Weight gain after two days of strength training

Gained weight after just two days of strength training? Put your heart in your stomach first - more than 90% of cases are not about gaining weight, but a normal physiological reaction of increased muscle glycogen reserves and water retention, and have nothing to do with fat gain.

Last year, I took care of a young girl named Xiao Nan who had just graduated. She had been starving for two months in order to lose weight. She had lost 10 pounds, but the flesh on her waist could be stretched by two centimeters with a pinch. She followed the advice and started practicing upper limbs + deadlifts three times a week. However, after the second practice, she went on the scale the next day and was 2.3 pounds heavier than before. She squatted in front of the gym and cried on the spot, saying that she had gained weight from practicing in vain, and almost dropped out of the class. In fact, we know why she gained so much weight: when she squatted, pulled, and pushed, she put heavy weights on her, which caused tiny damage to the muscle fibers. After the body received the signal, the first reaction was: "I have to move my muscles more often in the future, so I need to store up more energy in case I don't do it next time." "Enough", plug glycogen into the muscle cells - you must know that 1 gram of glycogen can bind 3 to 4 grams of water, which is equivalent to when you store energy for the muscles, for every 1 copy of glycogen you save, you have to bring 3 copies of water as a "dowry". Doesn't this weight suddenly increase? She pinched her arm that day and said it felt tighter than before. Isn't this a sign that the muscles are filled with glycogen, not that she has gained fat.

Speaking of this, there must be some people who want to argue. I read popular science before and said that weight gain is a calorie surplus. Is it possible that popular science is wrong? Not really. There is nothing wrong with the logic of the traditional caloric balance theory, but you have to calculate the time and amount clearly: 1 pound of pure fat requires almost 3,500 kcal of calorie surplus. You have only practiced for two days. To gain 1 kilogram of fat, you need to eat an additional 1,750 kcal a day, which is equivalent to eating three more Big Macs and adding a cup of full-sugar milk tea. You have to check your conscience. Even if you eat half a bowl of extra rice after training, can you reach this number? If you can really gain two or three pounds in two days, then those bodybuilders who want to gain muscle will have to work hard for half a year to gain ten or eight pounds of pure muscle?

Oh, by the way, some people said that I really didn’t eat much after training. Why was my face swollen the next day? That's more normal. The inflammatory reaction after micro-damage to muscle fibers will cause short-term water retention, just like your feet will swell after spraining your feet. It's just that you can't see or touch the muscle damage. You can only detect it from the weight number and slight soreness. I also encountered this pitfall when I first started doing strength training. At that time, my body fat rate was 18%. After a week of training, I gained 3 pounds. I was so scared that I didn’t dare to eat dinner for three days in a row. As a result, when I measured my waistline, I lost 1.5 centimeters. The tight jeans that I couldn’t put on before were actually zipped up and loosened by a finger. After I asked the provincial team’s rehabilitation therapist, they laughed at me: This is a signal that muscles are starting to activate, indicating that your metabolic capacity is improving, which is a good thing.

Of course, not all increases are unnecessary to worry about. If you really get up in the middle of the night after training to show off the barbecue and drink cold beer, then the increase may indeed be fat, but you can count this situation with your fingers. The anxiety of most novices is that they have been obsessed with weight numbers for a long time and panic when they see the numbers move.

It is often said in our circle that in the first half month of a novice’s strength training, their weight numbers are basically useless paper, and reading them will actually affect their mentality. If you really can't accept the increase in numbers, there are two options available to people: One is to simply put away the scale, take a bare-faced photo of the front, side and back at a fixed time every week, and measure your waist and leg circumference. Compare it after two weeks, and you will find that your weight has increased but your waist is thinner and your arms are tighter. Any number will work. ； Another kind of person who really can't help but want to get on the scale is to go to the toilet and weigh on an empty stomach every Monday morning. Don't weigh yourself in the evening after practicing today and weigh again tomorrow after hot pot at noon. The fluctuation of the numbers can make you mentally weak.

Really, I have seen too many people who just started to train for strength, but were scared off by the increase of two or three pounds, and then turned around and went back to starving and dieting. In the end, the more they lost weight, the looser they became, the lower their metabolism was, and they rebounded after eating a little more. Why bother? Strength training is a matter of slow work and careful work. To put it bluntly, the little weight fluctuation in the first two weeks is a novice welfare signal given by your body, indicating that your muscles have finally started to work, and it is not too late to have fun.