Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Weight lost puzzle for the lady

Me and my fiancee moved into a new place in the middle of town about two months ago; we got rid of the car completely; we walk, ride, or bus everywhere; and I cook so we're all eating more healthy, and generally smaller portions. We're on the third floor now and we have no elevator.
So today we stopped at the doc's office, and she's GAINED 20 pounds, and her pants are a bit tighter.

Huh? Any ideas what might have happened? Or how to fix it?

Muscle weighs more than fat.
Perhaps the tightness is due to the growth of the leg muscles instead of eing a fat pad?

Weight loss is a combination of increased exercise AND reduction in caloric intake.

Years ago as an undergraduate my circle of friends took up inline skating around Boston in a big way. Skating trips of 2 hours/night about 5 nights/week for the summer & fall of that year were typical. After 3 months of this I had to change from regular fit to relaxed fit jeans to accomodate the amount of quad, glute, and hamstring muscle I had added, even while losing a few lbs on the scale and an inch or two off my waist. Depending on where the pant tightness is this is certainly possible for your fiance to have added a bunch of leg muscle, esp. if she wasn't terribly athletic before the lifestyle change. Weight gain in happy relationships is pretty normal too.

Q: is your portion control and healthy eating really what you think it is? I would start there and look at daily calorie intake.

The bottom line is that we can only speculate on what is happening. In order for you to resolve the mystery, you must MEASURE what is going on. You will need to keep track of the amount of calories you're eating each day, the amount of calories you are burning (via exercise) and your current body fat % (NOT body mass index). Your doctor or local gym can measure body fat... you can also use hand held devices (~$40 or so) and measure it yourself. Measure body fat once a week.

When you are keeping track of everything, you may notice that you are not eating as healthily as you thought. You may also see that you are not burning a lot of calories (i.e. predominantly riding the bus vs. walking, etc.). Good luck on your goals (you do have goals, right?).

Any chance she's pregnant??

If not - how did she gain 20 lbs without noticing?? I put on 5lbs or so & my pants stop fitting right. Where did she gain it all???

*edit* another possibility is that the previous scale was off - or she was deluding herself about how much she actually weighed.

I suggest you change the subject and never talk about weight gain with your fiancee ever again.

I'm another to vote in favor of taking a pregnancy test. ;) If a woman's metabolism ramps up, guess what else ramps up............fertility!

*grin* yup two thers beat me to it.

+5 for her being pregnant. Thats what happend after those house warming parties, you have a little wine, a little music and ...ahem *LOL*

I suggest you change the subject and never talk about weight gain with your fiancee ever again.


+eleventy

Right on I did not want to be the only one thinking this when I read it yesterday.

It is just hard to believe that with some of the changes in activity and eating healthier that she would gain that much weight that fast.

The problem is a 20 lb weight gain is kinda fast

What time frame are we talking here.

Even for a pregnancy that is alot of weight gain depending on the time frame.

But 20lbs is awfully alot.

Sounds like you don't have a scale. Get one! Get a food scale too.

Record your diet for a week. Write down everything that's eaten and figure out how many calories that is. Once you work that out, you'll know what happened. You'll also know where to cut back to start dropping weight again.

Was the 20 pound delta measured on the same scale? If it was on different scales it just may be that they're calibrated differently.

Also women's weight can fluctuate quite a bit over the course of the month, so if she was in a different place in her cycle that could account for some of the difference.

And there's just the fact that lower body fat on women rarely comes off easily. I've had the same issues with pants getting tighter even as I've been losing weight while exercising. All the fat loss comes from the upper body, legs build more muscle but lose no fat, and I end up with bigger thighs. *sigh*

The easy check to do would be waist size. If her waist measurement is increasing then she's likely adding fat and that would be a concern. If not, then its more likely that she's adding muscle, and just hasn't found the right program to get the fat to come off too.

I gained five pounds last year from bike commuting, and my pants got tighter. But 20 pounds is a different story.

Come on OP - we wanna know what's going on! Give us an update, please?

It was two different scales - but both scales were in doctors' offices, and one would hope a dr's scale was at least somewhat accurate! Still no idea what's going on. I haven't been able to record food intake as this week, the daughter has not been cleaning the kitchen, and food prep becomes a nightmarish sort of random affair. It was about three months between weighings, iirc. She doesn't think she's pregnant as she's burning through lots of ladyish ..items.. today. I actually haven't noticed anything, she's the one who was ranting.

Maybe she's cheating on her diet.

It was two different scales - but both scales were in doctors' offices, and one would hope a dr's scale was at least somewhat accurate! Still no idea what's going on. I haven't been able to record food intake as this week, the daughter has not been cleaning the kitchen, and food prep becomes a nightmarish sort of random affair. It was about three months between weighings, iirc. She doesn't think she's pregnant as she's burning through lots of ladyish ..items.. today. I actually haven't noticed anything, she's the one who was ranting.

My guess is that the scales were different, and that the "actual weight gain" is less than 20lbs.

If it is an issue - then time to track the food more closely.