for sweating and getting oxygen around better.

It's going to store more carbs as energy source, which stores with water in muscle.

And while going in to a diet (if you actually have) normally results in big water weight loss for those same carbs, the instant needs outweighs (ah!) the normal diet response.

Also, are you correct on the speed of the biking when you log it for better calorie burn estimate?

Many will notice some top speeds they saw, and count that as average for the whole trip, including stop lights, water breaks, ect. That can lower an avg speed down by 5 mph sometimes.