How long to gain/lose?

Idle_Moon

How long does it take before you gain or lose a pound?
Sometimes, I read topics about people worrying about gaining weight, after they ate too much calories yesterday. Would you gain those calories in weight overnight? Is your body processing the food that fast?

dlkfox

That would be water retention. Generally, 3500 calories equals one pound.

goldthistime

Digestion is said to take place in 12-48 hours on average but liquids can be digested in as little as 20 minutes, fruit in under an hour, complex carbs in 3 hours and meat in 24 hours. Foods travel through the digestive system in 24-56 hours. So if you over ate at dinner time, the next morning you would have the excess waste from the food in your gut, the weight of any increase in glycogen and twice that weight in water bound to it. You are correct in thinking not everything eaten would have had a chance to convert to fat or lbm yet, but that doesn't mean the scales don't go up.

Shana67

So I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago and gained 8 POUNDS in a week. Basically, a pound a day. I was eating a lot more than usual (but not that much more), but MAN OH MAN - I was downing those tropical drinks as if they were water =P

We've been back for 11 days and I've already dropped 3 of those pounds.... I am sure that within the next 2 weeks, they will all be gone. Weight loss is a weird beast, to be sure.

Idle_Moon

Thank you for your answers!