A Week off the Wagon with devastating results

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  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,239 Member
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    The point here I think is for people not to freak-out if this happens to them.

    This isn't what I gathered from your original post, but for what it's worth I absolutely agree with the above sentence.

    This is something most of us need to firmly entrench in our minds. I see far to many freaking out about a few pounds instead of looking at the long term picture which is the one that is much more important.
  • MB_Positif
    MB_Positif Posts: 8,897 Member
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    The point here I think is for people not to freak-out if this happens to them.

    This isn't what I gathered from your original post, but for what it's worth I absolutely agree with the above sentence.

    x2
  • MelissaW1978
    MelissaW1978 Posts: 37 Member
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    I had the same experience. I went on vacation for a week and gained 4 pounds...and I thought I was not doing terribly bad...I logged my food and exercise and on some days, I didn't seem to go over. I've been on here for 300 days now and I think that you are right...that your body is re-programmed to eat less now and it gets shocked and gains weight rapidly when you fall off the wagon. The good news is that my 4 pounds came off in about a month...I had to be extra disciplined to get it off but it did finally come off. Lesson learned...on vacation you still have to behave....you can't have a free pass to eat anything you want for a week:-)
  • wren337
    wren337 Posts: 9 Member
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    It's not just the sodium working against you here, you were pulling in a lot of carbs (alcohol!) and your body is stashing that as glycogen. Good writeup on it here, this explains why you initially lose a burst of weight when you start dieting:

    http://www.justinowings.com/understanding-bodyweight-and-glycogen-de/

    The relevant part:

    "Carbohydrate (stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen) is accompanied by a good bit of water. For every gram of glycogen stored, you store anywhere from 3-4 grams of water with it.

    Essentially you're packed full of sugar water right now. So when you burn that glycogen back down you'll lose the sugar and excrete the water and lose that weight pretty quickly.
  • basschick
    basschick Posts: 3,502 Member
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    When I saw "devastating" I was expecting to read that you'd gained 10 lbs. I gained 5.4 lbs. in one day last week from eating too much at a birthday party. You've probably already lost some of that 4 lbs. since you posted this topic. Drink lots of water and the rest will be gone soon.
  • Lane1012
    Lane1012 Posts: 211 Member
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    I'd like to know how in the world you ate out 3 times a day and had drinks and still averaged 1900 cals a day ... I can do that in one eat out meal easily ... salad heavy?
  • pants77
    pants77 Posts: 185 Member
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    I'm willing to bet it's mostly water and poop weight.
  • brandi22479
    brandi22479 Posts: 81 Member
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    I have a few comments. I don't say any of this with any sort of tone but I am pretty blunt so hopefully you can take that for what it is:


    1) 4lbs is not devastating, it's trivial. Yesterday afternoon I weighed in at 189. Today I weighed in at 184.5.

    2) You didn't use any method to track bodyfat % so you can't know whether or not your 4lb gain was 1lb of fat and 3lbs of water, or .5lbs of fat and 3.5lbs of water, or all fat, etc. Obviously you wouldn't take DEXA scans before and after as that's not really practical, but the point still stands. I'm willing to bet a good portion of that gain was water weight, this can happen when you go from a chronic deficit to an immediate surplus or even maintenance.

    In the long run, this break may do you more good than harm. You need to look at the big picture.


    EDIT: I do thank you for posting this, I think there's value in it regardless.

    This! #1
  • brandi22479
    brandi22479 Posts: 81 Member
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    Saturday I weighed 194.8, this morning I weighed 197. Water weight, regular bowel movements and speed of digestion affect how our weight fluxuates (sp) as well.
  • JPO1980
    JPO1980 Posts: 34 Member
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    I agree with most of the above - I reckon by next week this will be gone.
    I went to California for 5 days in September - ate a little more but not too bad - when I got home - I had put on 12.5lbs!
    I put most of this down to water retention from the flight. 2 weeks later it had gone again...

    Jayde
  • slim_photographer
    slim_photographer Posts: 310 Member
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    Thanks for the post and I will commend you for sticking to your programs for 13 weeks in a row. For me it's more like 3 good days and a bad one, two good weeks and bad one.
    Some people on here tend to cling to the meaning or use of certain words in their head and when someone uses them in a different way they can't help but to deviate from the point and go straight to try to correct you.
    I get what you're saying.
    I hope you reach your goals.
    HC
  • ipiddock
    ipiddock Posts: 97 Member
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    I'd like to know how in the world you ate out 3 times a day and had drinks and still averaged 1900 cals a day ... I can do that in one eat out meal easily ... salad heavy?

    I take your point.

    I ate well on the Monday and the Friday during the week, it was really just the other 5 days. I also worked out on the Monday and Friday so that lowered the average for the week. If I had just posted stats about the 5 days those numbers would be different.
  • magerum
    magerum Posts: 12,589 Member
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    I have a few comments. I don't say any of this with any sort of tone but I am pretty blunt so hopefully you can take that for what it is:


    1) 4lbs is not devastating, it's trivial. Yesterday afternoon I weighed in at 189. Today I weighed in at 184.5.

    2) You didn't use any method to track bodyfat % so you can't know whether or not your 4lb gain was 1lb of fat and 3lbs of water, or .5lbs of fat and 3.5lbs of water, or all fat, etc. Obviously you wouldn't take DEXA scans before and after as that's not really practical, but the point still stands. I'm willing to bet a good portion of that gain was water weight, this can happen when you go from a chronic deficit to an immediate surplus or even maintenance.

    In the long run, this break may do you more good than harm. You need to look at the big picture.


    EDIT: I do thank you for posting this, I think there's value in it regardless.

    ^ This. Yesterday morning I weighed 181.4. This morning I weighed 184.4. I only ate 100 calories above my normal intake yesterday, but got only 5 hours a sleep, bad sleep on top of that. So I'm retaining water because I'm out of "the norm". I'm going to go to bed early tonight and get a full nights sleep. Two nights of that and the weight will be gone, which is unfortunate in my case because I'm actually trying to bulk.
  • likemeinvisible
    likemeinvisible Posts: 309
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    So I weigh in this morning and I've gained 4 lbs!!!!!!!

    I guess as the maths never worked when I was loosing weight I shouldn't rely on them when trying to predict the results of a 'bad' week. But still, that's a train crash, that has now potentially put be back weeks in reaching my goals. If 3500 calories is really equal to a pound, I should have consumed near on 30,000 calories to do that sort of damage, but I netted out at 13,000 (Av 1857 per day).

    My calculator says:

    4lbs X 3500cal = 14,000cal


    edit: I'm not trying to be funny, I just want to know if I can trust the numbers.
  • CyberEd312
    CyberEd312 Posts: 3,536 Member
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    Agree with Sidesteal (Wow there something New!! LOL) but you are most likely talking water retention there is now way you gained that much fat.. I have Splurge meal or two on the weekend and am normally up 4 or 5 pounds on Monday but plenty of hydration and by wednesday I am back at weight and more than likely have lost weight for that week. Once every 3 months or so I will take a entire weekend off and don't track anything and pretty much eat what I what (not overly crazy but I have what I want) and there has been a couple of those weekends on Monday I moved the scale up 8-10 lbs. It is nothing but massive water retention from all the high sodium intake and within a few days it all balances out... My methods may not work for some or most but after 37 months and 311 lbs. lost I have disciplined myself and have no problems sticking to my plan after such meals... Just recommit and get back on point and keep working toward your goals...
  • 1holegrouper
    1holegrouper Posts: 323 Member
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    I agree with others that this is all sodium and water. If you are back to your normal routine then this experience can be thought of as a "carb cycling" session. There are many folks that do this purposefully on a regular basis to reset their body's response to their calorie restriction. This happened when I went to Ukraine and when I went to the UK. I actually lost weight from both of those trips after the sodium and the water levels normalized. Now let that worry turn into excitement!
  • ipiddock
    ipiddock Posts: 97 Member
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    So I weigh in this morning and I've gained 4 lbs!!!!!!!

    I guess as the maths never worked when I was loosing weight I shouldn't rely on them when trying to predict the results of a 'bad' week. But still, that's a train crash, that has now potentially put be back weeks in reaching my goals. If 3500 calories is really equal to a pound, I should have consumed near on 30,000 calories to do that sort of damage, but I netted out at 13,000 (Av 1857 per day).

    My calculator says:

    4lbs X 3500cal = 14,000cal


    edit: I'm not trying to be funny, I just want to know if I can trust the numbers.

    + normal food consumption = 30,000
  • lilawolf
    lilawolf Posts: 1,690 Member
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    Are you sure you were calculating your calories correctly? It is pretty easy to hit 1800 calories without big restaurant meals or alcohol.... I would expect at least double that. If your numbers are correct, than I also suspect water weight. There are scales that measure that you know.
  • skinnynerd
    skinnynerd Posts: 110
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    I gained four pounds after vacation. It came back off the following week. Although my calorie intake was higher, my sodium intake was off the charts due to eating out every meal. Give it a week or so, the weight should be gone. Drink lots of water!
  • ipiddock
    ipiddock Posts: 97 Member
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    Are you sure you were calculating your calories correctly? It is pretty easy to hit 1800 calories without big restaurant meals or alcohol.... I would expect at least double that. If your numbers are correct, than I also suspect water weight. There are scales that measure that you know.

    Yes - see earlier post on this thread - 1800 over the week. 2 Normal days out of 7, exclude those days that also included workouts and the numbers look totally different.

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