I''m cutting, and yet gaining weight!

[Buddybot111]

Literally the subject. Here''s a short version of my history. I''m 18 years old and 6 months ago I weighed 210 pounds at a height of 5''6". Today I weigh 153 pounds. Basically all I did was eat less and less and less while on/off gym. At around 160 pounds simply eating less was no longer really helping so I got advice from one of the gym trainers. I upped my calories to around 1500-1700 or so and started weight lifting. I dropped down to 156 where I stayed for a while. My goal is to be 140-145, so I still was not satisfied.

I then went online and researched and was told to eat more as my current intake of calories was "starving" myself. I followed that advice around 2 weeks ago. I also started a log around this time. http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...?Owner=mcFreid

Now, At first it seemed to be working but recently I''ve been going up! I thought it was a one-day thing, but it doesn''t seem to be going away.

To give a quick summary of my routine these days if your not interested in looking at the detailed fitday log, it is this.

Food: 2000-2100 cal split to 50%prot/30%fat/20%carb

Exercise: Mon/Thurs-Vigirous Lifting
Tues/Wed/Fri: Combination of HIIT/7-8min Mile/Mod Intensity Cardio
Sat/Sun: Whatever exercise I can fit in.

Please help me out and tell me what''s going on with my body!

[stalion]

i would switch the bread for oat meal bread is not good for a cut dude

[Buddybot111]

It's a convenience thing. I'm still in school and have to bring in a sacklunch so having a sandwhich is pretty much the only way to go. And in the mornings I generally don't have time to cook oatmeal.

Check out the bread though, http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutriti...ain-flax-bread

I spent awhile in the supermarket looking for something good, and this stuff is as healthy as it gets when it comes to bread. In fact, I'd put it on par pretty much with oatmeal as far as nutritionary facts go (sadly it isnt as awesomefully filling as oatmeal is).

[Ross86]

Bread is perfectly fine.

Haha since you started eating again and you're lifting weights, you don't think you're gaining any muscle, do you?? Do you think you're gaining fat? You are eating pretty clean, so I kind of doubt that it's all fat. How much of a change in weight have you seen? And over what period of time? You probably just need to let your body adjust. How long has it been since you increased calories?

[Buddybot111]

I moved away from my "starvation" diet, when I was getting 1000 calories a day, to 1500-1700 calories a day about a month and a half ago. I bumped that up to 2000-2100 calories a little less than 2 weeks ago (which is when my fitday profile starts). Overall my weight for the last 2 months has been staying at around 150-157 pounds moving up and down between then. Recently its been in the lower, but hasen't really been dropping (which is of course what I'm concerned about and why I'm posting). If you look at the weight chart on my fitday you'll see that ever since my diet change my weight has been going steadily up instead of steadily down. That's why I'm here :P. Also I'm sure I gained muscle, I definitly can see differences in that area and I'm very happy with it. But my fat content when I take off my shirt is still visible even to the unobservational eye and that's what I'm most concerned about.

[EricT]

Losing weight on too high a caloric deficit is always a BIG mistake. By doing that you have made losing what remains much harder and you potential to gain fat much larger.

Once you've done that long enough your body slows down. The metabolism adjusts to compensate. To put it simply, people call it "famine mode" or like you said "starvation mode". But what you have to realize, again to put it very simply, is that your body doesn't just snap back as soon as you up the calories. And if you up the calories too quickly all you have is extra calorie being introduced at that SAME reduced state of energy expenditure. See, you body still thinks there is a threat so any extra calories, boom, stored as fat. Again, it's all an oversimplistic explanation but I think you get the point.

So if you expected the fat to melt off becasue people told you to up the calories, sorry, it won't work that way.

Hell, I don't know if this is true but I've read it suggested you should actually have a period of time of slight caloric surplus, during which time you may gain a little weight but then you can reduce the colories APPROPRIATELY intstead of how you started your fat loss. I don't know if that's a good idea but until your body's metabolism is "reset" you may stay at a stall in terms of the fat.

This whole thing of "eating clean" has gotten a little bit funky. You body know's energy intake and energy requirements. It's not going to ignore 1000's of years of evolution becasue you "eat clean". Much more to it than that.

I actually do think that you would have been better off to slowly increase your calories, say 10% every few days until you actually reach maintenance, stay on that for at least a week, and then try to approach a deficit again with a more reasonable rate of decrease. And also examing your activity with an eye to more fat burning...

In future I'd advise you to always plan with the long term AND short term in mind. Just because something has a desirable effect in the SHORT term...it may be the WORST thing to do in the LONG term.

[widdoes2504]

Originally Posted by Eric3237

Losing weight on too high a caloric deficit is always a BIG mistake. By doing that you have made losing what remains much harder and you potential to gain fat much larger.

I actually do think that you would have been better off to slowly increase your calories, say 10% every few days until you actually reach maintenance, stay on that for at least a week, and then try to approach a deficit again with a more reasonable rate of decrease. And also examing your activity with an eye to more fat burning...

In future I'd advise you to always plan with the long term AND short term in mind. Just because something has a desirable effect in the SHORT term...it may be the WORST thing to do in the LONG term.

I agree. I think gaining muscle (which you mentioned) is a good thing and will help your metabolism, but you have to be very careful with the calories. Good luck on meeting your goals.

[Reboot]

Sometimes you have to go by what you see on your own body and in the mirror. Not always by the scale.