Stepped up exercise/gained weight

[thekarens]

My personal experience is weight loss is almost completely about the diet.

Exercise is for fitness.

The only time I've been able to successfully lose weight is when I've tracked every bite I put in my mouth. That's how I lost 60lbs.

[tealtreak]

ACG there is no photo of you so I don't know if this is relevant- but I always weigh 5 to 8 lbs more at peak fitness. When I am doing a lot of rowing/ lifting and mountain biking I am at my heaviest, so I have always assumed haha it is muscle. In contrast, the year my husband almost died and I spent months pacing at the hospital with no "real" exercise I shrunk....Personally, I will happily take the extra lbs (again, no idea what size you are- I am talking about still at healthy weight)

[OakLeaf]

What's in lunch meat? Protein. Salt. When I crave pizza, nine times out of ten it's because I need salt. Now that you've stepped up your sweat volume and the weather's hot, how's your sodium intake ... especially since you say you stepped up your water intake, which always creates a risk of hyponatremia? Besides adding that 7 g protein in that egg, how much protein are you getting? Are you getting a good recovery snack after your workout? If I don't force myself to eat within an hour or so after a glycogen-depleting effort I'll be ravenous for literally days.

I don't really have any input on the weight "gain" beyond what others have said, but cravings deserve to be honored, which isn't always the same as indulged. They ARE telling you something.

[Skippyak]

Careful about recovery food too, the three weekday workouts are very unlikly to be glycogen depleting sweatfests, 1 hour classes are often inclusive of ditzing around, warm ups and cool downs, it is not likely you dent your glycogen stores, so protein if you use it at all after a workout needs to be low low calorie. And those weekend rides burn depends on the effort.
I don't buy into cravings as a physiological sign. When I crave a really nice beer, it is my mind that is in control, not my body.

[OakLeaf]

Well, that's the difference between honoring and indulging. Maybe you want hydration, maybe you want cooling, maybe you want carbs, maybe you want a buzz, maybe all four!

But there's a difference in my mind between wanting something and really craving it, too. Part, maybe even the very first part, of learning to listen to your body, is being able to untangle what your body is telling you vs what your emotions are telling you.

[kluv2cruz]

Someone suggested to me that I need to SLOW down on my long ride - by riding in the 60-70% heart rate zone rather than pushing myself hard like I had been doing, I hope to not be so darn hungry! I've now spent some time today researching that theory and tomorrow on my long ride will experiment with this. Also - I'm experimenting with pickles, bacon wrapped dates, dried fruit and nuts, as well as my staple, pb&j sandwiches. I sweat more than my riding partner and am hungrier than him, so what works for him, clearly is not the same as what works for me. Drink water supplemented with nuun tablets or ultima or gatorade to replace your sodium and you may quench that thirst. And... eat a pickle. Happy riding.

[marni]

May I also point out that muscle weighs more than fat, so you might try taking some measurements of diameter and the fat pinch and see if perhaps part of what is happening is that you are gaining lean muscle while losing fat. I can be disheartening until you figure out what works for you and just when you get it figured out, it all changes.

I have also learned that machines at the gym routinely measure your calorie burn at about twice at what it really is so don't wiegh and measure obsessively but do keep track on a regular basis since it is all a long term plan anyway.