Weigh Yo-Yoing After Two Weeks?

jbarket

jbarket

New member
Hey guys,

I began taking my weight loss more seriously a little over two weeks ago. I've traded no breakfast, fast food for lunch and occasionally dinner and snacking like a fiend for filling, protein loaded goodness... eggs, grilled boneless skinless chicken, et cetera.

More importantly, I've been walking every day, for about half an hour (which is all my fat body can take at the moment). The path I walk is .17mi of slight hill that peaks in the center, so it's up and down hill both ways, and I run flat out for about 20-30 seconds at the half way point.

I weigh once a day in the morning. I know I should probably cut back on that, but at this point seeing results helps to motivate me. The problem is, the results vanished.

I started at 359lb and after a few days I had already seen a drop to 354lb. My weight loss seemed to start stabilizing after that, and I lost fractions of a lb up to 353lb. After that, it started going back up. I'm sitting around 357 as of this morning.

No major slip ups in my diet, and I've been increasing the intensity of my exercise every day that I can.

So, I could use some reassurance here that, at the end of the day, I'm on the right track. I just can't figure out what I could be doing that would increase my weight. I was completely out of shape, and my legs are lactic acid hell after every sprint, but I seriously doubt I magically put on a measurable amount of muscle mass in this short period of time.

Thanks.
 
You are on the right track - keep doing what you're doing.

Weighing every day is something that I do ... but if you're going to do it, you have to make sure you're not tied to the number emotionally (which can be hard).

Here's the thing - the scale can fluctuate from all kinds of things. I'm assuming that you're weighing either naked or in the same clothes every morning ... and that you haven't had anything to eat or drink beforehand. If not ... keep in mind that if you drink a glass of water, that adds to the weight on the scale. :) If you eat something, that adds to the weight on the scale.

Aside from those very obvious things, there are other things that affect your weight: what you ate yesterday or the day before can cause you to retain water. If you ate something salty or high in sodium, that can account for 3-4 lbs sometimes of water weight. If you worked out extra hard, you can retain water and fluid in your muscles. If you didn't get enough sleep or are stressed, it can make the scale go up. You didn't say if you're male or female - but if you're a woman, you can expect anywhere from 2-10 lbs a month fluctuation due to hormones. Heck, even the barometric pressure outside can add 1-2 lbs to the scale.

For me, the benefit of weighing every day is that, after nearly 3 years of doing it, I know what my body does. I can see the patterns. I can see how what I eat and what I do influences my body 2 or 3 days down the road. So I've learned that my "graph" isn't a straight downward line - it wiggles back and forth.

Now, all of that said, I have two thoughts for you:

One is that at your weight you might not be eating ENOUGH. I know you said you've cut back, and a lot of people who start trying to eat healthy make the mistake of cutting back too drastically. At 350 lbs, you should be able to eat 3500 calories per day and still lose weight healthily. If you're not eating enough and have added exercise, it's possible that your metabolism is kinda freaked out and has slowed itself down so that you're not losing.

The other is that you still might be eating TOO MUCH. (I know ... make up my mind, right? :) ). It's possible that since you've added exercise in, you are unconsciously eating more because your body is not used to putting out that effort.

I would say that you shoudl really track your food for a good week - and I mean write down EVERYTHING you eat, even if you just lick the spoon or take a bite of something and then put it down. You can track using pen and paper or you can use any of a dozen sites online, fitday, dailyplate, sparkpeople, etc. I personally use dailyplate, but any of them will work. Make sure that you're eating the right amount of healthy food ... and if you are, then just be patient and let your body do what it's going to do. Sometimes it just takes patience and time. :)
 
Thanks a lot for the advice. I hadn't even considered the possibility that I was eating too little. At this point, the caloric difference is kind of like falling off of a cliff.

I track everything via weight watchers, so I'm going to go back and make a comparison between the two and see if I can add additional healthy bits to my diet and see if that helps things. The last thing I want is to lose muscle mass or have my body decide that everything I eat is now going to get stored for the winter, haha.

Thanks again,
Jonathan
 
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