More Strategies to Manage Weight Gain With a New Workout Plan
Now you know what might be causing weight gain after you adopt weight loss practices. Below, find tips that may help you move past this initial stage as you work to achieve your weight loss goals.
Remember: It’s temporary. It’s understandable to feel disheartened when you don’t get the scale readings you were expecting, but keep following the healthy-eating and fitness plan you’ve crafted, ideally with your healthcare provider. Many of the factors that may contribute to weight gain before weight loss are temporary and will diminish over time.
Track your average weight over time. “When we talk about weight management and trying to lose weight, we want to look at an average,” Dr. Tewksbury says. She notes that someone may gain 3 lb in the first week and then lose 2, and that it’s normal for weight loss to be very gradual and fluctuate.
Instead of weighing yourself daily, consider doing it once per week. Better yet, Majumdar suggests avoiding the scale completely during the early stages of an exercise program. Instead, rely on other barometers of progress, such as how clothes fit, especially if you’re building muscle.
Keep a food journal. Recording what you eat can be a helpful component of a weight loss program. While old-fashioned paper and pen will suffice, you can also use apps to make tracking easier.
People will often consume extra calories without realizing it. “We actually underestimate how many calories we’re eating, and we overestimate how many calories we’re burning with exercise,” Tewksbury says. “We typically don’t recommend that people add additional food to compensate for calories burned while exercising.”
Work with a healthcare provider. If you’re looking to try to lose weight and change your diet and exercise routines, Tewksbury suggests seeking advice from a registered dietitian nutritionist. She notes that a dietitian can help you figure out what to do, how to do it, and how to maintain it over the long term.
Plus, they can help you identify which factors may be interfering with your weight loss, or even tipping the scales higher. “If you start making behavioral changes and you’re not seeing what you were working toward after a certain amount of time, there might be something else going on,” Tewksbury says.
