Gaining weight! Whats going on??

This topic contains 6 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  simcoeluv 7 years, 2 months ago.

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  • Hi everyone,

    I´ve been on the 5:2 diet for 10 months now. I am a male at 185 cm height. I started up in the beginning of march 2016 at 117 kg. After 3 months I was down 9 kg to 108 kg. Then I hit a plateau for 2 months. In august, I followed mr. Mosleys advice and did alternate day fasting for a month to break the plateau. It worked and took me down to 106 kg by september. The weight loss continued until early november (105 kg). After that I´ve just been dieting and not bothering to weigh myself too much. But when I weighed in 5 days ago I became shocked. The weight had increased to 107,5 kg. And today – 5 days after – I weigh in at 109,2 kg.

    WHAT THE H*LL IS GOING ON??

    I work out 4-5 days a week. I combine cardio (low and high intensity) and resistance training. I even do cardio on my fasting days with no discomfort. I eat 2000-2500 kcal on my non-fast days and 5-600 on my fast days. My fitbit tells me my daily expenditure is on an average of 3500 kcal per day. So even on my non fast days I should be losing weight. Some would argue that I should be eating more on my non-days, but it doesn´t make sense. I eat until I´m full and sometimes even beyond. In general my appetite is low after starting fasting. I could easily go for 2-3 days without eating and without feeling discomfort. But my sanity tells me I should eat.

    I´ve had an issue with sleeping too little (sub 6 hours per night). Lack of sleep and weight gain is often correlated, but my sleeping pattern was the same during my initial weight loss.

    Can anyone please give me some advice her? I´m getting desperate.

    Forget the scale and use a tape measure. Are you losing fat? That is what you want to know.

    You working out is probably obscuring your fat loss. Exercise is great for your health, but if you only care about your weight, then it isn’t so great. Good exercise typically results in more weight. Muscle is heavy and it also holds glycogen which is actually about 3/4 water.

    HI dykask,

    Thanks for your answer. I am aware that muscle gain can obscure fat loss. But in my experience that is most significant when starting working out after longer periods of inactivity.
    Thing is I´ve been doing steady workout since even before i started 5:2. As far as I can see there is no good reason why I suddenly should have a big increase in muscle gain during the diet.

    Hi Tor:

    First, don’t believe your fitbit. All trials show they are inaccurate. Many complain that they gain weight when they believe them. The trials mentioned in this article found fitbits to be the most accurate – at 10% off: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/08/28/how-accurate-are-fitness-tracker-devices.html?intcmp=features

    Another reason not to believe anything a fitness tracker or calorie expenditure device attached to a piece of exercise equipment says is they are not only inaccurate in measuring the amount of exercise you are doing, they are literally unable, except by accident, to measure how many calories you as an individual are actually expending to do that amount of exercise. That is because studies show that every individual will expend a different number of calories doing exactly the same amount of the same exercise. The reasons range from the person’s weight (the higher the weight, the more calories burned for the same exercise) to the person’s genes. Studies show that, depending on your genes, you might burn the ‘anticipated’ number of calories for a certain exercise, or you might burn up to 50% fewer calories for that exercise. And it seems almost half the population will burn less than anticipated. That is another reason why exercise does not automatically lead to the weight losses expected by those embarking on an exercise program.

    Having said all that, I would guess your problem is simply eating too much – maybe because you think you are burning calories you are not burning and ‘eating them back’, or maybe because you have just become a bit lax in watching the number of calories you are eating. It is hard not to lose weight when doing ADF, but easy to regain weight loss when you stop and start ‘just dieting and not bothering to . . .”.

    So my advice is to ignore what your fitbit says about calories you are burning, keep track for a week or two of the calories you are eating, compute your TDEE using an activity level at least one below what you think you are doing (maybe two levels below), and compare calories in to the new TDEE. That may answer your question.

    Good Luck!

    Hei simcoeluv,

    Thanks for your response.

    About the Fitbit: I agree that the fitbit shouldn´t be fully trusted regarding calorie expenditure. Though the article you´re linking to doesn´t take into consideration that the newer models have a heart rate monitor as well, measuring your effort more precisely. But let´s say the article is right. My fitbit shows an average of 3500 kcal spent per day. Subtract 10% error margin and you´ll end up on 3150 kcal. As I also wrote, my calorie intake is between 2000-2500 per day. So there shoud still be a sufficient deficit to lose weight.
    My exercise regimen consists of heavy weight lifting, steady state cardio and high interval training. In addition to this I walk 10.000 steps per day.

    And still I am gaining. After my measure last friday I´ve paid full attention to logging my calorie intake. And still my weight is up 1,7 kg in 5 days. There is no way I´ve been overeating by 15.000 kcal the last 5 days. That is 3000 kcal per day in overeating. That´s more than I´ve been eating in total. It simply doesnt add up. Only thing is I´ve noticed I´ve been drinking a LOT of water. Like 5-6 litres per day. I should´ve been peeing like a race horse. But I don´t. So I suspect the weight gain to be water retention. Maybe I´ve been overtraining. Overtraining combined with a huge calorie deficit adds severe stress to the body, making cortisol rise. And cortisol leads to water retention.

    Anyone experienced this before?

    I should

    …also mention that I even exercise twice some days. 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening.

    Hi Tor:

    Two well known causes of quick weight gain are over exercising and eating carbs, especially processed carbs. Exercise damages the muscles and the body retains water to help in muscle repair. Refined carbs spike blood sugar, the excess of which is converted to glycogen. But glycogen requires 3 to 4 times its weight in water for storage. This overeating of carbs is one of the main causes of weight gain after a holiday or free eating weekend. The water weight goes away when the carb intake is cut, stored glycogen is used and the accompanying water (and water weight) is released. From an exercise point of view, some people start exercising more and then eat/drink quick energy drinks or food (sugar). But the exercise calories used do not come close to covering the excess sugar calories being consumed and thus the build up of glycogen.

    And you still did not take into account your genes, which may cause you to only use 50 to 75% of the calories you think you are using by exercising.

    While I suspect your quick weight gain is largely due to water weight, I still think you might be eating more than you need to eat. You will have to play around with your diet to find out ‘what works for you’.

    Good Luck!

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