How to recover from cheat meal?

Drink lots of water and eat your regular healthy foods today. I went out last night and "gained" 2 lbs, but it's likely sodium causing water retention, digestion, etc. It's not 4 lbs of fat. Check back in a couple days and you'll likely be back to normal.

1 pound is 3500 calories.
4 pounds is 28,000 calories.

You would have bad to go over your TDEE by 28,000 calories to gain four pounds. Which wouldn't have happened in one meal.

Weight fluctuates normally. You might just be hanging on to water or something.

PS - how was that meal a cheat meal? Seemed pretty healthy. If you're considering a decent meal to be cheating there may be something wrong going on in your diet.

1 pound is 3500 calories.
4 pounds is 28,000 calories.

You would have bad to go over your TDEE by 28,000 calories to gain four pounds. Which wouldn't have happened in one meal.

Weight fluctuates normally. You might just be hanging on to water or something.

PS - how was that meal a cheat meal? Seemed pretty healthy. If you're considering a decent meal to be cheating there may be something wrong going on in your diet.

ALL of this. I had my cheat meal last night too. Double burger from Wendy's. I gained 0.2 pounds. Weight fluctuates. If it's going to drive you THAT nuts, don't weigh yourself so often.

You didn't gain that weight from that meal, unless you ate about 14 lbs of salmon. most likely there was more sodium than you are used to in the meal, and you are holding onto a bit of water. (half a gallon of water is about 4#).

Obsessive weighing is probably the number one thing that screws up people's diets. Weigh once every two weeks, if that. It gives a much better baseline than worrying about totally normal daily deviations. (two 8 oz glasses of water is 1 lb on the scale.)

No it's not. That's ridiculous. I drink 10-15 8 oz glasses of water a day and I don't have an extra 5-7.5 pounds on the scale because of it.

You didn't gain 4 lbs of fat.
Your weight can fluctuate 5 pounds in a day, due entirely to water retention.
As everyone else stated, you're probably retaining water.
Weigh yourself again in a week or so. I had to limit myself to one weigh in per week because the scale drives me crazy.

:huh:

Your cheat meal was roasted fish and veggies and popcorn without butter and you think you gained 4 pounds?


Did you eat like 10-20 plates of salmon?

As another posted pointed out, you didn't consumer 14,000 beyond your TDEE. It's water retention. Drink extra fluid today, tomorrow. And chillax.

1 pound is 3500 calories.
4 pounds is 28,000 calories.

You would have bad to go over your TDEE by 28,000 calories to gain four pounds. Which wouldn't have happened in one meal.

Weight fluctuates normally. You might just be hanging on to water or something.

PS - how was that meal a cheat meal? Seemed pretty healthy. If you're considering a decent meal to be cheating there may be something wrong going on in your diet.

yay science :flowerforyou: good input

You didn't gain that weight from that meal, unless you ate about 14 lbs of salmon. most likely there was more sodium than you are used to in the meal, and you are holding onto a bit of water. (half a gallon of water is about 4#).

Obsessive weighing is probably the number one thing that screws up people's diets. Weigh once every two weeks, if that. It gives a much better baseline than worrying about totally normal daily deviations. (two 8 oz glasses of water is 1 lb on the scale.)

No it's not. That's ridiculous. I drink 10-15 8 oz glasses of water a day and I don't have an extra 5-7.5 pounds on the scale because of it.

1 mL of water = 1 gram of water; 500 mL=500gm= ~17 oz =~1 lb. It's not ridiculous, if you retain all 16 oz of water you take in, it should equal about a lb. Are you going to retain all 2.5-3 L a day you are drinking (5-7 lbs)? No, you urinate most of it out. If you have water retention, less water will be excreted and will be held as extra weight. If your body is retaining an extra 16 oz that will equal a lb of weight on the scale. I think that's all they meant - is that water weight isn't light/trivial

You didn't gain that weight from that meal, unless you ate about 14 lbs of salmon. most likely there was more sodium than you are used to in the meal, and you are holding onto a bit of water. (half a gallon of water is about 4#).

Obsessive weighing is probably the number one thing that screws up people's diets. Weigh once every two weeks, if that. It gives a much better baseline than worrying about totally normal daily deviations. (two 8 oz glasses of water is 1 lb on the scale.)

No it's not. That's ridiculous. I drink 10-15 8 oz glasses of water a day and I don't have an extra 5-7.5 pounds on the scale because of it.

1 mL of water = 1 gram of water; 500 mL=500gm= ~17 oz =~1 lb. It's not ridiculous, if you retain all 16 oz of water you take in, it should equal about a lb. Are you going to retain all 2.5-3 L a day you are drinking (5-7 lbs)? No, you urinate most of it out. If you have water retention, less water will be excreted and will be held as extra weight. If your body is retaining an extra 16 oz that will equal a lb of weight on the scale. I think that's all they meant - is that water weight isn't light/trivial

Fair enough. Good logic. The post I quoted made it seem as if every two glasses of water would equal a pound on the scale and that IS ridiculous. But, yes, water weight is a real thing.

Just go back to eating the way you were before. Weight loss isn't linear. Weight also fluctuates all the time. Don't get caught up by numbers on the scale every time you eat something "bad" or have a bad weigh in even though you were "good" the whole time.

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You need to find out why you cheated on your food in the first place. Only once you understand that can you really make amends to the food. If you really understand what happened, and know how to stop it in the future, you need to then apologize sincerely to your food and explain what happened, and how it will not happen again. After that, you need to remain vigilant and watch your motivations and keep an eye out for those character defects which led you to cheat in your food in the first place. That said, it is possible that your current food isn't the right food for you. That donut down in accounting might be exactly the right food for you, and you will be the happiest person on the planet if you fill your body to bursting with it every chance you get; behind closed doors in your office, at home - hell, even outdoors. And if that's the case you need to come to terms with that and level with your current food, or you'll really be cheating both of you.

If that's your cheat meal, what do you eat the rest of the time?

The only solution is never weigh yourself the morning after you cheat.

To me, that was a pretty normal meal. Stay within your calories for the week and you will be fine.


ETA: And don't beat yourself up. Sounds like you made very healthy choices. Good for you!

PS - how was that meal a cheat meal? Seemed pretty healthy. If you're considering a decent meal to be cheating there may be something wrong going on in your diet.

I usually eat oatmeal/eggs for breakfast, salad for lunch, fruit/nuts for snack, fish/veggies for dinner and a jello cup for dessert.
I considered eating out at a restaurant and eating a adequate amount of popcorn to be a cheat. (since i don't eat out and i don't eat popcorn everyday)

So, I can appreciate that restaurant meals have more /sodium than if you made them at home -- but it's highly unlikely the meal you're describing would be radically different in calories than what you make at home. I mean, maybe 200-300 for oils/butter. Maybe. I have found that fine dining actually saves you calories because portion sizes aren't out whack like you find at the Old Country Feedbag.

Popcorn with no butter would be 300ish calories. Your jello cup is what, 60? That's only 240 more than normal.

So you maybe consumed 600 calories more yesterday than normal (assuming you ate breakfast and lunch as normal), that doesn't make a 4 pound gain -- you probably didn't even eat to your TDEE.

I had my cheat meal of the week last night and gained 4lbs. Ugh

All i had was pan seared/roasted salmon and mixed veggies for dinner at a 5-star restaurant and then a small popcorn (no butter, no salt) at the movies.

I drank 2 liters of water throughout the day yesterday.

What do i do to get back down to my original weight

Heck, that must have been some cheat meal-approximately 13,000 above your total daily energy expenditure.

Seriously. Weight naturally fluctuates and restaurant food has a whole lot of sodium in it.

You recover by just eating at your deficit until you decided to have another "cheat meal". Drink lots of water too.