Going off plan and "getting away with it"
HellomynameisMOM
Posts: 13 Member
Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
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Mine will usually show up the next day but get away with it in the long run because it averages out.0
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Hmm.... good question. I feel like I ate too much this weekend and got away with it too. I think, as long as you jump back into your deficit as soon as possible, you can avoid seeing cheats* reflect in the scale. That's what I love about the CICO philosophy. If I want cake, I can eat the damn cake. It's not the end of the world.
*Possibly excepting high-sodium cheats. Those usually mean additional water weight for me on the next day's weigh-in, but that does eventually fall off again.
Edit: I really want cake now... ;_; Mmmm cake....0 -
Who knows, but if someone finds out, let me know.0
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HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....0 -
Say you are set up to loose 1.5 pounds a week which would be a daily deficit of 750 calories. And then say that you eat that cake and wind up 600 calories over your daily goal. You are still in deficit by 150 calories. So... yes you got away with it in that you were still eating at a deficit, albeit a smaller one so rather than gaining weight you will likely just loose less than you might have for the week.0
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TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
Yep. Unless you go OVER your maintenance calories, you won't gain weight.0 -
shadowfax_c11 wrote: »Say you are set up to loose 1.5 pounds a week which would be a daily deficit of 1500 calories. And then say that you eat that cake and wind up 600 calories over your daily goal. You are still in deficit by 900 calories. So... yes you got away with it in that you were still eating at a deficit, albeit a smaller one so rather than gaining weight you will likely just loose less than you might have for the week.
You need a 750 cal deficit to lose 1.5lbs per week0 -
TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
^^ this^^0 -
Your body doesn't necessarily react that quickly. If you didn't eat anything at all today, would you automatically be lighter tomorrow? No, of course not.0
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TavistockToad wrote: »shadowfax_c11 wrote: »Say you are set up to loose 1.5 pounds a week which would be a daily deficit of 1500 calories. And then say that you eat that cake and wind up 600 calories over your daily goal. You are still in deficit by 900 calories. So... yes you got away with it in that you were still eating at a deficit, albeit a smaller one so rather than gaining weight you will likely just loose less than you might have for the week.
You need a 750 cal deficit to lose 1.5lbs per week
Okay thanks. Fixed it. The point was still valid.
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One day of extra cake doesn't matter. Your weekly deficit is more an indication of weight loss.0
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you don't eat a piece of cake and get fat overnight...your body doesn't work that way. your body strives very hard to maintain the status quot...it takes consistently over eating to gain weight just as it takes consistently under-eating to lose weight.
not only that, but if you're trying to lose weight then your calorie targets are already a huge deficit to lose weight...so going over calories with a couple pieces of cake would likely leave you still in a deficit of maintenance.0 -
Weight gain doesn't occur overnight, which is why people usually think in terms of average weekly calories. If you are normally at a deficit, you won't notice any real weight gain because the rest of your week is just going to counteract your binge.
Any weight you do put on is just water retention from the extra carbs and any excess sodium.
Now I want cake
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TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
I wouldn't even say it's a lot of cake!0 -
I agree with the general consensus here, that one piece of cake isn't really going to do too much. To your other point, about WHEN substantial transgressions show up on the scale; I find that my body is perfectly in sync with whatever happened two weeks ago. If I follow my plan for a week, then go crazy and am over on cals for the whole next week, the next week I will lose, and the following week I will gain. I can't explain it, but my husband happens to be the same way. I think 1 day weight fluctuations have more to do with water, at least for me.0
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Looking at the big picture one day eating cake is not going to make that much of a difference. Now make that a huge day or two of sodium and I think you would definetly notice it. If I ever go way over on sodium I'm always up a pound or two for the next couple of days. But like someone said....its just water weight and it drops off real quick.0
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killerqueen21 wrote: »TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
Yep. Unless you go OVER your maintenance calories, you won't gain weight.
Even if you eat lots of cake, go over maintenance calories, and gain weight, it's still not a binge.0 -
hollydubs85 wrote: »TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
I wouldn't even say it's a lot of cake!
A woman after my own heart. I thought a couple of slices of cake was a serving size. No?0 -
So, the message here is Eat Cake, right?
Got it.0 -
You can overeat for a few days in a row and "get away with it" if you have been on plan and get back to it. You are allowed to have a life outside of weight loss. Go on vacation, have parties, entertain weekend guests. I have done all of these and my worst case scenario has been a stall.
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TavistockToad wrote: »HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
A couple of slices of cake isn't a binge. It's just eating lots of cake....
I wouldn't even consider 2 slices "a lot".
But to answer the OP's question I think sometimes you do get away with overeating, even if you go over your maintenance calories. Just like you don't always lose the exact amount expected in a deficit, you don't always gain exactly as expected in a surplus. Weight is more than fat.
I've found that "getting away with it" has been a problem for me in the past. Sometimes I push my "getting away with it" luck too far.
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barbecuesauce wrote: »You can overeat for a few days in a row and "get away with it" if you have been on plan and get back to it. You are allowed to have a life outside of weight loss. Go on vacation, have parties, entertain weekend guests. I have done all of these and my worst case scenario has been a stall.
^ This ^
A stall for little bit is all that it usually amounts to.0 -
HellomynameisMOM wrote: »Just making something up here to illustrate the question, but say you eat a couple of pieces of birthday cake you didn't have calories for. The next day you weigh in and your weight's just fine. Did you 'get away with it' or can that binge show up on the scale at a later date?
I think you have to eat a whole cake or two for it to be a binge. Are your two pieces actually a cake that is supposed to serve 10-12 people?
Likely you won't gain anything from two pieces of cake over your limit unless you do it every single day. Likely you will eat less or exercise more another day and still lose the same, lose a little bit less than you would have or stay the same that week. So you can get away with going over your calorie goal sometimes and not gain weight.
I have birthday cake in my house right now.0 -
Was it chocolate cake?0
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I've actually thought about this, too...but a little different. One week, I went over maintenance by about 2,000 calories. The following week, I got back on track..and did so for the next 4-5 weeks, eating at my normal defecit. However, it was the around the third week that I noticed weight gain (not scale weight, but clothes tighter, noticeably larger stomach, thighs, etc... ).... and only the 4th and 5th weeks am I now down to feeling where i was before the abundance of calories. So, it seems like the extra calories took their time to become 'fat' , even though I was working on a deficit the weeks after.... Can anyone explain that?0
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I know you said this was a hypothetical situation but I really don't care for the term "getting away with it". It similarly rubs me the wrong way as "cheat day". What are you cheating on, and what are you getting away with?
This whole process is meant to be about making changes that help you reach your long term goals. If your long term goals include never eating cake again, then I guess those two pieces may feel like something that you expected to see negative consequences from and when you don't, you feel like you got away with something.
I prefer to not stress out about short term impacts of my choices, know that life includes opportunities to eat cake, and that eating a piece or two of cake on occasion is worth any minimal delays in reaching my long term goals.0 -
You didn't get away with it, you only made your deficit a bit smaller than normal.
Your body is the perfect calculator for you. It knows always and is never wrong if it is in deficit, surplus or maintenance. So there is no getting away with it....you just lose one OUNCE less the coming week lol
That last part is my warped sense of humor0
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