the strangest scale thing happened today

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trulyhealy
trulyhealy Posts: 240 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
this isn’t really a question but i’m so confused cause last night i ate like 2,000 cals of junk food (i’m 5 foot 5 and 20 years old) and the scale went down this morning!!!!

i’m so happy bc i expected it to go up by like 2-3 pounds but it went down by 1 pound.

how could this happen tho?? i wasn’t in a calorie deficit. i did go to the gym for an hour but it was only weights not cardio

Replies

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited October 2021
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    This happens to me pretty regularly - both in active losing and now in fairly recent maintenanceish. My best guess is that breaking a prolonged deficit prompts my body to drop water weight because cortisol levels go down. Happened to me every time I went to a maintenance break or just ate too much.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,154 Member
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    I've seen similar things in myself. There may be something in that stress/cortisol/water weight idea, here.

    I'd also observe that if there *is* body fat gain from a day or few of over-maintenance eating, it may not show up on the scale the very next day anyway.

    Of course, the actual excess calories may not be enough to show up on the scale anyway, amongst routine daily fluctuations.

    But even if it were going to show up, it's worth considering that full digestive transit can take 50+ hours (per research), with calories/nutrients being absorbed along the way, and metabolized via biochemical processes that can be fairly quick, but they're not instant. It's not like we add body fat as soon as the excess calories go in our mouth, or hit our stomach.

    Food you ate last night is potentially still in the midst of being processed, by next morning's weigh-in, not fully digested/metabolized/stored.

    Even so, 2000 calories shouldn't have a bit impact on body fat levels, even if 2000 above maintenance: Like @lietchi said, just over half a pound as a theoretical max, and there are physical responses that tend to whittle down that actual impact, maybe especially so from a rare episode.
  • kpforest25
    kpforest25 Posts: 6 Member
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    this happens to me all the time! I try to have a high calorie day every once and a while. It seems to boost my metabolism. I don’t know why it works but I think of it as “reminding” my body that I’m eating in a deficit.
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,388 Member
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    It's all crazy at times. I've had major weight loss within a couple days of huge food consumption myself. Don't let it freak you out, just accept that weight loss isn't linear. I've had swings over 10 pounds in a day when I'm real active and it's hot out, and it's not uncommon to see 4-5 pound swings on a given day.
  • age_is_just_a_number
    age_is_just_a_number Posts: 630 Member
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    Scale fluctuations are normal. What matters is the overall trend.
    https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
  • MargaretYakoda
    MargaretYakoda Posts: 2,341 Member
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    yirara wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »
    yirara wrote: »
    Ate a bag of crisps. Next morning; Oh, I lost weight, cool! I can has more crisps!

    😂😂😂😂

    Just imagine the implications: "crisps discovered as negative calorie food!"
    😂😂

    Sign me up!

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