Confused, lost weight after several cheat days!?!

SharonCMach
SharonCMach Posts: 305 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
First of all let me start out by saying that I reached my ultimate goal weight of 120 last Sunday, so now Im trying to maintain my weight loss.

Ok, now let me explain my cheat days. So last week I was away from home at a work conference for 3 days, took hubby along for the ride. I planned on working out everyday at the hotel gym cause I knew hubby & I would be going out to eat everynight while there. I ended up working out only once. I did really good the first night for dinner. Ate grilled chicken, steamed vegatables and a plain baked sweet potato. The second night we went to a Chinese buffet, which I was pretty good on making healthy food choices, except for the tapioca & chocolate pudding I ate for dessert, but it was so worth it.

So this is where it all goes bad. Friday I get out at noon so on the way home we stop at a Chiles for lunch. We started out with an appitizer of boneless buffalo wings dipped in ranch, yum. Then I had grilled chicken w/ black beans & rice, so not bad. But then I ordered the Molton Chocolate Fudge Cake topped with ice cream. Hubby was full so he had 3 small bites of it, I finished the rest. :bigsmile: That was lunch. Later that night we had my husbands brother over. I made pizza & for dessert black bean brownies with ice cream. I logged all my food from Chiles plus breakfast that morning and I was over 3000 calories. I didn't even bother to log my dinner that night but Im sure it would have put me over 5000.

So moving on to Saturday we had a wedding to go to. I didn't eat all day cause I was saving up for that night. I drank 2 Sangrias, we ate Chicken fried steak, mashed potatos with gravy, green beans & salad. I was good and skipped on the roll & salad dressing. :laugh: Throughout the rest of the night I ate 2 pieces of wedding cake, 2 pieces of apple pie & 1 piece of pecan pie. :grumble:

The next day we went to pick up our son from the Grandparents. We stayed for lunch and I ate a Chicken salad sandwich & fritos with cheese dip. So here I was bad again. :frown:

So all of this took place last week between Wednesday threw this week Monday. Tuesday morning I weigh myself to see what the damage is. 121.8, so not bad, I can handle that. I resume my regular schedule of working out for my lunch hour & doing Focus T25 once daily. Now this morning (Thursday) I weigh myself again and the scale says 118.8. How can this be? I went WAY OVER on my calories for several days and I lost?? Please explain?

Im still trying to figure out my maintanence calories, but when I was trying to lose weight I ate 1200 so I know it needs to be more than that.

Replies

  • PaytraB
    PaytraB Posts: 2,360 Member
    Have you figured out a daily calorie goal to start maintenance on? Eat this amount and weigh yourself in a month. You may gain a few pounds before you level out. This is normal and not to be worried about. It'll take awhile to narrow that down to what works for you.

    It was only a week. Don't fret it. For maintenance, it may help to check your weight every month; not week. It takes the body awhile to adjust and level out. As for last week, you're body is probably still adjusting itself after a long time at 1200 calories.

    ETA: add 500 calories/day for every pound of weekly weigh loss goal you had to get to a starting point for maintenance. For example, if your goal was to lose 1lb/week, try 1700 cal/day for maintenance; if your goal was to lose 2lbs/week, try 2200 cal/day for maintenance. That won't be exact but should put you in the ballpark.
  • SharonCMach
    SharonCMach Posts: 305 Member
    Thanks for the info. I just went under my profile and changed my goal. I set it to maintain weight and it jumped from 1200 to 1550 calories a day. So I will start with that and see how it goes.
  • ladyredeemed4
    ladyredeemed4 Posts: 72 Member
    That does happen - but it won't every week. You have a great eating schedule and then you blow it. I think it confuses your body. When I am at a plateau and can't seem to lose, I will eat something I normally don't - like a slice of cake and that seems to get my body out of it's normal zone and it gets things rolling. It's going to be bad for you for a few days, because you had all that sugar and you may be craving it after the overload. : ) But like Plexgut said - it's normal.
  • _jayciemarie_
    _jayciemarie_ Posts: 574 Member
    I wish I had your problem!!!!!!!! If I think about eating bad the scale weighs a pound more! Be thankful :)
  • Holly_Roman_Empire
    Holly_Roman_Empire Posts: 4,440 Member
    Do a search on the forums for "re-feed." A lot of people on here purposefully eat a calorie surplus every once in a while to do what you did accidentally. :happy:
  • KetoBella
    KetoBella Posts: 141 Member
    Sadly, that is why most people that lose weight end up gaining it all back plus a few pounds. If you eat like you used to eat you will weigh what you once weighed. I would go to very low carbs and increase your fat so you don't end up with the carb cravings that will derail all your hard earned progress. Best of luck to you.
  • Siansonea
    Siansonea Posts: 917 Member
    Weight loss isn't linear. Your body doesn't turn on a dime. If you eat "bad" three days out of thirty, the overall trend will be the 27 days you ate "good". Your body doesn't gain or lose weight based on a three-day effort in either direction.
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    At 1200, you were probably under your BMR. I am sure your body was happy to have food.

    When I was doing 1280 a day, I hit a plateau and I had a big cheat day and started dropping again. I then changed my goals.

    Congrats on weight loss. I would look at TDEE and calculate that way. And slowly up your calories.
  • flumi_f
    flumi_f Posts: 1,888 Member
    There is a hormone called leptin that somehow regulates the metabolism of fat. If you eat low cal for a longer period of time, you have less of that hormone and weightloss can stall. If you go over your calorie budget for a few days, your leptin level will rise again. If you then go back to lower cals, weightloss is 'jumpstarted' a bit, because your metabolism is still faster than before. I sometimes use this phenomenon, if I feel, I'm going nowhere.

    What you most likely also saw, was water weight. When you eat out, the meals often have high sodium levels. You retain water for a few days before it disappears again.
  • SharonCMach
    SharonCMach Posts: 305 Member
    Great tips & comments from everyone, thanks. This will be the first time I have ever tried maintaining weight loss. I have lost weight many times in the past only to gain it back. Nobody ever told me what I needed to do after I lost the weight. Stupid I know, but it's true. I am so glad I found MFP, I have learned so much from all of ya'll. Thanks again!! :smile:
  • DaddyDave101
    DaddyDave101 Posts: 72 Member
    Out of interest, did you work out on those days?
  • BUZZIEST
    BUZZIEST Posts: 18 Member
    Do a search on the forums for "re-feed." A lot of people on here purposefully eat a calorie surplus every once in a while to do what you did accidentally. :happy:

    THIS. It's also called calorie zigzagging, which helps to increase your metabolism.
  • SharonCMach
    SharonCMach Posts: 305 Member
    Out of interest, did you work out on those days?

    Only once for about 45 minutes.
  • Brandolin11
    Brandolin11 Posts: 492 Member

    I did really good

    I was pretty good

    This is where it all goes bad.

    So here I was bad again.

    ^^This.........IMHO, is the core of what's really happening here. :)

    My guess is that even though you've lost your weight (and a BIG congratulations, BTW!!), i.e., even though you did the "physical" work of losing it....there may still be some emotional stuff going on underneath that never got changed/fixed/resolved and you're slipping into old patterns now that you've "arrived" (which is really not a word that should ever enter our vocabulary).

    So many of us overeaters have this constant tension running in the back of our brains - it's this "I'm good because I did a good thing - no wait, I'm bad because I did a bad thing" or, "this food is "good" - and this food is "bad"" ping-pong game that never ends. We can never resolve the tension because this tension does not exist within REALITY....thus it's unsolveable....so we cycle and cycle through guilt, getting no relief, the tension builds, and then we plunge into overeating to soothe the negative storm churning within us.

    Did you know that there is no "Good" or "Bad" behavior? Or "Good" or "Bad" food? There is only "loving" and "unloving" behavior toward ourselves. And there is no such thing as "Bad" food - there is only unhealthy interaction with those foods that will hurt us if we over-do it.

    I believe the key is to remove the way we *personally attack* ourselves. We must stop saying "I was good" and "I was bad" and change it to, "I loved myself today" or, "I am not loving myself right now by doing this". Make it ALL about loving and caring for yourself.

    I think once you resolve this, you'll find tons of freedom.
    Freedom NOT to crave these foods to the point of unloving behavior.
    Freedom to moderate your eating of these foods.
    Freedom to enjoy them without feeling "bad".
    Freedom to have a clear and peaceful mind and conscience - freedom from the tension.

    Give yourself that. You deserve it. :)
  • dshalbert
    dshalbert Posts: 677 Member
    This what I think happened. The weight you gained was probably water retention from the sodium in those delicious splurges. When you went back to your normal routine, it went away. Also if you did some heavy partying, you probably did some heavy dancing which as you know burns calories. Or maybe you're just really lucky :happy:
  • MonaRaeHill
    MonaRaeHill Posts: 145 Member
    What I've noticed (from fasting) is that even when I started eating again, I couldn't keep weight on, for several weeks. I believe (but can't prove this) that our metabolisms are still working on cro-magnum time and it actually takes 6 weeks for ANY change to be absorbed and calculated by the hind-brain (that little cro-magnum devil, residing in the back and bottom of our skull). I say this, because of all the times I've lost weight and changed other addictions. It was fully that and a bit more, for some of them (with cigarettes, it was six-months!) So..........my theory is that we can probably do anything for awhile after losing weight, (but not for too long) and our hind-brain will find the last set-point we were at, and try to get there, again, so long as we resume our maintenance routine. Losing weight seems to work both ways, one week of starving won't add up to much loss (because of the last set point that our CMBrain recorded), and one week of overage isn't going to kill months of diligence (for the same reason). Most of us don't gain weight overnight, (It just seems that way sometimes)., lol. Human metabolism is a strange and wondrous thing. :)
  • AverageUkDude
    AverageUkDude Posts: 371 Member
    Do a search on the forums for "re-feed." A lot of people on here purposefully eat a calorie surplus every once in a while to do what you did accidentally. :happy:

    THIS. It's also called calorie zigzagging, which helps to increase your metabolism.

    Only by like 3-5% though, so dont stress the little things.

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