7 lbs. in 1 night?

If only weight loss was a linear thing. Unfortunately it's far from it. Are you positive you had low sodium levels yesterday? How about stress? Is that time of the month coming up soon? I would check another scale if it is showing a big gain with the both of you.

Just remember, whatever it is, you did NOT put on 7lbs of fat in 1 night. That would mean you overate your maintenance calories by 24,500 calories....physically impossible. So don't worry about it, whatever it was (scale, water, etc) it isn't permanent.

I blame drastic weight shifts on hormones (in all seriousness).

do you understand the science and math behind all of this? you should look into it, it'll put your mind at ease...because you cannot gain 7 Lbs of fat overnight...it is scientifically and mathematically impossible.

At any rate, if you're close to maintenance you need to wrap your brain around natural body weight fluctuations...you're not going to weigh exactly XXX lbs all of the time...you're going to have a range. For me, it's about 179 - 184 with 182 being my current 4 week average. That's what maintenance looks like...it's not one number.

You're going to have natural swings regardless if whether you drank all of your water and didn't eat too much sodium, etc...being dehydrated or having too much sodium can exacerbate the issue, but you're going to have natural fluctuations never the less. Your body is going to be constantly burning and replacing glycogen stores...that has weight...water retention/release (natural), timing of food in/out, more waste in the intestines than the last time you weighed or vice versa...

You really need to get your hear around it though otherwise maintenance is going to be a real mind game.

There are a ton of reasons people fluctuate. I drop 7-8lbs every night while I sleep. Not a big deal.

I weigh myself every morning, in the same location, with nothing on and don't weigh again during the day since I know weight increases throughout the day. Yesterday morning my weight had dropped 2 lbs from the morning before. I was only 3 lbs from my goal weight and was so excited as it seemed I finally broke a plateau I had hit. However, when I weighed myself this morning, I was 7lbs heavier! I didn't overeat or eat a lot of sodium yesterday and always drink 64 oz of water. I record my calories religiously and was on track yesterday, so how can this happen? I am feeling so defeated and upset with this sudden gain. My husband had a similar experience (6 lbs heavier)...could it be an issue with the scale?

Ya think? ;-)

Yes, your scale is messed up. I said this in another thread: it always fascinates me how people can claim dramatic weight increases overnight without questioning their scale (which to your credit, you did).

You cannot gain more mass than you ingested. Now, it's relatively easy to gobble up 7 lbs of stuff in a day (I drink more than that in water alone) but even so, that wouldn't produce a 7lbs gain overnight, since you still burn food and excrete stuff like everyone else.

Scale accuracy depends on quality. Mine can fluctuate by more than a pound between weigh-ins that are seconds apart! I've also noticed this pattern where the first weight is almost always at least a pound less than subsequent ones. It may have to do with the thing sitting in a cold corner of the bathroom until I drag it out and step on it. Maybe an initial warm up period before it gets reliable, which would indicate a crappy design; that's what you get for $30.

So I step on mine several times, and only record the figure that shows up 3 times in a row.