newbie going backwards???

help? i am very confused (and new, obviously). i lost 20 lbs in 10 months by eating about 1200-1300 calories, drinking water & exercisign regularly, weights & cardio. however, i hit another plateau.

i upped my caloric intake / day to about 1500 b/c i was told i was undereating. now i feel like i am gaining! i wont get on the scale b/c it is merely depressing but is that possible to be gaining weight after adding 300 more/day calories for a few weeks? seems odd .

if so, how do i get myself to the healthy intake of 1500 (example number) calories / week but continue a weight loss??

yes, I do weight training - 4x/week - heavy weights - 3 sets/8-12 reps all body parts split b/w 4 nonconsecutive days - and cut down the cardio from 5 days a week to 3-4 (but 20 min. vs. 45-60 i was doing)

my diet is healthy (i think) - 5 meals consisting of example day:
B- golean kashi/berries/coffee/skim milk/1% cottage cheese
S- yogurt & fruit (plum usually)
L- turkey wrap with swiss cheese
S- (i usually forget!)
D- usually fish/chicken/tofu with veggies & side salad

any help? i feel like i am going backwards....? :(
 
Sounds to me like you may be adding muscle which weighs more than the fat you are losing. Your overall bodyfat is probably decreasing and you are just adding muscle. I wouldn't get discouraged and keep you calories up. You can't always go by the numbers on a scale to measure progress.
Keep up the hard work.
 
anybody have any clue about this? i just find it hard to believe that i am gaining THAT much muscle - i wish - but i doubt it right now!
 
I went from 265 to 180 (in about 2 years) and it was super hard work... I had a tun of platues along the way... I lost almost 20 in the first month as I dropped a bunch in water and just the mass of food I was carrying in my gut...

ok I am no medical professional so don't take what I tell you as truth.. just my experience...

IMHO upping your calories to 1500 proabably isn't going to change what is keeping you from loosing weight... your body thinks it is starving... Up you calories to the amount you should eat to not loose or gain for 2-3 days then resume your diet...

also... if you are weighing yourself everyday... and you see no change... try this... weight yourself at nite before you go to bed and when you get up... don't worry about the nite number so much it is the morning number... if it is staying fairly stable then chances are you are loosing weight...

When I dropped my calories down to 1200-1500 the reduction in food mass changed my BM (bowl movement) schedule to every 3 days (more but I started taking fiber)... so I would not gain... not loose... have a BM and loose 1/2 a pound... then repeat... so I was loosing between 3/4 to 1 pound a week... but I only saw the drop on BM days...

When I really did platue I would do 2 things...

1.) resume normal (not my normal...) eating for a weekend... starting friday dinner... ending sunday dinner...

2.) change my diet food... If I was eating say grapenuts & fruit for breakfast... and tuna and celery for lunch then reduced normal dinner...
I might switch to oatmeal for breakfast and lunch... for a couple days...

I don't know why but basically my strategy is this... if what you are doing isn't working change something... (but only one thing) and see if it helps... if it doesn't try something else...

also you could be dropping fat and just retaining water...
 
jsobo119 said:
also... if you are weighing yourself everyday... and you see no change... try this... weight yourself at nite before you go to bed and when you get up... don't worry about the nite number so much it is the morning number... if it is staying fairly stable then chances are you are loosing weight...


wHOOPS I never told you why to do this...

You will notice a trend in your morning/nite weights... when I would see is that the morning wieght would hold but the nite would fluctuate... but you would notice a trend... you would start to notice how much water you shed each nite... you also will notice that when you eat certain foods it affects your water retenion over nite... you also know how much you ate that day and if you should freak out when you hit the scale...

Ex: I was 187 last week (yes I put back on some weight... I am taking it off... went back up to 200 2 years after hitting 180)... so I dropped 5 pounds in 1 weak and was thinking that was too fast... so I upped my calories over the weekend to try to slow things down a bit... I ate a big dinner on sunday and went from 188 in the morning to 196 at night??? Big difference. I went back down to 193 in the morning... 192 today... I am pretty sure I fooled myself thinking 187 was real 187... because I wasn't taking my nite weights... I didn't realize that the BM I had that day completely cleaned me out... and that I was probably dehidrated a bit...

anyways people say to take your weight 1x a week or only in the morning... or whatever... I say either take it once every other week (when you can actually expect to see results on the scale) or take it twice a day so you can see the trends...

BTW my trend tends to be bottom number stable... top occilating but going down... then when the top (night) gets within 2 pound... the bottom will drop... the next day... so 4-6 lbs spread narrowing to 2 pounds then bottom drops... usually correlating with a bm...

Sorry if that is tmi...

BTW One other thing... you were doing 5 days of 45-60 min. of cardio a day... they say that the first 40 minutes you are burning carbs... and glycogen stored in the muscels and then after 40 you begin to burn fat... how true that is iduno... But if that were true you were in the fat buring period 25-100 minutes a week before and now you are there 0... also before you were doing 225-300 min of cardio and now you are doin 60-80.

That in itself is a couple hundred calories you are not burning now... Just some stuff to think about... and the other guy could be right... you might be adding some muscle... or I suspect you are retaining water...
 
thanks jsobo119. it helps to hear from experience for sure.. that is interesting about the fluctuations and BM's, etc...I"ll have to check that out.

You bring up a valid point about the couple hundred cal. i am not burning due to decreasing the long cardio workouts - BUT, i've read so much on these posts that if you have time, spend the time with the weights and really do weight training so you dont lose muscle/fat but fat only...that is why i decresased...i wonder if this is incorrect???????????

i totally understand, that if it doesnt work, change something. i didnt realize that ONE food could inhibit progress.

lastly, i am bloated (so i am thinking it is water retention, total guess here) - i have upped my fruit intake lately - doesnt that make that happen more so?? maybe i should lay off the berries and stuff like that for a little while?

anybody have any recommendations (food wise)? thanks - i am so new and really wanting to do this right.

i have been reading posts and yall are very knowledgable - any help from pros or personal experiences will help me sort this out! thanks!!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
also... if you are weighing yourself everyday... and you see no change... try this... weight yourself at nite before you go to bed and when you get up... don't worry about the nite number so much it is the morning number... if it is staying fairly stable then chances are you are loosing weight...

this IS happening - same weight in morning at night - why does that mean chances i'm losing??????????????????????????????? (but water retaining??) :confused:
 
Back
Top