If you're gaining weight in a calorie deficit, well then I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you're not in a deficit. If you are gaining weight in a calorie deficit, the most common culprit outside of a true diagnosed medical condition is that you're eating more food than you think.
Listed below are list of some common contributors to untracked eating habits/ patterns:
Weekend eating - This is by far the number 1 culprit to derailing progress. Accurately tracking and weighing out each and every serving size can be quickly undone with poor choices on the weekends. I have seen this accomplished a number of ways. Here are the most common: 1.) Guesstimating food sizes on the weekend – eyeballing what you think are accurate serving sizes for fluids and food servings instead of actually weighing them out. 2.) Eating out on the weekends – eating out is tricky, and in the perfect world I would recommend preparing all of your own meals yourself, but I understand it’s nice to go out and enjoy some of your favorite foods with family and friends. Unfortunately though, with eating out, there come many pitfalls. You for sure won’t know the exact portion sizes of the foods and sides you’re eating, how much oil or butter they are adding when cooking specific items, or if the nutrition resources shared by the restaurant are actually accurate. Therefore, moving into a surplus is a lot easier than you think. Throw ordering alcoholic drinks on top of that, and you have a recipe for a lot of unaccounted calories.
Eating out – see my explanation above. Ideally you would want to limit how often you eat out foods that you are not preparing yourself or weighing out yourself, and ideally while in prep for a show, aim to eliminate eating out all together the closer you get to your show, so as not to incur any unexpected setbacks. Here are some tips to help make eating out easier though: 1.) Try to eat from restaurants that have their nutrition and menus online (won’t be 100% accurate but will at least be closer to within reason...hopefully). 2.) Plan out what you’re eating before you go to the restaurant and factor it into your macros to make sure you won’t be exceeding in advance. 3.) Order from a low calorie menu to be on the safe side. Many restaurants have healthy eating menus or low calorie menus with serving sizes and nutrition data, which makes tracking easier. 4.): Order restaurant food as take out. My wife and I do this often so I don't have to embarrass us by bringing my food scale into a restaurant for me to weigh my food portions out (yes I do this but mostly when I was cutting for competitions lol). I’ll bring the food home and weigh it out. Again helping to minimize the margin of error in tracking. 5.) Eating prior to restaurant – This applies more so to those in prep who have spouses or significant others or friend groups who like to go out to eat, and you do not want to feel like you are keeping them from enjoying a night out with dining. In the event that you decide to go to a restaurant, some choices could be to pack food with and either A.) Eat it in the car before walking in and just order a water or diet soda at the table B.) Ask the restaurant in advance if they allow outside food in their establishment. I have had many friends bring food with to restaurants and eat what they prepared so they could still enjoy their social life or date nights without making their company feel awkward for not eating with them. In later phases of prep leading up to a show, I personally never wanted to eat out food that I didn’t prepare myself, as to not hinder my progress towards my show.
Periodic snacking – taking bites of food here and there or sips of drinks throughout the week that you don’t account for can have a cumulative effect, and depending on the frequency and how much you're snacking, can most certainly impede weight loss or put you in a small surplus, thus causing weight gain.
Alcohol – Again, in the perfect world I would just say avoid it all together, as from a performance standpoint, it really serves zero purpose. Let’s be clear though, when accurately fit into your caloric needs and consumed in moderation, alcohol does not cause weight gain, nor does it negatively affect weight loss or muscle gain. The key words here are in moderation and when accurately fit into your macros. Excessive alcohol intake can cause subjective increases in hunger (ie. Increased appetite) and can reduce muscle protein synthesis rates for a period of 12hrs. So when consuming alcohol, aim to track this as accurately as possible and drink within moderation.
Faulty Weighing Device – Make sure the batteries in your food scales are working and the scale is zeroed out before using. I have seen small errors like this throw off tracking for individuals during the week that ultimately resulted in weight gain due to incorrect food measurements.
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