Post-Thanksgiving weight gain...terrified of the scale!

Kellyfitness128
Kellyfitness128 Posts: 194 Member
edited November 8 in Health and Weight Loss
Well, what damage did you? (if any... or what losses did you make??).

I'm probably going to weigh myself tomorrow morning and I'm guessing I gained 2 pounds in the past week. I went to Texas to visit my sister and holy moly.... no one over there has every heard of a fruit or vegetable. Everything is fried and salty. I ended my trip last night with a donut covered in cream cheese icing and heath bars.... (be a little jealous ;) ) I may decide to wait a few days to weigh in so I won't get so depressed, haha but I'll post on here once I do. I can see that my face looks much rounder and my collar bones are again hidden under a layer of fat. Back to the gym tomorrow I tell ya!!!!

Replies

  • lulalacroix
    lulalacroix Posts: 1,082 Member
    My scale showed a 4 pound increase today. Certainly that's mostly water weight. I really didn't over eat, but did over drink. :( My plan is to be extra good this week and hopefully I will be back on track by Friday.
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
    You had to eat 3500 calories above maintenance for each pound of fat you gained. It's fairly cut and dry. Any additional weight gain in not fat and is therefore not worth worrying about. In turn, you need a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound. Eating 500 below maintenance accomplishes that in a week. So even if you ate 7000 above maintenance for the week, you can fairly easily undue it in just 2 weeks times. It's not a big deal at all. It's not the 1 or 2 week exceptions per year that determine your long term progress. It's the other 50 or so weeks that do.
  • WillLift4Tats
    WillLift4Tats Posts: 1,699 Member
    vismal wrote: »
    You had to eat 3500 calories above maintenance for each pound of fat you gained. It's fairly cut and dry. Any additional weight gain in not fat and is therefore not worth worrying about. In turn, you need a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound. Eating 500 below maintenance accomplishes that in a week. So even if you ate 7000 above maintenance for the week, you can fairly easily undue it in just 2 weeks times. It's not a big deal at all. It's not the 1 or 2 week exceptions per year that determine your long term progress. It's the other 50 or so weeks that do.

    All this ^^. No reason to be terrified, it will come off fairly easily. Especially when it's mostly water weight. I ended up losing weight last week weirdly enough. But I'm keeping close tabs on it since weight can fluctuate from 5-10 pounds during irregular eating anyways.
  • jrose1982
    jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
    On Friday, my scale showed a 4 lb weight gain from Thanksgiving morning. I got right back into it, and this morning (Monday) I'm less than a lb away from where I was on Thanksgiving. I suspect nearly all of it is water. But if I hadn't jumped on the scale and gotten back to work, I probably would have grazed all weekend long and put on some real weight.

    Don't worry about it. Just get back into your routine, asap. If that means weighing yourself tomorrow, then weigh yourself tomorrow. What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. So immediately start doing what you do every day.
  • 970Mikaela1
    970Mikaela1 Posts: 2,013 Member
    I'm up 8. It'll be gone Friday or Saturday.
  • fearlessleader104
    fearlessleader104 Posts: 723 Member
    Down 2.2 lbs... I should have eaten more
  • higgins8283801
    higgins8283801 Posts: 844 Member
    edited December 2014
    My weigh in day is Sunday. It showed a 1.6 pound gain. Didn't log it. However for the heck of it I weighed in again and that 1.6 is gone and I have actually went down 7 ounces. I only work for a half pound loss a week so that is about right. The 1.6 I "gained" was obviously water
  • higgins8283801
    higgins8283801 Posts: 844 Member
    And I doubt you developed a layer of fat from a few days of rotten eating. People don't just balloon out of nowhere. I think that is your self conscious you're seeing.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    Two pounds is nothing and its probably water retention.
  • ourtruelovewillneverdie
    ourtruelovewillneverdie Posts: 170 Member
    I gained 4 lbs but I know it's water weight because of TOM and because I lost 2 of those lbs from yesterday to today. I wouldn't stress about it.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
    I maintained, thank heavens!
  • Jennloella
    Jennloella Posts: 2,286 Member
    I'm down 7. So busy the days leading up to it and during, that I only ate about once a day and ran around like a chicken with my head off. Not intentional. Probably water.
  • maxit
    maxit Posts: 880 Member
    I was traveling Weds-Sun and kept tracking - and even though I felt like I was feasting, in reality I was eating at most 500 calories over sedentary maintenance on my "feast-iest" days and probably less than half of my usual daily exercise so no help there. Got in late Sunday, and saved weigh in to this morning - up .4 pounds. Having the calorie data was helpful. And it felt great to resume my plan yesterday, which struck me not at all "diet" just simple, wholesome meals.
  • All1971
    All1971 Posts: 89 Member
    The scale is not your judge - its simply a tool to help inform the rest of your decisions.
  • KylaDenay
    KylaDenay Posts: 1,585 Member
    I weighed in the other day at about 6 lbs heavier. I am not worried about it. If anything either 1 or 2 lbs of that is fat. I didn't count anything from Thursday to Sunday. I am sure I didn't eat 7000 over maintenance. Back at it as of yesterday and will weight in Dec 24.
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    From Wednesday morning to this morning I gained 1.8 lbs. Not bad considering my Thanksgiving basically lasted four days and I ate whatever I wanted guilt-free. I lifted heavy last Monday through Wednesday so I'm counting it as a four day dirty bulk. lol
  • JLCrunch
    JLCrunch Posts: 46 Member
    lulalacroix wrote: »
    My scale showed a 4 pound increase today. Certainly that's mostly water weight. I really didn't over eat, but did over drink. :( My plan is to be extra good this week and hopefully I will be back on track by Friday.

    This, exactly. 4 lb gain. Merp

  • skiclimbdive
    skiclimbdive Posts: 32 Member
    I ate and drank all the things for a whole week. I was up 5lbs on Saturday...and it's all gone now. Back to pre-Thanksgiving weight. Don't worry!
  • _lyndseybrooke_
    _lyndseybrooke_ Posts: 2,561 Member
    edited December 2014
    I haven't weighed in. I ate like crazy from Thursday-Sunday. I'm not avoiding weighing in because I'm scared - just figured there was no point with all the water I was probably carrying around. I'll weigh in again on Saturday. According to my calculations, I probably gained 1 or 1.5 lbs over the course of those days.

    My weight has been pretty wonky lately anyway. Without changing what I was eating, I went from 126.2 to 124.4 the next week to 122.2 the next week to 126.2 the next week to 125.8 the week before Thanksgiving. No clue what those two super low weigh-ins was about because I'm not eating at enough of a deficit to lose that much in such a short period of time, but oh well. Weight fluctuations are part of being human, and especially a woman. The number on the scale doesn't concern me as much as it used to.
  • marinabreeze
    marinabreeze Posts: 141 Member
    I ate a good amount - although not as much as most Thanksgiving holidays - this weekend. This included the usual fare - turkey, greens, stuffing, cranberry sauce - plus a piece of cheesecake and regular cake from Cheesecake Factory. I am a little surprised that I'm down a pound, but then again it got tracked, so I know I went over, but not 3500 cal over maintenance over.
  • Kellyfitness128
    Kellyfitness128 Posts: 194 Member
    Well, I weighed in today and only gained 1 lb! Surprised, but that was after a 2 lb gain in the two weeks prior to thanksgiving, so that's probably why I'm feeling so chunky. I should have it gone in time though. Keep it up, guys! :)
  • Camo_xxx
    Camo_xxx Posts: 1,082 Member
    I had 3 thanksgiving meals in a row and stuck to my calorie plan the whole week. Lost my normal 2 lb for the week. Even had 2 slices of pumpkin cheese cake !!!
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    I wouldn't worry. There is no way you gained that much, most likely just some water weight. I am deliberately trying to gain and it has taken me two months of careful, calculated eating at a surplus to gain 4lbs. Just like fat loss, fat gain doesn't happen after one day. Would you expect to lose weight after eating at deficit just one day out of the whole week or even month? So one day of overeating in the grand scheme of things is pretty insignificant.
  • dunlol
    dunlol Posts: 57 Member
    I find it beneficial to eat a very large amount rather than a normal amount of junk food on a cheat day. The food passes through and I find myself back to normal (or lighter) after 3-4 days.
  • Isabelle_1929
    Isabelle_1929 Posts: 233 Member
    So, that a 3 pounds gain. Three pounds it took five weeks of strict dieting to lose. All this effort lost in three days of stuffing my face. What an idiot. I'd bang my head with a hammer.
  • lisac195
    lisac195 Posts: 54 Member
    I overate a couple of days but not horribly. Weighed this morning and the scale says I maintained. I am good with that.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I was up 5 Lbs on Monday when I weighed in..nor worries though, it wasn't fat...pretty much impossible. I was some bloat from drinking a bit more than usual, especially heavy winter beers as well as some water retention from everything else I was eating..probably more carbs than normal...and some fluid retention from air travel (yeah...that's a real thing).

    By Tuesday I had lost 2 of those Lbs and by this morning I was down another 1.5 Lbs...by the end of the week everything should be flushed out.

    Just do the math and you'll quickly understand how pretty much impossible it is to gain any kind of significant fat over the course of a few days.
  • golfbrew_matt
    golfbrew_matt Posts: 240 Member
    I didn't eat too bad and tried to log everything the best I could but I drank WAY too much and ended up gaining 2 pounds, lost one back already though and should be back to my previous low in another day or two. I'm planning on another similar "plateau" around Christmas. I think these mini breaks from losing weight actually help me in the long run, since this process of losing 1-2 pounds a week drags on for such a long time and it can get quite boring with no breaks.
  • amrluvarr
    amrluvarr Posts: 52 Member
    I didn't track calories on Thursday-Sunday but I still tried to make some better choices. I was also grazing some Monday and Tuesday. So, I decided to skip the weigh in this week. It just plays too many mind tricks! I'm not worried- back to tracking today and had an awesome session with my trainer yesterday. Now, I know I need to plan a little more details for Christmas vacation so that I don't get so carried away. :smiley:
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