Q: I have a question for you. I bought the Afterburn program and followed it religiously for three weeks and have gained three pounds. This totally freaked me out. I wanted to lose weight. Now I weigh 170 and want to get to 150-155. I ditched the program for now and am going back to my tedious point counting weight watcher program and yoga and lots of elliptical and maybe will do this program when I get to my goal. Do you have any clue why I always gain so much weight when I do weight training? This happens to me every time and I am just not willing to take the risk of having the scale go up even though I really want a lean muscular body. This has me totally freaked out.
Compare that body to every 170 pound Weight Watcher progress photo you've ever seen. Dieters who don't strength train will jiggle and have fat rolls and look like hell in a bikini no matter what they weigh. Strong, lean women will look completely fabulous at scale weights that would scare the bejeezus out of a Weight Watchers counselor.
As long as you're measuring your success by the scale, your success is going to be severely limited. Use a tape measure, percentage of body fat, a pair of tight jeans, the mirror or photographs. I know that if you've relied on the scale your whole life it's hard to part ways, but I'm telling you - part already! Give the program a chance. You didn't even make it to the 4-week freakout before you freaked. You aren't always going to see big changes in days or weeks. You have to be prepared to do a fitness program consistently for MONTHS to see a huge payoff. Changing your body composition is not like a quick weight loss diet where the scale goes down every week. Totally rebuilding yourself takes time and real effort.
