Relapse Prevention and Extreme Weight Fluctuation

shel80kg

Yet again....I relapsed last week. Weight increased 5 kg over 4 days. Clearly a psychological relapse as well as old habits returned with a vengence. I need to hear again how weight fluctuation actually occurs. 5 kg seems extraodinary.

This one was a classic. 83 kg to 89 kg over 4.5 days. I know water retention has to be a factor as I did not eat 3600 x 6 x 2.2 (47,520) calories in 4.5 days. But....I did eat approx 15,000 (aprox). Given that I probably burn about 2000 a day and did a bit of exercise (say about 2000 over the time period of concern), my body had to get rid of and/or store 47,520 - 8000 - 2000 = 30,520 calories (3.85 kg) Have I got that right? Hmmm. I would not be surprised if I plastered on at least 2 to 3 kg over my "binge" but I sure do not remember eating thousands and thousands of calories worth of "food" It just seems weird.

I might be assuming that the excessive kg are calories rather than grams and I get that. It just makes me think that the weight gain will be an inevitable permanent addition to this body of mine. I may be muddled up. (a bit of paranoia?) So...my questions... Is this degree of weight fluctuation in any way normal? How long will do I wait to find out whether I actually gained tons or will the diet Gods look mercifully on me and let me go back to 83 which took me 8 months to achieve? I hate how I relapse but I think that is more about my psychological state and how I have developed habits and a love/hate relationship with refined, processed and sugary foods. I have my own discussion group on this platform which I guess I will need to return to (rather humbly I might add). I guess the struggle is never over.
Thanks for reading and helping

Shel

shel80kg

(apologies for the myriad of grammatical errors to say nothing of the mathematical mistakes. I am feeling a lot of negative and hopeless thoughts at the moment and this platform has always been one of my safety nets/life lines and I felt that utilising the service was kind of urgent. I am "back on the wagon" and will be discussing the psycholgocial dimention with my guy later this month. But..if the wonderful regular experts can take a look at my ramblings, I would be ever so grateful. (I am back down to 86 today (from 89)) so that is reassuring.

tomcustombuilder

You have water fluctuations which have nothing to do with actual fat gain or loss.

MargaretYakoda

There are better experts than me on this subject, but yeah.
Wild fluctuations can happen.
Water weight from sodium and stress are a factor (so I have heard)

You’re already getting back on track.
Glad you’re planning on discussing this with “(your) guy”

One day at a time. The process is long term, not one bad day.
Keep on keeping on.

AnnPT77

Yeah, it's going to be mostly water weight, with some contribution from food waste still in your digestive tract on the way to the exit.

I didn't redo your arithmetic, but it looks like you have the right concept. The actual excess calories (over maintenance) are the theoretical upper limit for fat gain; usually, a person would be likely to gain a little less than the theoretical maximum. There are various reasons for that, but an obvious one is that in a sudden calorie surplus the body is likely to perk up a bit energetically, if not in ways we perceive (as it may), then at least in things like core body temperature, slightly higher resting heart rate, etc.

As far as understanding fluctuations, you might take a look at the thread linked below if you haven't read it already. Especially read the article linked in the first post.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Yeah, big weight fluctuations are normal after eating substantially over maintenance calories, or even eating in a different pattern (chiefly if it's more carbs than usual and/or more salt/sodium than usual). Magnitude of the fluctuations seems to be somewhat individual as well as situational. Ditto for how long it will take to drop off, but if you go back to the normal, healthy routine that's been working for you, the water/waste part of it will drop off.

For me, depending on some details, one of these bigger scale bumps (that isn't accounted for by calorie intake) will drop off in one to two weeks. If you aren't stressed by daily weighing, doing that now might help you learn some things about how your personal body responds to this kind of thing. That can be useful insight.

I'm sure you realize there's no point in catastrophizing, beating yourself up about this, trying to "make up for it" calorically, and that sort of thing. As you suggest, if you can dig into the root causes and deal with those more directly, that would be ideal for the sake of avoiding or minimizing future repeats, of course.

I don't know whether it's of any help to you, but I wrote a post here about a weekend when I ate many hundreds of calories (low thousands) over maintenance. (I didn't think of it as a binge, but more an conscious decision attributable to pure hedonism, which is part of my personal psychological makeup. It wasn't uncontrolled or uncontrollable, let alone unremembered (I logged it, with some estimation required). I don't even necessarily see it as a problem: If I make such a decision (as distinct from a slip), then I make that decision with full ownership of the implications.)

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

There are links in that thread to similar reports from one or two others. I wrote the post as an attempt to reassure the people who freak out when they go 500 calories over goal (not even necessarily even over maintenance), and I know that's not the specific situation you're describing. I "only" gained 6.4 pounds (2.9 kg), but IIRC I'm a smaller person than you are, so it might be proportionate or close.

Somewhere in the replies to that thread (I think page 2), there's a link to a Stephanie Buttermore video where she goes into some of the science behind why we may not add as much fat as the calorie excess predicts. (Yes, it looks like a woman in a bikini video, but she's a scientist, too.)

Bottom line: You're human. These things happen, and part of the aftermath is improbably large scale fluctuations.

Hang in there.