How long till scales show a bad week

hnyzthms

Hi all

I had a really bad last week last week and completely fell off the wagon and was well over my calories for the week by 2446.

So I have two questions
1 how long till that bad week will show on scales, as today I was 2lb so is that from last week or water?
2 if I stick to my calories allowance this week, in theory should I lose next week?

Thanks in advance

neandermagnon

it'll probably never show. You lose fat and gain fat slowly.

Your bad week probably wasn't half as bad as you thought. The extra 2lb could be fat if you overate by 7000 calories (as in 7000 calories more than your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).... but your MFP calorie goal is below your TDEE, so in most cases a bad week = not getting the deficit you should have done. Say (hypothetical example) your TDEE is 2000 cals, your MFP goal would be around 1600 cals. So you may think 1800 cals in a day is a bad day because you went over your goal, but you'd still be in deficit and still lose fat, just not lose as much. In this example with the same numbers, you'd have to eat 5500 cals in a day to gain a pound of fat in a day. 3500 cals = 1lb fat............ so unless you went ***REALLY*** overboard for the whole week, then the 2lb gain you saw was probably water weight from sodium rather than fat. It really takes a lot of overeating to gain fat.... fat gain happens because people eat a little more than they burn every day for months or years, and it builds up slowly.

So, don't stress about bad days. To answer your second question, yes just get on with the exercise and eating at a deficit, and you'll carry on losing fat.