Anyone Gaining Weight?

lworks

lworks

Member
I have just completed week three of mesocycle 2. I must say my arms have great definitition and my legs are stronger. However, I've gained about four pounds. According to my bodyfat scale, some of that is muscle, some of it is fat. I am doing tough cardio three times a week - eating about the same as before I started STS. Has anyone else experienced this? Hoping that it is just my body adjusting and that by the time I finish the third cycle that I'll have lost that extra couple pounds of fat again. Maybe instead of resting on Sunday I should add a cardio workout. I don't have time to do cardio and strength on the same day. Thoughts?
 
Are you working out considerably harder than before you started STS? Sometimes if you are really working out intensely, your body can perceive the work as stress, and will hold on to fat, and even gain fat. Is your diet any different? Are you hungrier and possibly eating more? If you feel exhausted and you are working out much harder than ever, it could be the former. Of course, it might not be either of these things, in which case, it must be something else. I hope you resolve the issue soon!


ETA: I just re-read your post regarding your diet being the same as before. Sorry!
 
The weight gain myth busted

I'm reposting this thread that we posted earlier to a similar topic. This seems to be a very common topic lately and I hope this thread helps everyone to understand some of the myths about weight gain.

A little common sense talk about weight gain. First, it is nearly impossible for even a young adult male to add 5 lbs of muscles doing STS for 3 months. The most muscle a male could hope to add to their body doing STS for 3 months is only about one pound, less for a female.

Remember, more than half your body's weight is made up of water. Short term fluctuations in your weight have more to do with increases or decreases in water retention - not muscle and/or fat.

Second, weight gain and weight loss come from three areas of your body:

1. Water - this makes up about 2/3 of your body weight
2. Fat
3. Muscle

Many times you might notice that you gain 3 to 5 pounds in just one day! Relax it's not fat and it certainly is not muscle. That only leaves one other choice - water! That's right; the only way anyone can gain 5 lbs of weight in a short period of time is from water retention.

Water retention may come from eating a high sodium meal (Chinese food for example) or your monthly cycle. Water retention also comes from glycogen that is stored in your body. At your peak during the day you have about 1 pound of Glycogen in your body. Glycogen holds onto about 3 times its weight in water. As you deplete your glycogen stores your weight will drop as less water will be stored in your muscles. As you replenish your glycogen in your body by eating your water weight will increase. This is a major reason why you are lighter in the morning than in the evening.

Let me give you an example to expand on this. Let's say on Tuesday you weigh yourself in the morning and your weight is 145 pounds. On Wednesday you weigh yourself in the evening and this time you freak out because you weigh 150 pounds. How could this happen?

Well, first let's look at muscle. Even though you did do STS mesocycle three on Tuesday afternoon and lifted some very heavy weights it is impossible to add 5 lbs of muscle to your body in just one day. In fact, it is very hard for a male to add much more than 4 lbs of muscle in a year. So your weight gain wasn't muscle. Well, then it must be fat because the scale says so - right? Well, of course I'm just being funny to make a point. A scale can only tell you how much you weigh, not where the weight came from. To gain 5 pounds of fat in just one day you would have to consume 17500 extra calories more than you normally eat (assuming activity level is the same). This too is impossible as you would have to eat around 32 Big Macs in addition to your normal meals to be able to even come close to adding 5 lbs of fat to your body. Even if a person wanted to they could not eat 32 Big Macs in just one day - It's just not possible and it is IMPOSSIBLE to gain 5 lb's of fat in just one day.

So we have eliminated muscle and fat as being the cause of your one day weight gain in the above example. This only leaves “water” as the culprit to your short term weight gain.

Now I will admit STS can cause temporary water weight gain as can any new and intense weight workout. When you begin any new weightlifting program your body will retain water in the beginning. This is because your body's muscles will store more glycogen when you start a new program and this attracts more water to your muscles. This is one reason why your muscles swell. After your body adapts to the new program your body will stop storing excess glycogen and the water retention will decrease.

Finally, scales are not 100% accurate, They have a certain error rate of + or - a certain percentage. This may mean that you actually weigh more or less than what the scale tells you. For example, the scale tells you on Monday that you weigh 100 lbs (but your real weight is 102 lbs) and then on Wednesday the scale tells you that you weigh 104 lbs (but your real weight is still 102 lbs). You might think you gained 4 pounds when you actually gained nothing.
 
Thank you for advice and information!

So muscle holds more water. Very good to know! That accounts for some. For the rest, I just don't think that I am burning as many calories each week as I was when I was doing straight cardio and cardio/strength. I was concerned that might happen. I've read that muscle burns more calories throughout the day. I guess I just haven't got to the point where muscle is burning as many calories as I was with cardio/strength workouts. I'll hang in - because I'm loving the STS program.
 
SNM - thanks for the good explanation. 32 Big Macs. Bleck!!

And since my body is mostly water, I have decided that I am over-hydrated, not over-fat:p:p:p:p:D:D:D:D

Alas, I still have some butter to burn, but it sounded nice!!

At least now I better understand the 3 or 5 lb weight swing in a day. That sucks and can put a big dent in a girl's ego. Although I have realized its the trend on the scale that matters, not the difference btwn now and 5 mins from now.

Nan
 
Clarification - Cardio Junkies do you relate?

When I said I'd gained 4 pounds, I didn't mean overnight or one day to the next. I've been weighing myself twice a week for more than three years. What I've experienced is a four pound gain to my normal fluctuation range. I don't think STS burns as many calories as say, Hi-Step Challenge, Cardio and Weights, Drill Max, Low-Impact Circuit etc. Those were the DVDs I was doing three times a week with straight cardio on the other days. I am going to start adding another cardio session on Sundays instead of taking a rest day to make up the difference.
 
lworks said:
When I said I'd gained 4 pounds, I didn't mean overnight or one day to the next. I've been weighing myself twice a week for more than three years. What I've experienced is a four pound gain to my normal fluctuation range. I don't think STS burns as many calories as say, Hi-Step Challenge, Cardio and Weights, Drill Max, Low-Impact Circuit etc. Those were the DVDs I was doing three times a week with straight cardio on the other days. I am going to start adding another cardio session on Sundays instead of taking a rest day to make up the difference.
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It doesn't, or I should say, at least for me it doesn't. For some reason, even though I'm working to failure, did all my 1RM tests etc, my heart rate just doesn't spike as high so that my calorie burn is normally significantly below what is listed in the workout tracker.
 
shanihib said:
It doesn't, or I should say, at least for me it doesn't. For some reason, even though I'm working to failure, did all my 1RM tests etc, my heart rate just doesn't spike as high so that my calorie burn is normally significantly below what is listed in the workout tracker.
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Good to know I'm not alone in this. When I enter my STS workouts into the WM and see what it says for the calories burned it makes me wonder if I should be doing plyo jacks or something in between sets!
 
I'm not gaining weight with STS but at 58 years old I don't burn calories that well. I wear GWF armband and have found that for the wo I only use 1/2 to 2/3 the calories that is in workout manager. The big difference is the rest of the day. I wonder how many busy people think they are burning a lot of calories when they are not. For a normal day without any wo I only use 1300-1400 calories. This is not to lose weight but to stay the same.
 
That's an idea!

NancyAZ said:
Good to know I'm not alone in this. When I enter my STS workouts into the WM and see what it says for the calories burned it makes me wonder if I should be doing plyo jacks or something in between sets!
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:D Plyo Jacks between sets. That's an idea! Nancy you are definitely a Cathlete!
 
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