Junk food binge

favabean1982

So, I’ve been having a mostly healthy week with a ton of workouts, intermittent fasting and trying to be more mindful of my eating, but last night I did indulge a bit with a cookie, a small piece of cake, some white rice and breaded chicken I picked off my kids’ plates and Fruit Loops. I’ve shed a fair amount of carbs and sodium since then due to some long-distance bike rides and don’t feel bloated at all anymore, but my question is how long will it take before all the garbage that’s in these foods is out of my system? I’m not going to do a juice cleanse or anything like that as I know my body will naturally detoxify itself, but how long until that happens? As of this moment it’s been about sixteen hours since my last meal-I’ve had water and I’m in the midst of my usual daily intermittent fasting phase.
Thanks!

harper16

There's no real way to answer your question. Your body doesn't need to detoxify itself against anything that you ate, and if you are still in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. You might see a brief jump in water weight, or you might not.

AnnPT77

favabean1982 wrote: »

So, I’ve been having a mostly healthy week with a ton of workouts, intermittent fasting and trying to be more mindful of my eating, but last night I did indulge a bit with a cookie, a small piece of cake, some white rice and breaded chicken I picked off my kids’ plates and Fruit Loops. I’ve shed a fair amount of carbs and sodium since then due to some long-distance bike rides and don’t feel bloated at all anymore, but my question is how long will it take before all the garbage that’s in these foods is out of my system? I’m not going to do a juice cleanse or anything like that as I know my body will naturally detoxify itself, but how long until that happens? As of this moment it’s been about sixteen hours since my last meal-I’ve had water and I’m in the midst of my usual daily intermittent fasting phase.
Thanks!

I fear that you've fallen for some diet myths.

There's not garbage in those foods (would you feed them to your children if there were?). Your liver and kidneys do a great job of detoxifying your body under any kind of realistic normal routine, but in generally the whole "detoxifying" idea is misleading and unhelpful, unless a person eats poison or something.

If you've been low-carbing, and eat carbs, you'll typically see a bit of water weight gain, because the way our bodies metabolize carbs requires a little more water to make the process work, biochemically. There's no reason anyone should try to game or defeat that, because that's just how healthy bodies are supposed to work. Ditto for eating somewhat more sodium than normal: You body may want a little extra water to balance electrolytes. Normal, healthy, not a reason to worry or stress.

Sure, water retention can hide ongoing fat loss on the scale temporarily, but isn't it the fat loss part we care about?

Fat loss is about calories, especially in the short run. (In the long run, undernutrition can reduce activity through fatigue; or undernutrition can cause cravings or appetite spikes so make it hard to stick with reasonable calories . . . but those are indirect effects, with calories as the direct mechanism in both cases.)

That said, and with the reminder that I said no one should be trying to manipulate water weight intentionally unless there's a true health threat from it:

Yes, adequate hydration can help with the electolyte balance in some circumstances, and help the water weight leave.

Yes, cardiovascular exercise can help burn some calories from muscular/liver glycogen in the short run, and maybe help the water weight leave.

None of the above has anything to do with "detoxifying", or garbage in your system. There's no reason to "make up for" extra carbs or sodium. (I don't even mostly believe in "making up for" excess calories, in any explicit, immediate way, personally.)

For me, speaking very approximately, it seems that usually if I eat extra carbs/sodium/physical volume of food, and don't do anything else unusual, it normally takes a couple of days for my bodyweight to return to baseline, on my scale. If I ate enough calories to gain some fat (over a travel weekend, say), it also seems to take a couple of days to gain whatever amount of fat I'm going to gain, though this is harder to tell (among other reasons, because the amount of fat is inevitably and inherently small; and because an unusual short period of overeating doesn't necessarily result in the fat gain I'd expect, presumably because bodies are dynamic systems, and peak eating tends to spike energy a little - my resting heart rate seems to click up a couple of beats the day afterward, as one trivial example).

I've seen other people say that it takes longer for water retention to balance back to normal levels for them (maybe 5-7 days), so maybe it's individual.

This thread might amuse you:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10603949/big-overfeed-ruins-everything-nope

Personally, I don't find it helpful to think of diet and health as some kind of dramatic epic battle between good and evil. I think it's a good plan to manage my eating to reach/stay at a healthy weight (been maintaining for 4+ years now, after about 30 previous years of obesity); and to get good overall nutrition (i.e., sensible minimums of protein, healthy fats, fiber, plenty of varied/colorful veggies and fruit), and have a well-rounded set of activity (a.k.a. exercise ) that I enjoy. YMMV, but I find ideas like "junk food" to be a completely unhelpful tangent, vs. focusing directly on healthy weight, nutrition, and activity.

If this comes across as harsh, I apologize. Try to think of me as your cranky old internet auntie (I'm old enough, at 64), who is sometimes too frank for anyone's good, but likes to see people achieve their goals, and be healthy; and who means well, truly.

Sincere best wishes!