Weight loss due to stress

[MrCarrot]

Hi all,

Backstory - cut down to 160 pounds, then bulked to 180 pounds. Lockdown came and I've been carefully tracking calories and eating at maintenance and stayed in the region of 179 - 181 pounds. Unfortunately due to limited equipment I've been working in the 14-20 rep range - workouts still feel good even if not as heavy as before (UK gyms still closed at this moment in time).

I don't deal with stress well. The last couple of years I've managed to keep my stress levels really low. However, this past week I've had problems at work which aren't likely to go away any time soon and I've been feeling very anxious and worried. Since then my apetite has decreased but I've still been tracking and still eating the same amount.

However my weight has plummeted - this morning I'm at 175 pounds (approx 5 pound loss in a week) and it feels like it's going down daily. Is it just a case of needing to eat more? Could it be unrelated to stress, and the lighter lifting routine with higher reps is finally catching up with me 3 months later?

Thanks,

[AlexSays]

Sounds like at least a good portion of this is likely to be a water fluctuation? Could be caused by stress related fat loss (from lowered appetite) which has been masked by stress related water retention. It's likely you'll rebound back a lb or two

Personally I don't think a couple of months of increased reps as opposed to heavy weight has caused 4lb of muscle loss (or indeed any muscle loss) so I would discount that worry.

I'd say find an easy way to increase your calorie consumption back up to maintenance levels (or slightly above if you are worried about regaining the weight lost). I suffer with quite bad anxiety and I know how this can affect your appetite, so maybe find some calorie dense foods that you can easily make up the difference with. Some people have some pretty heavy shake concoctions and there are always the classics like peanut butter, nuts, milk etc.

I am also working out at home and have been trying to find inventive ways to induce progressive overload so I'm not stuck pounding away at high rep workouts. What kind of exercises are you doing and what equipment do you have?

[MrCarrot]

Thanks Alex, I have indeed been increasing the peanut butter intake, and also things like adding coca powder to my whey shakes, etc. I definitely think I need to increase calories some more, which is ironic given a month ago I was getting a bit bloated and my weight was very, very slowly on the way up (I actually cut back a bit, because of this). You're right, I don't feel like eating and it's turned blistering hot here the last few days which isn't helping either.

It's also a 4 pound loss in a very short space of time (around a week) so hopefully just water like you say. At the moment it just feels as though every day I step on the scale my weight is going down more.

Excercises - I've posted elsewhere that with literally zero equipment I've had to become incredibly creative. For legs and lower back I deadlift a tractor tyre or sometimes flip it over and over, followed by lunges and front squats holding a rucksack full of sand. The lunges and front squats aren't that hard (I do 20 reps but could probably do more if my life depended on it) but the tyre is tough. Everything else:

Pushups at various inclines with a rucksack of sand on my back.

OHP with a metal bar with two buckets of sand and bricks on each end. Same for barbell rows.

Inverted rows from a waist level bar.

Mixture of bodyweight and weighted pull ups and hanging leg raises from a pull up bar.

Barbell curls using the bar and buckets.

I'm not doing a great deal for triceps as can't find a comfortable enough excercise, but they're getting hit quite a bit from the chest and shoulder exercises.

I haven't really attempted to progressive overload because generally I just can't find heavy enough things to lift - my buckets are creaking under the weight of the sand and bricks, lol. My gym notebook (where I tracked every single lift) went away in the drawer when lockdown started and all I aimed to do was maintain what I had, until the gym re-opens.

[AlexSays]

So much truth to this. You realise that in daily life, objects as heavy as weights don't really exist in a form that is actually designed to be carried or lifted

Tbh weighted pressups, weighted pullups, slow yet light deadlifts have been my friends. Luckily my legs are rubbish anyway so am quite comfortable with the limited weight I have. Sounds like you've got creativity down to an art though! And the tractor tyre sounds like a stroke of good fortune. Even if you aren't progressing you're probably doing a good job at retaining strength and mass you already have. Did you notice any decrease in your lifting capacity after the 'whoosh' (to the extent that you can monitor that with a DIY workout)?

With the weight loss I would just try and cram more easy or liquid calories in to your diet and then monitor for a couple more weeks. Hopefully it should stabilize out.