Weird weight gains through training

[ies]

Hi Everyone,

During the past two months I started myself on a new no/low-carb diet, and had lost 31 pounds when I checked last week. However, I recently began to supplement my diet plan with a rowing workout (the Beginner Pete Plan), forearm and seated row weight training, as well as a nice relaxing 15-minute sauna.

Before I began the Pete Plan and the weight training supplements I weighted 189. But that was on Saturday. For some reason, I now (Wednesday) weight 195. I haven't changed my diet since the weight gain -- the only thing I have changed was adding a workout. Before I started the workout I was steadily losing weight -- but now, I am freaking out because I have no idea why I am gaining weight at such a fast pace.

I have gained 6 pounds in the past 4 days, when I was originally losing weight.

Can anyone offer me some insight?

[ThatMoos3Guy]

It's hard to know what's going on after only 4 days, but there are a couple things it could be. Depending on your activity level before this, it could be that you've put on some muscle. However, realistically it can't be 6 pounds of muscle, the stimulus isn't that great, and you haven't been working out for long enough. Has your weight never fluctuated over the last couple months, or has it just been steadily going down?

How much have you been keeping track of your diet? Have you been keeping track of calories per day? If so has that not changed since you've started working out? Simply put, if you're not consuming more calories than your body burns you can't gain weight (fat or otherwise).

My guess is that a decent amount of it is water weight. Have your hydration habits changed since you've started working out? There's a chance that since you've been more active your body has needed to do a better job of being hydrated. This could account for a few pounds. How tall and how old are you?

One slightly related thing, I would not recommend a no carb diet for the pete plan. There are too many intervals, and these intervals are going to rely somewhat heavily on the muscle glycogen your body has stored. Muscle glycogen is basically energy for your muscles, and it is derived primarily from carbohydrates. Your body stores incredible amoutns of energy in fat, but none of it will be usable for intensive intervals.

[ies]

I am 5 feet, 9 inches, and 18 years old.

Over the past few months my weight has been steadily going down. It went down tremendously quickly the first few weeks (this I assume is the water weight). But since then as slowed to a steady decreasing pace.

I have been meticulously keeping track of my carb consumption. Although I don't keep incredible track of my calorie intake, it has not definitely not been over 1000-1500 per day, simply because there is not enough no-low carb foods to eat at my house. Although, on a no/low-carb diet, calorie intake should not matter. Moreover, I have been eating the exact same things as before (i.e. eggs, meats, water, and once in a while a nice salad) -- although, one dietary change is that, I had 2 diet cokes this weekend (but they have no calories, or carbs).

You might be right about the water weight- but, I'm not sure if it can really account for too much. Before I started the workout I was drinking 3-4 bottles of water a day. When I started my workout, I've been drinking 2-3 bottles at the gym, but for some reason I decreased my water intake at home or just 1-2. But, I've been sweating incredible amounts of water out while working out, and in the sauna.

Thanks for the advice about the Pete Plan. It's a shame I have to change my diet -- but, I guess it's nice to be able to eat bread again. Do you have any recommendations as to types of diet plans I should go on if I want to lose fat and tackle the Pete Plan? I want to join the (novice) rowing team when I go back to University in September.

[hjs]

Stop worrying, if your dieet has not changed, you haven,t gained fat, just go on, no doubt the added weight will be gone in a few days. Drink enough water, also don,t drink zero cal stuff, it only gives you a fake sugar taste. The less you have that, the better other stuff tastes.

[gregsmith01748]

Hi,

I agree with the advice dispensed so far in this thread...
1. Don't worry to much about it, sometimes weight does weird things over short time periods. The key is to stick to a sound plan and if you see sustained trends over the course of a few weeks, then make gradual changes, one thing at a time to acheive your objectives.

2. I totally agree with the idea of transitioning from a low carb diet to a protien heavy, moderate carb diet. If you will be moving on from the Pete beginner plan to the Pete plan, you will be burning up to a thousand calories per training day above your basal metabolic rate. It sounds like to have the discipline to monitor your diet, just change from counting carbs, to counting calories. What worked for me was to set my calorie intake to an average of 800 lower than what I burned per day. This adds up to 5600 calories per week, which is between a pound and 2 of weight loss. Some weeks I got less, most weeks I got more. But I found that if I went too light on carbs, my training performance really took a dive.

One thing that I noticed, and this is just a personal pet theory, is that my day to day weight changes had a lot to do with 2 other things besides calories and exercise. The first is salt. It seems to me that for a couple of days after I eat a salty meal (Pizza and chinese seemed worst), my weight measured high, and then drifts back down. The second has to do with, ahem, bowel movements. I recall that low/no carb diets don't give you a lot of bulk or fiber, and weight can change by a pound or more before versus after.

If your objective is to succeed at crew, focus on training hard. Design your diet to support that objective. Keep weighing yourself, but focus on speed. There was a post on a different thread that was pretty wise. If you focus on weight loss, what do you do once you get there? If you focus on rowing better, there is always someone faster than you for you to try to beat.

Greg

[ies]

2. I totally agree with the idea of transitioning from a low carb diet to a protien heavy, moderate carb diet. If you will be moving on from the Pete beginner plan to the Pete plan, you will be burning up to a thousand calories per training day above your basal metabolic rate. It sounds like to have the discipline to monitor your diet, just change from counting carbs, to counting calories.

Thanks for all the advice Greg. Although, how many grams of protein and carbs per day would you consider to be a heavy protein and moderate carb diet?

[gregsmith01748]

Hmm, I guess I don't know to a high degree of accuracy. I basically eat a diet that controls starches (bread, rice, potatoes) and processed sugars. I go wild with fruits and veggies. I also tried to stick with whole grains as much as I could to get the most nutrition and fiber per serving.

When I was counting calories, I think I was getting about 1/3 of my calories from carbs, half from protein and the balance from fats. USDA recommendations are 45% to 65% of calories from Carbs, so it was a pretty moderate change from a standard diet.

[RBFC]

The typical figure used equates 1 pound of bodyweight to 3500 calories. If you changed 6 pounds in less than a week, and wanted to attribute it to food intake, you would have had to consume 21,000 calories OVER your maintenance level of calories. I doubt that is the case.

With all the exercise and new supplements, it's much more likely due to a re-apportionment of water stores within your body. Does the supplement contain any creatine monophosphate by chance? Some protein supplements contain creatine, which causes a change in the amount of water stored in muscle tissue. Your use of a sauna also provides another inconsistent factor in body water retention.

Summary: if you feel good and are performing well, don't worry about it at this early stage. If the trend continues, that would be more concerning.

Good luck,

Lee

[kayakr]

muscles can develop increased congestion (aka pump) thus storing more water. keep working out and you should restabilize.

Your diet sounds very low on micronutrients. I suggest you consider transitioning to "tons of veggies" as a previous poster said and start adding some complex carbs. See "eat to live", "forks over knives" or "engine 2 diet" for something that really works over the long term. Also see http://www.drmcdougall.com/health_5_day ... _menu.html

I got sucked into "zone" type "moderation" for about 10 years, eating too much protein, and hurt my joints significantly. The joints are much better on plants, but not back to new.

[kayakr]

changes in muscle hydration sound likely

1. Low carb (ketogenic) diets deplete the healthy glycogen (the storage form of glucose) stores in your muscles and liver. When you deplete glycogen stores, you also dehydrate, often causing the scale to drop significantly in the first week or two of the diet. This is usually interpreted as fat loss when it's actually mostly from dehydration and muscle loss. By the way, this is one of the reasons that low carb diets are so popular at the moment - there is a quick initial, but deceptive drop in scale weight. Glycogenesis (formation of glycogen) occurs in the liver and muscles when adequate quantities of carbohydrates are consumed - very little of this happens on a low carb diet. Glycogenolysis (breakdown of glycogen) occurs when glycogen is broken down to form glucose for use as fuel.

http://www.worldfitness.org/low-carb-diet-problems.html

http://lowcarbtips.org/tag/arthritis/