muscle gain?

So I've been losing weight pretty steadily for the past few weeks... and I finally decided to incorporate some weights into my regular routine. I had a huge (6+ pounds) spike in my weight the day after weights, followed by a slow decrease again until today, when it spiked again. I'm looking at my logs and I'm not seeing a pattern, but I have increased my cardio this week (I finally had time to fit in all my routines)... so I'm staying positive, being careful, and 'blaming' this on more activity (I'm seen all the threads about a gain after new/strenuous activities)... but how long should this 'gain' last? Should I do anything to help it move along a little faster? I don't want to get discouraged, but it's starting to bother me... ideas?

Thu. Nov 2, 11:27pm

I've been experiencing the same thing, and I feel ya! its discouraging! After an unexpected increase I try to cut out sodium and drink plenty of water + get a really good long sleep...try it for the weekend. water water water tomorrow, then just regular 8 glasses saturday, sleep in sunday and weigh again...that way you'll have a better idea of whether its water weight or muscle gain. Either way, if your eating habits really havent changed and you've stayed active its very unlikely that its fat which you've gained. Its tough to know what our bodies and our scales are up sometimes, but keep your chin up:)

Friday, November 03, 2006, 12:11 AM

Are you taking measurements? If your measurememnts have gone down or stayed the same it could be muscle. If you aren;t taking measurementd, how do your clothes, esp pants feel? If they are the same or a little loose, it is musscle. Thje previous poster gave some good tips...and keep up the good work!!

Friday, November 03, 2006, 7:14 AM

I think this has been discussed in several earlier threads, although none of them are titled so that its easy to find. If you work a muscle out hard, which you would definitely do by weightlifting and sometimes also in cardio, such as ramping the treadmill up, you make microscopic tears in the muscle (this is a good thing) and the muscle grows by healing itself over the course of a couple of days. While it is healing it swells up with water and glycogen. This is not undesirable water weight, it is water your body needs to hold onto for a little bit in order to build new muscle. You will have it for as least as long as a muscle feels sore.

IMO the worst thing you can do is become obsessed with numbers on the scale and their daily fluctuation. Your body is a complex system with a lot of different things going on at the same time -- it's never exactly the same two days in a row. The previous poster has it right, the best measure is how your jeans fit!

But having said that, I will admit that I read a number of logs on PT in which people seem to have no idea of the caloric content of what they eat. If you are worried that you might subconsciously be "compensating" for your workout by overeating, do a calorie count for a few days. While this is a pain, it can be educational.

Friday, November 03, 2006, 7:36 AM

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