Binged and lost weight - coincidence or reason?

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AnswerzPwease
AnswerzPwease Posts: 142 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm very new to all this and a little clueless.

Been eating an average of 1500 calories a day for the last few weeks. Have dropped about 3 pounds in that time.

Last night we had party food and I ate nachos, salsa, pizza, cake etc and finished the day a little under maintenance.

Today I wake up 2 pounds lighter. That's almost as much as I've lost in the last 3 weeks combined eating 1000 less calories per day. Is this coincidence or is there a reason for it?
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Replies

  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
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    I have had this happen to me too. I don't fully understand it but it is an isolated phenomenon that you only experience if you have dieted. It's not like you can eat what you like all the time and still lose a lot of weight. My anecdotal interpretation Is your body is under a lot of stress and knows that it isn't getting enough calories. Therefore various metabolic safety mechanisms start to kick in to help you retain it. Your body is designed primarily to retain weight after all. But if you have a sudden day where you eat a decent amount your bod relaxes and lets go of the weight. You aren't actually seeing weight loss as a direct consequence of eating at maintenance. You are seeing weight loss you previously earned but that your body kind of hid from you.
  • Branstin
    Branstin Posts: 2,320 Member
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    Edit: Deleted my post
  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
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    In order to gain 2 lbs. of fat, you would have to eat 7000 calories over your daily maintenance calorie level. Furthermore, it wouldn't show overnight because your body doesn't process all of the prior activities that quickly. In addition, the high level of sodium is retaining a lot of water weight. One day isn't going to hurt you as long as the rest of your week is on target.

    He didn't gain my friend he LOST XD

    Oh and as it happens today is my once a month trip to a fancy restaurant so I will probably net at or a bit over maintenance. I will let you know how that effects my weight. But I usually end up dropping a lb on those days lol.
  • Branstin
    Branstin Posts: 2,320 Member
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    @RHachicho

    Thanks...read it too fast.
  • djprice_69
    djprice_69 Posts: 115 Member
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    Was this pre or post poop this morning? Are you well hydrated?
  • Grumpsandwich
    Grumpsandwich Posts: 368 Member
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    the same happened to me frequently over my journey hehe its weird no? I think its related to the post binge food baby birth if you know what i mean? lol
  • melindafritz1976
    melindafritz1976 Posts: 329 Member
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    i didnt read it
    but you can eat what you want and just exercise it off
  • bigblondewolf
    bigblondewolf Posts: 268 Member
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    Were you drinking alcohol that night? It tends to dehydrate the body so you flush out a lot of water weight in one go. I always find that the morning after a night out I'm a pound or two lighter than the night before, even if I ate nothing but garbage and drank beer all night.

    As a side note, 1500 cals sounds pretty low for a guy. I'm a 5'4' girl and eating almost that a day and losing so you may be under what you need in cals for the day.
  • fleetzz
    fleetzz Posts: 962 Member
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    i didnt read it
    but you can eat what you want and just exercise it off

    Yea--that doesn't work really well. How long does it take to burn off 2000 calories? You can't exercise off a bad diet unless you are a professional athlete, and they are typically disciplined in their exercise and their diet.
  • Charlotte012
    Charlotte012 Posts: 139 Member
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    Please, don't say you "binged" when you ate a little under maintenance. (!!!)

    You probably just lost some weight from the previous weeks. I weigh in everyday and the weight tends to come off weekly anyway. It takes some time for your body to process the loss. A day at maintenance here and there just helps the body to not go into starvation mode (some people here call them "cheat day" altough I would personnaly disagree with that name). So don't worry about that day, but don't think you can eat that way everyday and keep losing.
  • enterdanger
    enterdanger Posts: 2,447 Member
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    I have a very nonscientific theory that I call the fat bucket theory.

    We each have a "fat bucket" and you can only lose weight when it is empty. Conversely, you only gain weight when it is full. That's why sometimes you diet forever and lose next to nothing (gotta empty the fat bucket first) or you can eat a day at maintenance and lose because that was they day your fat bucket was finally empty.

    stupid, huh?
  • mommyrunning
    mommyrunning Posts: 495 Member
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    It is most likely you lost weight from all the good days before the binge. It can take time for results to show. If you binge one night that may not show up for a few days or more.
  • liekewheeless
    liekewheeless Posts: 416 Member
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    I'm calling coincidence or dehydration.

    You lost that weight over time,.. it just decided to show up after your "binge" although I wouldn't call it that since you were still under maintenance.

    The salty food may catch up with you the next day in form of water retention. So don't be surprised if you gain 5 tomorrow, and that too will disappear very quickly.
  • azymth99
    azymth99 Posts: 122 Member
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    Weight loss logic is not logical. Having a binge does not mean you will immediately gain weight no more than exercising will immediately make you lose weight. If you have been eating at a deficit your body has started to dip into your fat stores- so you have actually been losing weight the whole time. Your body does not gain and lose "actual pounds" on a daily basis- that is only water weight or food passing through your digestive system.

    Eat at a deficit and take your weight once a month. On that day, don't eat after 8 the night before, take a healthy BM that morning work up a full sweat doing some cardio, empty your bladder, then weigh yourself- you'll see what I mean.
  • CleanUpWhatIMessedUp
    CleanUpWhatIMessedUp Posts: 206 Member
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    I have had this happen to me. There have been days where I have gone over my calories and still lost weight. I have found that it is because I generally do more exercise than I log. For example, I walk to my gym, but I never log that as exercise. And then sometimes, things actually have fewer calories in them than I think they do.
  • zenalasca
    zenalasca Posts: 563 Member
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    Oh come one. That was a binge? Really?

    Last weekend I had about 10 slices of pizza... or was that 14? The next night at work I had a babka, 2 large chocolate cookies, whipped cream, 4 mini protein bars and a 220 g bar of cadbury peppermint chocolate. Lately I have eating 1500-2000 calories per day, sometimes less. And I...lost...a...kilo.

    Would put it down to underestimating some of my meals and not eating all my exercise calories, but beyond that I don't give a damn. You lost weight, so don't worry how or why it happened
  • ThinSweetPea
    ThinSweetPea Posts: 2
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    I purposefully will "over eat" or indulge when I plateau for a while in order to trick my metabolism and speed things up. Plus the indulgence is very nice. But say I'm eating at 1300 for a few weeks and weight loss is good and steady. All of the sudden, it stops. My body gets used to metabolizing that amount everyday. Instead of eating less and depleting my body of nutrients, I eat more. I know I won't eat more than 3,500 above my maintenance amount so I don't panic if the scale goes up because it's a "food baby". Anyway, a few days later I step back on the scale and I'm losing weight again. Ta-da! That's my theory and I've been doing this for a while now. Good luck! :)
  • dammitjanet0161
    dammitjanet0161 Posts: 319 Member
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    I don't know that if there is anything scientific behind it, but anecdotally what you describe is very common. I've read lots of weight loss blogs and heard lots of people on diets say things that go like this:

    [after a week of being "good"] - "it's not fair, I've been good all week and I haven't lost anything"
    followed by:
    [after something like a holiday, a big restaurant meal, a few days of relaxing their eating etc] - "I was dreading weigh in after eating loads, but I lost 2lb this week, I don't get it!"

    Sound familiar?
  • nomeejerome
    nomeejerome Posts: 2,616 Member
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    I'm very new to all this and a little clueless.

    Been eating an average of 1500 calories a day for the last few weeks. Have dropped about 3 pounds in that time.

    Last night we had party food and I ate nachos, salsa, pizza, cake etc and finished the day a little under maintenance.

    Today I wake up 2 pounds lighter. That's almost as much as I've lost in the last 3 weeks combined eating 1000 less calories per day. Is this coincidence or is there a reason for it?

    A "day a little under maintenance" does not equal a binge. It sounds like you are severely restricting your intake (see the bold), which will not benefit you in the long run. How did you come up with such a low number?

    It is also important to note that weight fluctuates on a daily basis and there could be many different reasons why you saw 2 pounds disappear from the scale.

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