1 Cheat = 2lbs

mwillder1

I had chips and queso with my salad Saturday night; boom, up 2.2lbs on Sunday. It's taken me until yesterday (Thursday) to go back to where I was before, so 4-5 days. That's the 2nd time that's happened--drastic water weight gain--since I've been using MFP for the past 6 months, so I didn't freak out too much about it. Knowledge is power.

lorrpb

Honestly, you're lucky it was only 2 lbs, for reasons already discussed, lol.

apullum

I'm in maintenance, which gives me a different perspective on weight fluctuations now than I had when I was losing weight, and maybe it will be helpful for folks who are losing.

I use Happy Scale to track my weight each day and make sure my trend line stays within my maintenance range.
Here is what that trend line always looks like: It's highest on Sunday or Monday, slowly decreases over the week, reaches a low point around Friday, and then increases quickly over the weekend. This is true almost every week, despite the fact that I do not go over my calorie budget for the week.

Why? Because we almost never go out to eat during the week, but we usually go out on Saturday, Sunday, or both. Even though those restaurant meals are within my calorie budget, they still cause me to gain water weight that takes several days to go away. (Additionally, I do my long runs on the weekend, and that intense exercise can also contribute to water weight gain.) The water weight goes away on its own; I make no effort to drink large amounts of water or do other things to try to get rid of it.

Removing weight loss from the equation really helped me understand this cycle in a way I didn't understand when I was losing weight, because it was hard for me to separate "real" weight change (i.e., fat loss or gain) from water weight fluctuation. I'm okay with those fluctuations now that I can see the pattern and understand that the extra water is going to be gone within a few days. However, it's very hard to see that when you're in the middle of weight loss.