The scale went up

Question
Hi Mark,

I'm having a few problems with my weight. In the last 2 years I've lost over 30lbs, but now the scale seems to be climbing again. In actuality though I've never looked better. Iam the now the same size I was when I was wrestling in high school. My clothes keep shrinking, but my weight keeps going up. I'm a very active person and I eat extremely healthy. I've stoppped eating carbs after a certain time and I work out 6 days a week. My job is very physical as well. Throughout the week I massage 8 hours a day and then go to the gym for about 45min to and hour and a half. In that time I'm either lifting weights, running, biking, using the elliptical or working on my tae kwon do or yoga. My goal weight is 150lbs, at me being 5'3". This way I'm still strong when I work. Right now I'm weighing in at 173. Which makes no sense to me. I tried the whole starting to eat breakfast, but that just made me gain and I've gone back to only eating when I'm hungry. Is there anything you can suggest that I can do. I don't believe in diet pills and with my job its very hard to eat the three meals a day. I eat small "snacks" of what would be a meal throughout the day. I'm lost and the only way I know to loose weight quick is run it off or don't eat which is what we used to do when I used to be a wrestler. Please help. Thanx for your time.

Laura

Answer
Hi Laura,
First, I would say don't be too concerned with your weight. I know that sounds strange, but you even said you've never looked better. So, why let a stupid device that can't possibly tell you what your body composition is made of make you feel bad.
With the lifting you've likely built muscle, which is denser than fat, so your clothes will fit and feel better, yet the scale may not be moving in the direction you would like.

If you're looking to lose more fat though, I would start with breakfast. I know you said it's made you gain weight in the past, but this is most likely due to the fact you were consuming some carbs (which good complex carbs are ok), but they will make you store more water weight, which isn't a big deal unless you hop on the scale. But, breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, from fat loss to the fact that it starts your day, and it's hard to eat well, if you're playing catch up all day since you missed breakfast.
Things like fat free yogurt, FF cottage cheese, oatmeal, eggs would make a good breakfast, along with some fruit or veggies.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that you might actually be overdoing it, meaning you might be overtraining.  Over training occurs when we exercise too much beyond our body's ability to recover fast enough. This usually happens when people exercise a lot each week, for weeks on end, with no recovery time. Meaning, depending on several factors most people should take a week every 8-10 weeks and back off on frequency of training, as well as volume and intensity.
Exercise although a good stress is still a stress to the body, and we need time to recover. So, if you're hitting the gym hard along with a physically demanding job for weeks on end, take some down time where you only hit the gym 2, maybe 3 days that week, of low intensity exercise, maybe laying off the weights completely, and cutting down on the duration of the activity.

Over training, can lead to a number of problems, one of which is weight gain. Of course it's hard for me to say that's your problem via email, but it might be something worth taking a look at.

-Mark Shields
www.fitnessxpressu.com
[email protected]

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