What the...?!

Firstly, I am 22 years old and 168cm tall. Almost exactly three weeks ago I decided to come back and use CC as well as bump up my exercise regime. I went from having no idea how many calories I was consuming to tracking and making sure I was eating between 1200-1400 calories. Also, I went from exercising once a week to exercising 5 times a week (spin classes, body step or elliptical for at least 40 minutes).

I weighed myself this morning and after three weeks I had GAINED! I have gone from 63.5 kgs to 63.8 kgs after three weeks. I understand weight loss is meant to be a slow and steady process, but I am literally stumped about the numbers on the scale.

What the heck is going on? What am I doing wrong? The most disheartening thing about this is that my weight was better off before I even started, it feels like my hard work so far has been for nothing.

Your weight can vary A LOT based on time of day, what you ate that day/recently and the time of month. By  a lot I mean like 8 pounds for me. 

So, you need to weigh at the same time everytime (in the morning before breakfast, not when your hair is wet). And do it regularly. 

ONLY then can you take the numbers seriously at all. 

I'm not sure if you have one already, but I highly recommend using a food scale. Package labels are often incorrect, and so are restaurant nutrition guides. I once read restaurants are often off by 20% and as high as 300%! Additionally, we as humans suck at estimating how much we're eating.

I also recommend weighing yourself everyday at the same time, and keeping a log on MS Excel. Then take the weekly weight average and compare the weekly average of each week to the weekly average of the following week. Averages are better in terms of trend than actual weigh in days. Day to day weights can widely vary due to sodium intake, how stressed your muscles are, if you're dehydrated, how much fiber you're eating, etc.

I think you may not be eating enough calories and your metabolism has slowed down... especially if u are exercising so much you need to eat back the calories you burn.. try increase your cals and see how you go.

6 small meals a day may also help... and don't forget that muscle weighs more than fat..

Hope this helps and good luck!

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I already am in the habit of weighing myself every third day or so (in the morning). My weight did drop down to 62.7 last week, but the past two days have shown a gain...sigh.

Upping my calories? That sounds very scary! I don't know if I could handle another weight gain. So should I stick to 1400 calories everyday then? And how long should I do this?

Am I just very tired and misreading your post?

You're saying that you gained 0.3kg in 3 weeks??? Is that all??? Like, I know it's a gain but my weight fluctuates by a couple of pounds every few days...

The fact that your weight dropped down to 62.7kg the other week as well pretty much shows that its probably a fluctuation.

Don't be disheartened...it seems like water weight to me from everything you've said. I think you should just keep going calorie and exercise wise and see what happens, personally.

Good luck.

Hi,

Like some people have said it could just be water retention.

But also, since you've upped your workouts so much you will probably have gained some muscle mass, and like said earlier - muscles are heavier than fat. So it could be that the weight/fat loss and the muscle gain equal each other out. Try and focus less on what the scale says.
Perhaps measure your body, waist, hips and so on, and go by that instead of the scales.

Keep the good work up and you will see results, you just have to be patient. And you definitely don't want to cut back further on your calories with all that exercise.

Please remember that your body flucuates normally. Water retention and other factors can influence it. Also, the scale isn't always accurate.

It doesn't sound like you've "gained" anything, but more or less stayed the same. The 0.3 that you saw was most likely water, although I don't know if it could be muscle or not.

I wouldn't worryn about that.