Sudden phantom crazy weight gain!

mitchellvii

New member
Hi everyone.


I have been trying to lose weight for the past year. I had gotten all the way up to 283 (I am 6' 5" male) and decided enough was enough. It was relatively easy to lose the weight back until I reach about 263 or so.


For some reason, right about at 263, my body hit the breaks. It didn't matter whether I ate twigs and berries while working out an hour a day, I was NOT going to lose any more weight. Well actually, that is not completely true - here's what happened:


I would diet carefully, eating the right amounts of the right foods. I would steadily work my way down to about 255 feeling very encouraged on my way to my goal weight of 225. Then suddenly and inexplicably, MY WEIGHT WOULD SUDDENLY ROCKET UP 5 TO 7 POUNDS IN ONE DAY!!!! I know you think I am making this up but I am not. I would have a normal day eating properly and for some reason known only to God, my weight would EXPLODE upwards and in a single day regain everything I had lost over weeks of sacrifice and hard work!


This happened over and over and over again. This morning I weighed myself when I woke. I was down to 254 and very excited. Finally I thought, I was going to break this evil chain of crazy one day weight gain. Normally when dieting, I put on about a pound or pound and a half during the day and lose it back as I sleep plus a little more. Anyway, I just now weighed myself before going to bed:


260!!!!


What the heck? +6 pounds in one day! How is this possible!? I have had normal bowel movements and urinated normally all day. I had a light breakfast, a simple sandwich and pickle for lunch and some chicken with rice for dinner - nowhere even close to 6 pounds worth of food, and yet, there it is!


I am COMPLETELY CONFUSED by this sudden weight gain that seems to come from thin air. 3 weeks worth of dieting gone in an instant and I didn't even eat anything fattening at all! How is it possible to eat maybe a pound or two of food and gain 6 pounds???!!!


Grrrrrr.
 
There are so many things this could be due to.


Firstly, despite what the scales say, how are your clothes fitting? Do they tell you that you're gaining or losing?


A few reasons could be:


1. Fluid retention as has been mentioned, this especially follows after very intense workouts

2. What is your calorie count daily? You could be consuming too much, or not enough. Increasing calories for a few days (with the right foods) or having a drop in calories (don't do this if you're on a very low cal diet already) has helped me smash plateaus many times before).

3. Are you having any rest days? If you're training fairly hard core, you need to give your body one day of rest a week (at least) to recover. You will be surprised at how much muscles burn calories and grow on rest days!

4. Weight gain can be attributed to muscle gain if your clothes are getting looser.


In the last month I have not lost any weight on the scales but I have gone down 1 dress size and notice a big difference in photos between that time.


So long as you're exercising and not eating too many calories then you just have to trust that your body will do its thing. Drink heaps of water and try and cut down on sodium as this will cause fluid retention. Mixing things up really helps to smash those weight plateaus, by this i mean different exercise and different food. Even something as simple as adding in night time exercise if you only ever exercise in the morning.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.


Yes, it is weird and frustrating. I prefer to live in a world where things make sense, garbage in, garbage out, reap what you sow and all that. The water weight gain is always a possibility; however, I am urinating normally. Also, if it were water weight you would think the problem would be consistent, not just suddenly and it such great volume in just one day.


Basically the pattern is this: lose weight steadily over a 3 week period keeping caloric intake below 2,000 a day (at my height, I am supposed to be able to eat closer to 4,000 calories a day without gaining weight); then, in one day after no dietary change whatsoever, gain all I have lost in 3 weeks back and the cycle begins again. It has been like this for 6 months and it is driving me crazy.


** Side note: Hypothyroidism runs in my family. My sister and mother both have it and get medication that helps them greatly. If you go down the list of hypothyroidism symptoms, it reads like an autobiography of my life - I mean EVER SINGLE SYMPTOM MATCHES. But then I go to my Endocrinologist to get a full thyroid workup done and guess what, all levels are PERFECT. Not just normal, but spot on perfect. It makes no sense. Family history, all the symptoms yet the tests come back normal. So I can't get any medicine to even try and find out if it makes me feel better. Grrrr.
 
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