Weight gain and exer****

I have a question for you: I started doing more exer****s. And when I do so, I always gain. My best guess is a gain of swelling as my body hurts. Has this ever happenned to you? Lets say I don't feel like doing exer****s anymore when this hapens.

I exer****d a lot those 2 last days and gained 1 pound today (was 304 yesterday)

Now I know 1 pound is not much, but this scares me because my last "attempt" at losing without the sleeve, I was eating well and exercising for 3 months WITHOUT weight loss.  I was feeling better but gaining weight (not a lot but still NOT losing) and I don't want that to happen again. 

When I was not exercising at all (so before these 2 last days) I was losing slowly but surely...  now I am kind of scared

Please help

When you exercise, ESPECIALLY just starting out, your body holds water to help repair the tissues that are damaged or just plain sore. This is normal. If you stop exercising, you're going to lose tha****er weight, but you'll gain it when you start again. You have to just keep doing it. Eventually your tissues will heal themselves and the water weight (and more!) will come off. Trust me. You can do this.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or a trainer, this is just what they told me when I freaked out

You are brilliant, and I love the disclaimer. You seem to know more than any doctor i know

Thanks for the info, I never knew that. it makes sense!

Best,

Sharon

LOL, most of what I know is just from trial and error. A LOT of error in there too. Hang in there, do what you can, work up to it and keep going. Also the scale will move up and down. My pattern is that I lose 2-5 pounds, gain 1-3 pounds, lose back to where I was and it starts over. It's normal for the body to move around like that. Don't let it get to your head!

Thank you, I didn't know this.  I thought my body was swelling! 

Makes more sense that way!


Karine.

HI Karine,

When I first started exercising I took baby steps and just walked. I started with 10 minutes and slowly worked myself up to 45 minutes. I think if I had done it any other way I would have failed. If I had experienced any pain I would have stopped because I am a bit of a baby. I then moved to aerobics once I had built up stamina. Then I added weights very slowly.

I sometimes exercise like a crazy lady and it seems like nothing relevant occurs in connection with the scale. As a woman who never exercised until she was 54 y/o I am not an expert. But this is what I can tell you. For me, exercise is cumulative. What I mean by that is; some of the results are not noticed within a day or weeks.  If I stay on my exercise plan I see results when I look backwards at how my body changed in the last few months.

When I stall and exercise I lose inches instead of pounds. I believe this occurs because I have more muscle from working out. Also, muscle weighs more than fat. This can make the scale look like its not moving. But the difference is; your clothes will feel loser and your energy level will be greater which will also have a direct impact on increased movement and more weight loss going forward.

What I do notice immediately is the feeling that exercise gives me.  I can feel the difference because of the spring in my step, the way my joints don’t ache, how awesome I sleep at night, and just a much better sense of well-being. It took me about a month to begin to notice this after I began my aerobics and free-weight training. I believe it was always there, but I am a slow learner at this new way of living and the subtleties took a while to notice.

I personally cannot go back to not regularly exercising. I lose something very important when I stop moving. I stop feeling good. I start to feel inert and I simply cannot live like that again.

I also believe exercise is mental. I get a major mental uplift and feeling of well-being when I exercise. At first I thought it might be that adrenalin thing people talk about, but I realized when the feeling lasted all day, it was simply a blast of self-esteem from accomplishing something I have never been able to do until now. That feels super.  

What kind of exercising have you done? Are you overdoing it? Perhaps you need to slow down a bit. I have thught of hiring a personal trainer for a few sessions to show me if I am doing things properly. Is this an option for you?

I'm sorry for the long winded reply.

Best,

sharon

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for dharing your experience with me!

I remember feeling good also when I was exercising, but after 3 months of not a pound lost, I gave up!  Unfortunately.

I don't want to do it this way this time.  But I have to say I am afraid.

I went really slowly, increasing the time and the frequency over the last 7 weeks (since surgery) and now I am visiting my first gym tonight, as I want to add some elliptical machine (love this elliptical) and some really light weight (I want to try to avoid AS MUCH AS possible (but hey, don't worry, I am being realistic here) the skin problem.

I will talk to them tonight about a personnal trainer yes.  But it will already cost me like 150 a month (because I need daycare for 3 kids) so....well we'll see if my budget can make it for a personnal trainer...

Thanks again!

If you google this or even search OH for this topic - you are not alone!!!

It is water weight - you wont be able to actually gain muscle until your fat loss is done, and you are actually consuming enough to build muscle (not happening right after surgery).

Seeing the scale fluctuate and/or stall is very difficult emotionally. Losing weight is not a linear process- it wont simply start from a high point and travel down in a nice straight line.  You need to prepare yourself for this or you will get discouraged very easily.

You need to have a plan. You need to believe in your plan, trust it, and then follow it and whatever you do, DO NOT let the scale have any impact on you following your plan. When the scale starts to influence the choices we make, it will never end up well for us. I'd say dont weigh very often, but then I'd be a hypocrite since I can't stay off very long, BUT - you need to make a commitment that you won't allow the scale to affect your decisions. Or stay off.

Exercise has many more benefits than simply weight loss. Focus on those, dont exepct your hard work to pay off on the scale and then you wont be setting yourself up for disappointment (but a regular, long term exercise program will ULTIMATELY lead to more weight loss than without it - but the benefits will be acheived over a longer period of time - we arent talking about daily or weekly results).

I am not sure I understand, sorry.  Here are a few questions for you:

-  So you say that for the remainder 145 pounds I have to lose, even if I exer**** 4 days a week (which is my plan) I will not build muscles AT ALL??????  How is that possible, please explain

-  What do you mean by plan?  An exer**** plan? 

- I see people losing like crazy when exercising, why not me?  ok, well you probably cannot answer this particular question, but..... :(  You know, I tried very hard to see other positiveness with training for those 3 months I told you guys about, but my ultimate goal is to lose weight, so when 0 pounds goes off for a 4 days training a week, and no clothes size either, well..... it does ultiately get to you, if you know what I mean. 

At least, this time, I am going there NOT expecting weight loss, and I have to say this is the hardest day of my life today, because I will be doing something that just doesn't make much sense, I you know what I mean.  I will do it trying to think of all you guys said today!

Feel free to post more encouragements if you feel like it, nothing will be too much

Karine.

I might be able to explain what she meant, but I'll let her too... this is just MY understanding. We weigh 300+ pounds here. The harsh reality is that our bodies already have a lot of muscle. Imagine the strain on your body pulling around that kind of weight! When you lose weight you are going to lose some of that muscle mass. You can probably tone it up a little and the fat ribbons inside the muscle will decrease. Your muscles WILL get stronger, but at the same time your losing weight, the muscle mass itself is going to decrease.

Stop comparing yourself to everyone else. If it helps, go look at my profile (click username under my photo) and scroll all the way down. You'll see my weekly and monthly numbers. Even where you are now I didn't lose every week. I probably gained some of those weeks (I didn't record those for sanity reasons). You WILL lose it. You have to stick to the plan and keep working it.

It is, first and foremost a head game. If you don't have a counselor, you might want to look at that. My surgeon only fixed my stomach... my therapist helps with my head. (My 2 cents and what *I* needed to be successful)