Possible to exercise too much, eat too little, and GAIN?!

[brainsgirl]

I have become OBSESSED with my heart rate monitor that I bought in January. At first the calories burned feature was just that. Now I find I try to continually out-do myself ea. week, or exercise more if I feel I've gone over my calorie amount. Is it possible to over-exercise, not take in enough calories, and GAIN weight? I realize that it is at best a rough estimate of what i actually burn. For ex, last week, I ate 10,900 cals. for the week. I exercised 14 hours, and burned 4500 cal. My scale shows a 1.5# GAIN! Don't say it may be muscle, because I have been lifting lighter for the past 3 months. Anyone have this happen to them? I'm making myself take 2 real rest days this next week, since I don't know when the last one was I took. Besides the wacky 14 hrs. I exercised this past week, I add on LB, BM, Callan., or Winsor 4x a week also. Any advice? Mindi

 

[shopaholic]

Hi,
It is possible to gain weight by undereating and overexercising. Your body may be thinking it is in starvation mode and holding onto fat and slowing down your metabolism. Your eating/exercise has taken control of you, you may want to see a therapist to discuss issues behind your obsession. This advice comes from me as a person whose been obsessed with weight and a therapist.

 

[brainsgirl]

Thanks so much for the concern, but I may have over dramatized things. 7 hrs of my exercise (that i monitor with my HRM) is walking my dog with my sister and her dog. We've done this nightly for the last 15 years. I never really "counted" it as exercise until i wore my HRM and saw how many calories it burns. I have recently (since Dec.)lost 20lbs., and would like to lose about 6 more. I'm 5'3", 122, tanita scale measures body fat at 24%. Thing is...my body fat did drop 1% this past week, yet the 1.5# gain. I have plateaued at this weight minus a lb. or 2 for the last month. The past month I have really focused on calories burned, and didn't look at the % of fat burned. Before that, i was trying to keep my workouts to where I would burn 60% fat. Mindi

 

[MariaS]

Hi Mindi,

Is it possible that the weight gain would be water retention? (Do your rings feel tighter than normal, do your socks leave marks in the skin, do you just feel bloated?). This could be caused by a number of reasons, which I'm sure you know (that time of the month, too much salt, too little water etc.). Eating too little protein for an extended period of time can also cause water retention (especially when doing strenuous exercise at the same time), as can the deficiency of some vitamins/nutrients. So if you've been on a strict diet for some time, could this be the case? Please be sure you eat enough, it doesn't sound like your daily intake is very high.

I have also recently lost some weight, and am finally pretty much at my goal weight-wise. The closer I got to my goal, the slower the pounds came off, and the more my weight would fluctuate from one day to the next (sometimes it gets frustrating to keep telling yourself you don't gain up to 3-4 pounds fat overnight!!!). In my case at least, I seem to retain water really easy (3-4 pounds is normal around that time of the month), and eating too little (especially protein) would show up on the scale within a few days as a similar gain! Perhaps the body is trying to hang on to anything (even water!) rather than giving up the fat stores..)! I don't know, but the water will eventually leave, so hang in there. Meanwhie, make sure you eat enough healthy foods and protein to stay healthy! The closer you are to your goal, the slower the pounds usually come off, but remember 1 pound takes about 3500 EXTRA calories, so unless you've consumed about 3 times that, the 1,5 gain is not fat!!! The scale can be a really bad companion to dieting..., I know I am prone to letting it affect my mood too much, even if I should know better...)

Anyway, hope some of this is helpful, let us know how it's going. It always helps to know weight fluctuations are really common and normal (to some extent, of course), and seldom do they mean actual weight gain (that we wouldn't know or have a clue about).

Hang in there, and enjoy your week,

Maria

 

[brainsgirl]

Maria, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I really don't feel like it is fluid retention, although it is getting close to TTOTM. I've never been on to have any kind of problems like cramping , bloating, etc. The one thing you said that made a light bulb go off in my head was about protein. I used to track it long ago, and have gotten away from it. I used to make sure I had 100 grams, and looking at my food journal, I'm lucky if I get 50. Think that could really be it? Besides the exercising too much? I average 1500 cal. per day. You don't think that sounds like enough?

I've come to realize that the scale determines my mood much too often, so I only weigh in once a week. Mindi

 

[MariaS]

Hi Mindi,

You are right, 1500 calories per day does sound sufficient, I must have miscalculated your daily intake before. I think upping the protein is definitely worth giving a try, it does seem like your intake is way low in any case. When doing weights and dieting the need for protein increases because the body needs building blocks to keep and build muscle (which is really hard when dieting of course...). The recommendations vary (as I'm sure you know), but even upping it to the 100 grams you mentioned sounds like a good start at least.

Your situation sounds very familiar, I also noticed I was getting way too little protein, ending up with barely the 50 grams per day you also mentioned. Then, mainly by chance I happened to eat a few protein rich meals and my weight dropped 3-4 pounds overnight! You can believe I was running in the bathroom for most of the night...)) and sweating some extra too. I suppose the body got all excited about the new situation...)). After that my weight would come back up a little, but basically it would stay down as long as it got enough building material. I'll have to warn you, that I also noticed my muscles seemed to grow before my eyes when upping the protein (and I didn't change my rotation); I was on a strength rotation, so that was a good thing for me, but just so you know. This can obviously also show up on the scale as you know, so just be prepared mentally.... Weighing yourself less frequently is a really good thing, I'll have to try to get into that habit myself...).

I hope this will help you in your situation, these things can be so frustrating, do I know. It would be nice to hear what happens, so keep me posted if you have a chance ).

Maria

 

[brainsgirl]

Maria, how odd that you should say you lost 3-4 lbs. right after upping your protein! I ate 105 grams yesterday, and today at work, i swore that my pants felt looser. This was before i read your post!!!! I'll keep you updated! Mindi

 

[MariaS]

How great if this helps! Yes for keeping me posted, I'm curious to whether this works for you too. I'm sort of surprised not more is talked about this as I think a lot of people (especially those who are trying to lose weight (more than half the female population...??), vegetarians) might be quite low in their protein intake. Anyway, really do hope it helps!

Take care, Maria