Do You Gain Weight Before You Lose It?

Few things are more frustrating than to start a weight-loss program and watch the scale go up rather than down. If you're eating right, exercising and consuming fewer calories than you burn, you should be losing weight. If that's not happening, it might be due to one of several factors. With a little information, you can make adjustments and be on the way to meeting your goal.

Mistaking Normal Weight Fluctuations for Weight Gain

You might think you're gaining weight when you're actually not. Keeping track of your weight is important, but you might not want to weigh yourself every day. Your water weight fluctuates from one day to the next. You haven't necessarily failed if you're a pound or two heavier than you were yesterday, according to WomensHealth.gov. Weigh yourself once or twice a week so that you won't get upset by normal changes.

Getting Too Hungry

Despite popular opinion to the contrary, hunger and weight loss don't -- and shouldn't -- go together. If you let yourself get too hungry, you're more likely to lose control of your eating and eat whatever is available. Since the most readily available foods tend to be high in fat or sugar, this means you might end up eating more calories than you'd planned on. Pamela Peeke, an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, recommends eating five or six small meals throughout the day rather than three large ones.

Inaccurate Calorie Calculation

Weight loss depends on consuming fewer calories than you expend. If you gain weight on your diet, it might be because you're not calculating your calorie intake accurately. Bernice Peterson, a weight-loss group leader in northern Colorado, reports that it's easy to underestimate how much you eat. If you're not good at math or don't have a lot of time to figure out your caloric intake, use free software available online. Such programs do the work for you. You enter what you eat, it does the rest.

Possible Medical Problems

If you're sure you've done everything right with your weight-loss program and still find yourself gaining weight, speak to your doctor. Though it doesn't happen often, sometimes unexplained weight gain is a symptom of a medical problem. An under-active thyroid gland often causes weight gain, as well as fatigue, sluggishness and constipation. Tell your doctor about any unusual symptoms you've experienced.