Doing Everything ‘Right’ but Still Gaining Weight? Read This Before You Quit

Have you ever tried to lose weight, but ended up gaining weight, instead? Starting on a weight loss journey can be an exciting time in a person’s life. It’s here you’ve hit the point where you made the decision to change your lifestyle to lose weight. You know that after 30, losing weight is going to be more challenging than anytime in your life, but you’re not letting that stop you.

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What to do when weight loss workouts have you gain weight

For some people, they start going to the gym with a friend or loved one, others start working with a personal trainer, some hire a nutritionist, and others simply just try walking more. Whichever route you take to exercise more and eat more healthy, basic knowledge would suggest that doing these things should lead you to losing weight, but what if the opposite is happening? Let’s talk about some of the mistakes you might be making that are contributing to your weight gain.

Water Weight

So you started your weight loss program, but after getting on the scale, you find out that you’ve gained weight. The most common reason for this to occur is absolutely nothing you should be worried about because it’s just your body’s natural reaction to your new workout routine.

Essentially, since exercises create micro tears within the muscles, the body’s response to repair itself involves fluid retention and inflammation. This is temporary and will go away in a day or two, and at the conclusion of that wait period, your muscles are now a bit stronger and more resilient.

Issues with the Diet

When it comes to nutrition for weight loss, the goal is to be in a caloric deficit, which means consuming fewer calories than you burn. A common error people make is they eat totally healthy from Monday through Friday, but let themselves go way too much on the weekends. In many cases, eating out or going a little crazy with the alcohol, or both, that’s usually the case. If you limit your splurge to just one meal each week, you should be okay, so aim for that.

Snacks can make a big difference in whether or not you maintain the caloric deficit you need to lose weight. A lot of snacks, especially the “healthy” ones, are often overlooked by those who’ve been unintentionally gaining weight. For example, nuts are an excellent source of fiber, healthy fats, and protein, but they’re also very calorically dense, meaning that consuming more than just the one serving can easily make the snack go from 100-200 calories to 500-700 calories. My suggestion is to divide up the snacks to the proper serving size ahead of time, such as putting them in individual jars or sandwich bags, that way you can avoid the inadvertent overconsumption.

Just because foods are technically “healthy” doesn’t mean they’re low in calories. As mentioned earlier, nuts are an excellent snack choice because they’re a great source of fiber, healthy fats and protein, but they also contain a lot of calories and they’re really, really tasty, which makes it so easy to go beyond the suggested serving size. Avocados and guacamole are also a great source of healthy fats, but don’t let yourself get too crazy when adding this to your meal because it can easily go from 80 calories to 240+!

Let’s Talk About Stress

Elevating your stress can be one of the main culprits why people over 30 gain weight when they’re trying to lose it. Life, in general, is already stressful enough, so the last thing you want to do is to add more, but that’s exactly what people are doing to themselves when trying to be overly strict with their diets and workouts. Don’t be so critical of yourself for your stumbles — just get back on track as if nothing happened, and in quoting Ted Lasso, “Be a goldfish.”

I cannot understate how important sleep is for the human body. As Dr. Kathleen Digrea, headache and neuro-ophthalmology neurologist at University of Utah Health, said, “You must sleep to maintain homeostasis—your body’s stable temperature, blood pressure, and energy—and support both mental and physical health.” Just as you set an alarm to wake up in the morning, set one that tells you it’s time to turn off the TV and stop scrolling on your phone, and go to sleep.

Are you putting too much pressure on yourself to lose weight? Unless you have a fight in the UFC coming up where the contract states the weight you’re competing in, there’s no reason for you to put so much pressure on yourself. Weight loss doesn’t happen linearly — sometimes you’re going to be able to drop 5 or 10 lbs in a week, then be at the exact same  weight or higher the following week. If the diet and workout routine are making you feel better, that’s exponentially more important than any amount of weight you end up losing.

The Workout Regimen

One of the best reasons why people gain weight when they’re trying to lose weight is that they’re gaining muscle. Lifting weights sends signals to the muscles that they need to grow, particularly when the weightlifting routine involves progressive overload. Also, having to lift and carry additional weight leads to increased bone density, which also contributes to potential weight gain — the good kind.

Now for the bad, cardio is excellent for the heart and it can also play a big role in reducing visceral fat, which is the dangerous form of body fat the contributes to dangerous chronic diseases. However, for a lot of people that have inadvertently been gaining weight while partaking in a weight loss program, their issue is that they’ve been overdoing it with the cardio. Cardio can burn a lot of calories, especially when concurrently done with weight training, which can substantially increase a person’s appetite and lead to overeating. In this case, pre-plan your meals and snacks, particularly the post-workout ones, so you don’t wind up consuming more calories than intended.

Training hard at the gym has been glorified for decades. The training montage in the first Rocky movie is probably the most famous one, and it’s understandable that people would come to believe that that’s how hard they have to train to reach their weight loss goals; in reality, training this hard all of the time is useless. While I’m a big fan of the occasional hard training session, training too hard and too often can disrupt sleep, affect your mood, and increase the possibility of muscle, tendon, and/or ligament tears. In extreme cases, rhabdomyolysis is a risk, which can lead to kidney failure or possibly death.

Conclusion

The weight loss process can be stressful, challenging, and very, very frustrating, and seeing the weight scale going in the opposite direction can only add to more of that stress and frustration, thus making it way more challenging in wanting to continue. Some of the reasons why you’re inadvertently gaining weight are the little things that can easily be overlooked, like underestimating the caloric density of “healthy” foods, while other reasons are just your body’s natural reaction to your training program. In the end, it’s important that you keep yourself calm if you find yourself gaining weight or slip up with your diet, and, most importantly, stick to the program.

About the Author

Julio Lopez is a Navy Veteran, former collegiate athlete, and personal trainer with a Master’s degree in Nutrition. He is the founder of 365 Physique Personal Training and Nutrition, where he specializes in helping busy people build a healthy lifestyle into their schedule. You can find Julio training his in-person clients at Versatile Fitness in east El Paso, Texas and sharing practical tips on social media.

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