Why the heck am I *gaining* weight?

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AnnShh

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 31, 2009
Messages
312
Location
VA
I don't get it. I exercise regularly. I'm in good shape. I don't drink soda often or eat junk food aside from the occasional ice cream or piece of pizza on a Friday night. For the most part I eat fruit (lots of it... apples, pears, oranges, bananas, occasionally grapes), vegetables, chicken, tuna, and healthy snacks. I drink a lot of water and usually have a bottle of gatorade a few times a week after a good workout. I feel like I eat pretty healthy and live a healthy life style.

I'm 5'9 and weighed 163 all summer. I usually sit around 163-165. This past summer I lost about 7 lbs at training because we were doing a lot of physically tough training and not intaking enough calories to support it. I was hoping to keep it off but knew realistically that wasn't going to happen. As expected I gained it back throughout the rest of the summer, but was holding steady at my pre-training weight (163). Ever since mid September, I've been steadily gaining. I was at 163 for awhile and then *BAM* I started gaining all of a sudden. I was at 170 around Thanksgiving. This morning I'm at 174... that's in 1 week.

I don't *look* as though I've gained that much. There is definitely a difference from this summer, obviously, to now, but not a whole lot. I would like to lose 10 lbs and get back to around 165. I will admit that I havnen't been working out *as* much in the past 2 weeks because I have been absolutely swamped with school work and studying for finals. It's been killer. But even so, I've never gained that much weight from not working out as much. If I ate junk every day I could understand, but that hasn't been the case. And I had been working out all semester, doing things that wouldn't have promoted much muscle gain but should have been enough to keep fat off.

I just got accepted to EOD school for the army once I commission. If I come back to school next semester over weight, I'm screwed.

I'm at a loss. I use a calorie counter, and stick to the 1800 calories it said I should have. My mom used to work at a weight loss clinic and suggested doing a diet of only red meat and green vegetables for 3 days, then slowly adding back fruit, white meat, and occasional dairy. She said if I don't notice a difference once I'm home and able to workout seriously again, to go to the doctor and have thyroid and hormone levels checked. But I don't know. It's so frustrating.
 
I agree with your mom. That's really the way to go, simple foods and then slowly add in the rest of the "junk" you crave over the course of a month instead of calorie counting. I'd go for the simple stuff for a week though, not just three days. Seven days makes a pattern.... :))

I remember when I started chinchillas back in college and read the back of a can of pop in the cafeteria during lunch. 32g of sugar. Blurted out "Oh my god, that's how much a baby chinchilla weighs!" loud enough to be heard all over. My friends still give me heck for that.

I drink maybe two or three a year, dad likes to get me specialty rootbeers when I visit and I still can't drink them without thinking about the baby chinchilla worth of sugar! lol.

Just eating fruits and cutting out the processed stuff makes an amazing difference. When I finally figured out I was allergic to wheat and cut out gluten I dropped 10lbs. Apparently I was carrying a lot of water weight from an allergic type response. I eat more now than I ever did. Veggies just aren't as filling. :p

Good luck!
 
You say you are sticking to your 1800, but you also say you eat a lot of fruit. Fruit is a lot of sugar calories without much protein to hold you over. Lots of food guides also do not take into account the size of fruit. Is it a small gala apple or a huge red delicious? Stress can also make you retain water and convert more calories to fat.

Last year I gained 10 lbs over finals because I was chugging red bulls and eating constantly (nothing bad besides the red bulls) but I wasn't paying attention at all to my diet and sitting there all day studying wasn't helping.
 
You say you are sticking to your 1800, but you also say you eat a lot of fruit. Fruit is a lot of sugar calories without much protein to hold you over. Lots of food guides also do not take into account the size of fruit. Is it a small gala apple or a huge red delicious? Stress can also make you retain water and convert more calories to fat.

Last year I gained 10 lbs over finals because I was chugging red bulls and eating constantly (nothing bad besides the red bulls) but I wasn't paying attention at all to my diet and sitting there all day studying wasn't helping.

Oddly enough, 5-hour energy shots seem to make me lose weight.
It could be stress, these past couple of weeks have been killer (to include the fact that I found out I had to study 13 chapters for one of my classes instead of 2...:wacko:)


Maybe you should take a pregnancy test?

Lol. I can say with 110 % certainty that there is no chance I'm pregnant.
 
Muscle weighs more than fat so if you are exercising a ton and are gaining weight it may actually be a good thing. I myself am only 5'5" and I weigh almost 140 lbs. You wouldn't believe that if you saw me haha. I squat and run pretty heavily. If I were to lose all my muscle I would drop down to 125 and still look the same. So I wouldn't worry. I would just start basing your results on how you look physically than depending on a scale :)
 
Muscle weighs more than fat so if you are exercising a ton and are gaining weight it may actually be a good thing. I myself am only 5'5" and I weigh almost 140 lbs. You wouldn't believe that if you saw me haha. I squat and run pretty heavily. If I were to lose all my muscle I would drop down to 125 and still look the same. So I wouldn't worry. I would just start basing your results on how you look physically than depending on a scale :)

I know that muscle weighs more than fat, but I don't understand how I could have suddenly gained 10 lbs without changing up my workout routine or diet. For the past 5 weeks I have tried changing my up my diet, I have tried reducing calories or eliminating grains and dairy, etc. I've tried changing my workouts. Nothing has helped. I'm stuck at 174.
I've been having other problems (late and horrible horrible periods, headahces, etc) so they are testing my thyroid and hormone levels.

I wish I could just rely on how I look physically but unfortunately I am on scholarship that requires me to be below a certain weight. I have weigh-ins 6x a year. Right now I'm over what I'm allowed to be.
 
Well hopefully when you get the results you can better figure out what to do. I'm sorry to hear about that. Relying on maintaining a certain weight for a scholarship would be very stressful I imagine.
 
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