Mayward

Hello! So I have this problem... I'm an total beginner. I was always skinny and I wanted to lose weight, so I've read articles on this forum. I have calculated my calories intake and I started bulking. It was all going good, even too good - I basically gained 25 pounds in two months! That's really a lot, right?

I just wanted to gain like 15 pounds to be fit, but instead I have gained 10 pounds more and I feel overweight already.. and I gotta say, that I'm not really used to feeling like this as for my entire life I was skinny and I don't want to be fat. Of course I have tried losing my weight now, but it really is going kind of slow. I've started with cutting 10% of my calories and in 3 weeks I have only lost 2 pounds!!

What's wrong? I already feel a little bit hungry and I don't want to start eating even less. What do I do wrong?

I managed to gain weight so fast, but now I can't even lose it?

Katyaa

Well, this is very interesting case. You are saying that you were skinny your entire life and that you have gained weight too fast.

Usually people who are skinny have a lot of problem with gaining weight, but losing it is relatively easy for them. While people who were overweight tend to gain weight quickly, but it's pretty hard for them to lose it. You are not fitting to either of those categories, that's why I'm surprised.

Probably you aren't endo/ectomorph - unlike most people, you are mesomorph - it means that, most likely you weren't skinny - you only imagined that you are.

For mesomorphs both gaining weight and losing is easy and hard. You don't have tendencies to being fat or skinny, but still even if you are mesomorph - why can't you lose weight now after you have gained it so fast? I don't really understand, but I would recommend to stay at your current weight for a little while - you should let your body adapt to the changes instead of rushing with new diet and new goal immediately.

Stay on the same diet and consume slightly less calories for around a month, give it some time, then try to lose weight again.

I doubt that you are really that much overweight - 10 pounds is not really much, so just keep working out, gain some muscles and try again if you decide that you really need losing those 10 pounds.

annbee

I agree, that's a very rare case. Entirely different than what we usually see. Maybe after all, you have tendency to gain weight, but you were starving yourself your whole life and this is the reason why you were skinny? I can't see the reason why you can't lose this weight now, but what Katyaa suggested is probably the best thing, that you can do now. You have to remember, that you are an beginner after all.

You have just gained 25 pounds in 2 months - your body is still in shock of what happened. Forcing it to deal with calories loss may be too sudden.

Give yourself around a month, rest, adapt and then we'll see. Alternatively you can post your diet here as gaining weight is entirely different from losing weight, but anyhow - you should give yourself some time. If you are an mesomorph - you can consider yourself lucky as you should have the best genetics for muscles growth

greenprincess

This is indeed very fast weight increasement. I don't know why you can't lose weight either. My guess would be that, you are doing it wrong! Just calories deficit alone is not always the best and only solution. Products that you should consume, when losing weight differ greatly as well from those that you consume when you are bulking.

cherryjuice

Well, I have a little theory, one a bit different than yours. My guess is that, you have extremely slow metabolism.

I can't only understand why you were skinny with such slow metabolism rate, but let's say that you were really not eating a lot.

Tell us the truth, how much did you eat when you started your diet? According to my little theory, you were consuming insufficient amount of food for most of your life.

Then you have decided to gain weight, so you made some diet and started to really eat a lot compared to what you ate before. Due to very slow metabolism, basically everything you ate was being stored as a fat - reason for this fast weight increasement. Now, your metabolism is still slow and everything you eat is turning into fat, so you have cut 10% from the amount of calories that you calculated from TDEE calculator, but your metabolism is slow, so actually what you have calculated is too much!

You don't even realize that you have such a slow metabolism, although don't worry - most people don't realize it.

Katyaa

Wow, great explanation cherryjucice! Now that you have mentioned your little theory - I will admit, that it really makes sense.

Gaining weight on slow metabolism is very easy, while losing it is much, much harder, but just like you I can't understand one thing.

How did she manage to stay skinny with such slow metabolism?? The domain of skinny people is their extremely fast metabolism and unhealthy eating.

She didn't mention if she ate healthy or not, but either way there is no way that she would be skinny for her entire life under those circumstances.

Please Mayward, shed some light on this issue, because we really want to help, but we need more details.

Mayward

Thank you for those answers! It's true that I haven't eaten much for most of my life, but it's not that I was hungry either.

I have ate 1400kcal prior to starting working out, which I don't consider much, but it's not that low either, right?

Especially as I wasn't working out back then and I was rather spending most of my time at home, didn't participate in any extra physical activities.

So, what do I do now?

cherryjuice

Really? You consider 1400kcal a normal amount? And you have eaten like this for most of your life? Your weight or height, which you haven't stated as well doesn't even matter now, 1400kcal is way too low in any case!! I can't really blame you for having trouble with losing weight.

You will need to speed up your metabolism now, if you want to move forward. You should lower your calories intake and slowly start eating more.

Add cardio as well. Start from like 1600-1700kcal and add 30 minutes cardio 3x times per week. Then start eating more and more up to like 2100-2300 kcal and when you finally reach this point, you should start slowly doing less cardio. Don't rush in any case - from 3x 30minutes/week it will take you around a month to reduce your cardio to zero again.

Moreover, you are free to use some supplements that may help you restore your desired metabolism rate like: hydroxycitrate, acai berries, glucomannan, vitamin B-12 and green tea extract.

At least, it seems like my theory has been proven.

Mayward

Thanks a lot for those tips cherryjuice! I really though that my metabolism is okay, especially as I didn't gain weight.

I didn't know 1400 kcal is such a small amount of calories, basically all of my friends don't eat much more than that...

Thanks again, I'll do so and report back to you.

cherryjuice

It's okay, thing is that most people are eating incorrectly - a lot of fast food, bad distribution of macroelements, not enough food.

I have also noticed this tendency, that usually people that don't work out are eating either too much or not enough. Like we can divide people to two subgroups: those that are skinny - mostly, they just don't eat enough and overweight people, that love eating and they eat much more than they need.

Obviously genetic tendencies are one thing - but what direction will we go is entirely up to us.