Overeating then maintenance

RiseHigher

If a regular exerciser overeats and does not workout for several days, then goes back to exercising but just eats maintenance calories, will their weight stay high or go back down?

Realizing that little fat could be gained in a few days and most of it would be from bloating, would you need to be at a deficit to lose the scale weight? Or would it go back down on maintenance calories but just more slowly?

msujack

Several days is a bit vague. If it's a week or so, you might pack on a pound or so. The additional water weight will go back down and the maintenance number of your original weight will get you back to it. Considering the human body fluctuates a few pounds every day, it's pretty much just a rounding error.

Sustained actions dictate whether you gain, lose, or maintain.

RiseHigher

Well I dieted for five months and lost almost 20 lbs. I then ran a marathon.

I went to what was supposed to be maintenance calories for eight days before my marathon to help carb load for the race. I started to lose weight _faster_ than when my calories were lower.

After the marathon, I took a week off my diet, and so my weight is high. Now I'm going back on my diet to lose the last few pounds to my goal. I thought I would eat at maintenance and see if I lost weight again at that level.

However, just having taken a week off my diet, my weight is high. So I am not sure if my weight goes down, if it's because I'm actually losing at this amount of calories or I'm just losing bloat.

Sued0nim

I'd try it - at least for a few weeks and see what happens

I think you are currently risking seeing things too close up - how do you know what's bloat and what's fat?

Eat at maintenance and see where your weight settles over 3-4 weeks - I would

LivingtheLeanDream

rabbitjb wrote: »

I'd try it - at least for a few weeks and see what happens

I think you are currently risking seeing things too close up - how do you know what's bloat and what's fat?

Eat at maintenance and see where your weight settles over 3-4 weeks - I would

+1

Francl27

I'd cut a bit, personally, but I tend to freak out when the scale goes up, lol. I know a lot of people are in the 'wait and see' camp, but personally if I see an increase on the scale, I just don't want to risk making it worse.

RiseHigher

Yeah that's what I thought. But I wouldn't want to lose progress as I was losing at the calorie level I was at before, but noticed the odd weight loss acceleration when I increased calories. I was also hungrier when I increased calories, but felt better overall too. I wasn't sure if the latter effect was just because I wasn't dieting.

I use a daily online tracker which shows the weighed average of my weight and body fat (trendweight.com). My scale shows all the gain as lean mass but it gauges that from your body's water content, since muscle holds more water than fat. You can't gain 5-7 lbs of lean mass in one week, which is how I know it's bloat. Also it's physically impossible to gain more than 1-2 lbs of fat in a week (that's around 500-1000 calories a day over what you'd maintain at), unless the person was gorging themselves 24 hours a day, then maybe.

Also athletes tend to store more of excess calories in their muscles to fuel their next workouts versus someone who is sedentary. The latter's body tells them they won't use it so it goes faster to fat.