Eating junk food and losing weight ??

TiggerxLuci

I am so confused. I went to a Filipino party last night and ate to my hearts content and then I came home and had pizza, chips, ice cream, and soda. This morning I weighted myself expecting to have gained a couple pounds but I actually loss weight. O_O I am so confused right now, you don't even know.

solodancer

it takes time for the food to be absorbed. everyone finds it happens at different rates, for instance one of my mfp friends noticed that if she ate bad then 2 weeks later she would notice a weight gain or bad skin etc. just eat extra well for a while and you wont notice a bad effect from it hopefully

ElizabethRoad

To gain a couple of pounds you would have to eat 7000 calories above maintenance.

ampa916

I am so confused. I went to a Filipino party last night and ate to my hearts content and then I came home and had pizza, chips, ice cream, and soda. This morning I weighted myself expecting to have gained a couple pounds but I actually loss weight. O_O I am so confused right now, you don't even know.

This happened to me recently (my new years goal was to lose weight and get healthy, I just found this site though) and I just assumed that I could eat whatever I wanted since I didn't see the damage from the bad eating. But I now have gained back 7lbs of the 15 I have lost since the beginning of December! It comes back just maybe not as fast as we expect.

GinGinSweden

You wouldnt gain weight the next day from the food you just ate the night before like said before it takes time and depending on what you eat the rest of the week and if you are weighing in once a week would you notice any changes up or down , not over night.

Jorra

I ate Taco Bell yesterday, McDonald's and Culver's the day before. I was still in a caloric deficit for the week. I lost weight.

FYI: It does NOT take two weeks for food to be absorbed into your body. It takes, on average, a day for your food to go from mouth to toilet. The nutrients and energy are absorbed along the way.

solodancer

FYI: It does NOT take two weeks for food to be absorbed into your body. It takes, on average, a day for your food to go from mouth to toilet. The nutrients and energy are absorbed along the way.

my opinion it can still take time for the effects of the food to show, maybe absorbed wasnt the best word to use but this is my opinion and not set in stone fact, that doesnt exist when it comes to individual differences especially for food, everyones body is different,
if it takes a day to gain weight why wouldnt it take a day to lose weight? surely going on that theory when your body uses up its stores you should lose weight pretty quick? it takes time for results to show from dieting and it takes time for results to show from eating bad too.
anyway hope this helps the original poster, its good to have different opinions (but you could find a nicer way of saying it in future posts, its hard for 'FYI' and 'not' in caps to come across nicely through a computer, bare in mind people cant hear your tone of voice through a computer).
P.S. the first point is a very good one, if you are within your calories and dont go madly over in your fat carbs etc you can still eat bad stuff in moderation and still lose weight. I incorporate alsorts into my diet

sexforjaffacakes

FYI: It does NOT take two weeks for food to be absorbed into your body. It takes, on average, a day for your food to go from mouth to toilet. The nutrients and energy are absorbed along the way.

my opinion it can still take time for the effects of the food to show, maybe absorbed wasnt the best word to use but this is my opinion and not set in stone fact, that doesnt exist when it comes to individual differences especially for food, everyones body is different,
if it takes a day to gain weight why wouldnt it take a day to lose weight? surely going on that theory when your body uses up its stores you should lose weight pretty quick? it takes time for results to show from dieting and it takes time for results to show from eating bad too.

It's not opinion, it's fact. The reason it takes a while to lose weight is because you need to create a defecit of 3500 calories to lose a pound, which is hard to do in a day, although not impossible.
The same is true in reverse. You need to eat 3500 calories to put on a pound - which is perfectly possible in one day, and you would probably see the effects instantly. Seeing weight go on a week or two later may be due to going over on your calories frequently, building up to 3500 calories (1lb). Or, more likely, fluctuations in weight due to water. If you have one big 5000 calorie meal, it's not going to take a week or two for it to magically appear out of nowhere.
Where is the weight "living" for those two weeks before it "suddenly appears"?

*le sigh*

Jorra

FYI: It does NOT take two weeks for food to be absorbed into your body. It takes, on average, a day for your food to go from mouth to toilet. The nutrients and energy are absorbed along the way.

my opinion it can still take time for the effects of the food to show, maybe absorbed wasnt the best word to use but this is my opinion and not set in stone fact, that doesnt exist when it comes to individual differences especially for food, everyones body is different,
if it takes a day to gain weight why wouldnt it take a day to lose weight? surely going on that theory when your body uses up its stores you should lose weight pretty quick? it takes time for results to show from dieting and it takes time for results to show from eating bad too.
anyway hope this helps the original poster, its good to have different opinions (but you could find a nicer way of saying it in future posts, its hard for 'FYI' and 'not' in caps to come across nicely through a computer, bare in mind people cant hear your tone of voice through a computer).
P.S. the first point is a very good one, if you are within your calories and dont go madly over in your fat carbs etc you can still eat bad stuff in moderation and still lose weight. I incorporate alsorts into my diet

As previously stated, physiology is not an opinion, it's a scientific fact. Jaffa's explanation is hopefully sufficient for understanding how calorie deficits and surpluses work.

I capitalized those words for emphasis to make sure the OP would understand that what you said was inaccurate. A single large meal will not wait two weeks to show its effects, weight gain is a cumulative process.