how could this have happened??

I just started strength training...but using my body as resistence, after having a personal training session.

I have to say that I feel a small difference in my body, but when I got on the scale today after about 2 weeks of this, I noticed a GAIN!  how is this possible?  How could this have happened??

:(  so depressed

muscle weighs more than fat
you probably just gained some muscle- thats all.  but with your extra muscle, ur body burns more calories and overall ur body just looks better.  plus, if you gained muscle u certainly lost fat because the way muscles are built up is that u tear them (by pushing them til they hurt) and then they are patched up by body fat.  so dont b depressed! b happy!

Because of what justkeeprunning1 said, it would be wiser to actually measure your progress through body measurements rather than by the number on the scale.

Congrats on the muscle gain by the way! It's so much sexier to have muscle.

I have noticed I always weigh more the day after I do strength training by about 1-2 pounds.  I haven't investigated why, I would make an uneducated guess that sore muscles may have more fluid in them but I could be completely wrong! 

I agree with the posts above - measure yourself arms, waist, hips, thigh, calf.. I bet they are decreasing! :)

Thanks for all your responses guys.  I've been doing it for 2 weeks, could this have happened already?

Hate to be a downer, but it is unlikely that you gained significant muscle in 2 weeks.  Showing any sort of body composition change in that time period is , in fact,very unlikely.  I would attribute this [apparent] gain to some combination of the following factors:  (1) weight fluctuates on its own.  If you weight yourself only weekly you don't know whether that one-time input is an accurate trend. (2) It is possible that you have been eating more becasue of the psychological effect of exercise. In other words, becasue you might feel more active you think that you "deserve" more calories.

This said, if you keep your food intake/energy output in ratio with your goals and continue a strength training program along with cardio, you will see an improvement in both body composition as well as body weight.

Hope this helps,

Catgirl

I'm with cat-girl.....you're not gaining muscle yet...but I'll add this...when going from no weightlifting to weightlifting, your muscles are going to start sucking in water and this is going to be added to your normal water weight retention, thus creating this weight spike...your muscles may appear larger during this time, but as far as dry muscle fiber added is concerned, its not going to be much.

could I not be eating enough then?

I'm 5'6, eating 1200 which is only 100 less than what I am supposed to be eating.

My BMR is 1800 - 500 deficit = 1300.

Any suggestions?

Is your BMR 1800 or do you burn 1800 each day?

From your profile, it looks like you are 5'6", ~150lb?  Your BMR isn't 1800 - as sully suggested, you are burning 1800 in a day.

I started at 168, and got down to 135 (I'm 5'6" too), by eating 1400-1600 per day, and exercising off about 300 calories extra every other day.  In my opinion, you might want to try eating more - when I tried to eat the CC-recommended 1300, I didn't lose - when I ate more, I started losing.

And as jarredwayne pointed out, weight training can cause your muscles to retain water, which can explain a next day jump on the scale, but it's just a normal fluctuation.

Good job, amethystgirl, on your weightloss and increased strength/tone; seeing your weight loss with stats similar to mine gives me hope that I can keep losing down to my goal weight which is 135.  I'm not there yet but I have lost 12 lbs. so far.