Scales moving up..

[ImREADYImREADY]

So I posted before about the scale moving up from 179 one day to 184 the next day. Decided I would only drink water, no Diet rite, watch my sodium intake, (not eating wendy's Jr. Bacons) and no Sugar free Candy.

That was Sunday and Monday, figured I would wait till Friday to weight myself. I like to weigh often so this was hard but i did it, hoping for great results. I have been eating Atkins to the T.

So Friday I got on the scale first thing in the morning before heading out the the gym and the Scale read.....186.

How am I making the scale move up so much and so little time.
I did start the gym on wednesday, but only 2 days at the gym should not make me gain 7lbs!!

I told my husband I don't think Atkins is working for me. I told him if I was not in ketosis I was going to stop Atkins. So I went to the store bought some strips and when I tested it, I was in a Moderate purple. So I am still on Atkins trying to figure out what to do.

[Georgiana]

Unless you ate a whole elephant, you won't gain 7 lbs in 2 days.

Did you eat something salty? I believe you are retaining water and that's where the extra weight comes from.

Are you using Fitday or anything similar? There you can also track the amount of sodium you have. For me, if I go above 1500 mg per day (which is VERY easy to do), I gain a few lbs. Darn scale!

[Georgiana]

OK, I'm dumb... You said you went to the gym. If you did weights, your muscles are probably retaining water. I never step on the scale in the days after gym. I freak out when I see the scale going up.

[ImREADYImREADY]

Thanks for your reply!

No, I don't use Fitday, It takes so long to add the foods to it, and sometimes I am not sure if I am adding the right food, they have so many things to choose from.

I guess I probably do eat a lot of salty foods, but I do not add extra salt. Bacon, pork rinds, sausage. It's hard NOT to eat salt.

How can you stop retaining water. Is there a pill you can take?
If I eat a lot of sodium in a day, should I double my water intake?

[Georgiana]

I don't know about any pill, I'm not a fan of them. Everything that has to be swallowed without being chewed is a torture for me.

More water helps, but only up to a point. If you eat a lot of sodium, no matter how much water you drink, you'll still be retaining. Lately I've been drinking over 200 oz per day. It allows me to go eat around 1700-1800 mg instead of 1500, but I don't really care about 200-300 mg anyway.

I'm afraid you will have to cut down on salt if you want to see the scale moving. A regular sausage has something around 500 mg of sodium. So does a regular slice of bacon (unless you buy the low sodium version). Pork rinds are a disaster from this point of view... 1/4 of a bag have around 250 mg (the flavored ones have even more, can go up to 400 mg). Cheese typically has 100-150 mg per slice; camembert and blue cheese have more (200-300 mg per oz), swiss cheese has less (80 mg per oz). Cream cheese has about 150 mg per 2 oz. Pickles also are full of sodium.

I would suggest you use Fitday just for a few days to see if you are eating too much sodium or not. If this will help you adjust your meals so that you start losing, I'd say it's worth the time.

[ceemarie]

As odd as this sounds, are you eating enough. Sometimes if you lose your appetite, you don't get enough calories and your body wants to hold on to the weight. I try to eat smaller meals throughout the day and that will also help your metabolism.

[ImREADYImREADY]

I do have to make myself eat sometimes, I am just not hungry.
Recently I talked to someone and they said to eat every 3 hours, even if it's a hard boil egg, or 2 slices of turkey.

I am thankful for all of the advice and opinions, It will help me look at what may be causing my weight gain!

Thank you.

[Razzle39]

I can definetly help you out with this!

I had been on Atkins for 10 weeks without being able to exercise due to a car accident. When my doctor gave me the green light for exercise as tolerated I was thrilled figuring I was going to melt away as soon as I started exercising. Instead I gained 10 pounds in 3 days! I was like.. What the? I wanted to just give up and shut the whole thing down but I stuck with it as others here told me it was probably water weight.

I read an article about the best way to get rid of water retention is to drink more water. UGH! Sometimes I drink so much it makes me sick but I increased my intake anyway.

Guess What? Within 2 weeks all that weight came back off and I am wearing a pair of jeans I havent worn in a year and a half. Dont give up! I beg you to stick with it and you are going to get the body you want!

I do faithfully plug my menu for the day into fitday as I did find I occasionally was eating too many calories or not enough calories but too many carbs. It takes away any doubts that I may not have made good choices for the day. It is a life saver.

[ImREADYImREADY]

Thank you Razzle for taking the time out to reply.

I have been drinking nothing but water. So far today I have drank 71.1 ounces. Just not enough, huh?

It's hard for me to put things into fit day when for example tonight I ate..

2 hot dogs, polish sausage-not sure the ounces, saurkraut-I didn't measure, hot dog sauce-again, didn't measure, 1 ounce mild cheddar cheese, mustard-maybe a tb.

This morning I had loaded cauliflower, I made yesterday.
It has a head of caulliflower, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup mild cheddar cheese, 4 bacon strips crumbled on top, pinch of salt and pepper.
How do you add all of that in Fitday, when you can't measure how much of each item you ate?

[Georgiana]

I don't 'formally' measure foods either. I eat at the university canteen, so it's often difficult to figure out the quantities they use. But I have a picture in mind of what 1 cup means, so I can estimate if I eat 1, 1.5 or 2 cups of cauliflower.

1 polish sausage has about 4-5 oz. The nutritional info for 1 oz is here
Calories in Polish Sausage, Pork
and you can add it as a custom food in Fitday if it's not there already.

Hod dog sauce... how much? Approx 1 tbsp, 2? You can check once how much one tbsp of some sauce is and then you'll have an idea of how much you eat.

You can create recipes using Nutrition Data
Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com
and then add the final nutritional info to Fitday.

I know all this sounds like a lot of work, but you only have to do this the first time you eat a food and then you have the recipes & previously added foods saved and it only takes about 10-15 min per day to enter them in Fitday.