Unexpected weight gain can occur despite exercise and healthy eating due to factors like sodium intake, hormonal shifts during periods, or metabolic responses to calorie cutting.
Although weight loss occurs when you reduce your calorie intake and burn more calories, creating too large of a deficit can actually backfire. Your weight loss stalls, you burn muscle rather than fat and you end up a few pounds heavier.
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You've done everything right. You pass up the pizza and avoid mindless snacking in front of the TV, so it can feel frustrating when lifestyle changes aren't preventing weight loss. Don't worry, a few simple changes can help get you back on the right track.
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Scales measure much more than just your fat weight. They also measure water retention, muscle, bone, feces, urine, food and beverages, and swelling from inflammation or hormones.
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Regularly consume more calories than you burn, and you'll gain weight. Although food labels use a 2,000-calorie diet as the benchmark for average calorie consumption, that amount of calories could prompt weight gain in some sedentary people of small stature.
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You'll gain weight when you eat more calories than you burn, regardless of how healthy those calories are. However, excess calories in certain foods can encourage the development of belly fat, also known as visceral fat, that inflates your waistband and increases your risk of chronic disease.
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Weight control is all about calorie balance -- if you eat too much and move too little, you end up with a surplus of calories that leads to weight gain. When you eat those calories doesn't matter as much as their quality, their amount and your activity level all day long.
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Sodium doesn't actually make your body gain fat -- it causes bloating and water retention that causes the number on your scale to rise. You can't predict, however, how much these numbers will increase when you overindulge in salty foods.
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Restricting your daily intake to 1,200 calories per day requires diligence and, oftentimes, hunger. With that effort and deprivation, you would expect to lose weight. When the opposite happens and the scale numbers go up, however, you may feel like throwing in the weight-loss towel and eating with abandon.
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Too much of any food can lead to weight gain. The ones that make you fat most quickly are, predictably, those with lots of sugar, fats and refined grains. These foods provide easily digested and processed calories with minimal nutrition content.
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Weight gain occurs if you consume more calories than you burn daily, regardless of what time of day you eat the calories. If you're eating late, heading straight to bed and the number on the scale is going up, it's possible that you're eating too much.
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Most weight gain in adulthood results when you consistently consume more calories than you burn. Even 100 extra calories per day can lead to a 10-pound increase in weight over the course of a year. Where you store that fat depends on your genetic body type, which is usually dictated by your gender and hormones.
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You're seemingly doing everything right -- trimming portion sizes and exercising regularly -- but your body just won't let go of excess weight.
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If your six-pack has turned into a muffin top, blame the couch, your age, the television and your diet. A sedentary lifestyle and middle age contribute to a fattened belly, but so do the foods you eat. Along with being aesthetically unappealing, belly fat presents health problems.
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A long endurance session or tough weight-training workout requires post-workout fueling to help replenish your energy stores and repair your muscles. That snack or meal won't cause you to gain weight, unless it pushes you above the number of calories you need to maintain your weight.
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As you reach age 50, your body naturally loses muscle mass and starts to pack on extra pounds in your midsection. This increased belly fat is a health concern that raises your risk of chronic disease.
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