Real VS false weight gain

bfanny
bfanny Posts: 440 Member
edited 7:47PM in Goal: Maintaining Weight
So I got to my lower weight of 135 right before Christmas (2 weeks) however on the 25 my weight was 137 and today 141 :( I didn't track everything but still seems like a lot! So how do I go from here? Back to losing mode? Normal maintaining?
About how many days the weight starts to settle to know for sure how much is real? In other words when do I start to panic? LOL
Thanks! Happy New Year
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Replies

  • HippySkoppy
    HippySkoppy Posts: 725 Member
    Firstly, Don't Panic.....it's probably water weight from Xmas celebrations ie. higher sodium foods, alcohol maybe easing off in the logging dept. and my prediction will be if you just take a deep breath and drink plenty of water over the coming days you will see this rise fall off quite quickly.

    Only after a bit of time and patience will you see if you have in fact put on true weight....then if you want go back to a small deficit for a while till you get back down to you happy weight and continue on with your maintenance plan.

    Good luck and hope this helps.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,330 Member
    Be patient and drink lots of water which will help get rid of the water weight.
  • yesimpson
    yesimpson Posts: 1,372 Member
    I weighed myself Christmas Eve morning - 119lbs.
    Weighed myself on the 28th - 126lbs.
    Weighed myself again today - 121lbs.

    So only 2lbs of actual weight gained (which fits with my estimations for how much I ate and drank), despite it looking for a moment like half a stone in 4 days! I would give yourself another week perhaps eating normally at maintenance for water weight and any extra weight of food to pass through your system, and if your weight remains a little higher than you'd like, you can just shave off a few hundred calories over the next few weeks and easily get it back down.
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    It's so hard to lose the "last" few lbs, and to think that you could gain them back almost overnight would be sad :|
    So patience and lots of water :) Thanks!!!
  • RogerToo
    RogerToo Posts: 16,157 Member
    Hi
    I echo what the others have said, Give Yourself a week of Your regular diet and then re-evaluate. My experience based on the past two Thanksgiving through New Years holiday season is that there is a bump in weight the next day after holiday meals, especially if You eat higher sodium foods such as Ham there can be a couple of days of rapid weight gain then over the next 5 days Plus or minus a couple more days that You will end up back where You started or near to it. In my case since I am still in weight loss mode I seem to end up after a week with a net loss/gain of zero. The month of December was tough for me, With two holiday meals and multiple lunches or breakfasts with family and friends I had a terrible month for weight loss, only 1.25 pounds for the entire month vs the usual 1 to 1.5 pounds per week. The trick is to not let it derail Your progress.

    Just as a FYI I jumped up in weight from a Brunch Thursday and then from the morning of Jan. 1 to This morning Jan. 2 I dropped a pound. This told me it was water weight.

    Have a Good Year
    Roger
  • KareninLux
    KareninLux Posts: 1,413 Member
    Same thing happened to me - fluctuations for five days in a row. I did my best to ignore it and am back to my pre-Christmas weight... expect to continue losing now that the party is almost over, lol.
  • bioklutz
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    bfanny wrote: »
    It's so hard to lose the "last" few lbs, and to think that you could gain them back almost overnight would be sad :|
    So patience and lots of water :) Thanks!!!

    Rapid weight gain and loss is not fat. It is water weight, extra food in your bowels. You need to think of your maintenance weight as a range. It is typical for people to have a 5-10 pound range.

    If I have a heavier than normal eating day it usually takes 4-7 days for my weight to come back down. If I also had some alcohol it will take me around 7-10 days. For some reason booze weight sticks around longer for me :wink:
  • BigGuy47
    BigGuy47 Posts: 1,768 Member
    edited January 2016
    Trendweight is a web site for weight tracking. It shows weight trends to offset the big jumps and dips from normal weight fluctuations. In short, it can help reduce panic.
    https://trendweight.com/
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member


    Rapid weight gain and loss is not fat. It is water weight, extra food in your bowels. You need to think of your maintenance weight as a range. It is typical for people to have a 5-10 pound range.

    If I have a heavier than normal eating day it usually takes 4-7 days for my weight to come back down. If I also had some alcohol it will take me around 7-10 days. For some reason booze weight sticks around longer for me :wink: [/quote]

    I understand fluctuations, like 2-3 lbs on Mondays for me is "normal" then they vanish... But 6 lbs seems excesive since it puts me back to 140 the # I fought for so long lo leave behind
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    And also a bigger range messes with my head
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    I say stick to maintenance for at least a week. Log carefully. If you start noticing a pound or two sticking around after a week or two you can hit up a slight deficit if it bothers you.

  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    edited January 2016
    Great advice thanks again!
  • Carnhot
    Carnhot Posts: 367 Member
    I am taking all this on board. Thanks to all contributors.
  • JanetMMcC
    JanetMMcC Posts: 410 Member
    For what it's worth, I've set my goal at 140 to 145. If I go over, I redo my settings for a half-pound/week loss. Once I'm back in range (and it hasn't taken long), I return to maintenance. If it's under, I give myself a few extra cals by giving myself a weight gain setting. Just for grits and shins, I added up all overages and under-the-marks for December and discovered that I was, overall, under by about 2800 calories. When my New Year's Day weight was 139.5, I gave myself a pound-a-week gain for the day. :) I'm at 142 today. The next 3 days, I'm going to set the goal for a half-pound/week gain, and then re-set to maintenance. Unless I go above 145. Even if that half-pound over (my scale shows only half-pound increments) is water weight, if I reset immediately to lose, I'm not endangering myself and I feel that I'm keeping things under control. And once I get back to 145 or under, I reset to maintain.

    Have you been logging everything you ate? Holiday food can add up real fast. Three Lindt mint truffles = 240 calories. Which means 3 a day could, on top of maintenance calories, add pernear a half-pound of fat a week.
    http://www.dietbites.com/article1157.html
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/calories-average-american-eats-christmas/story?id=27816914
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/14/christmas-weight-gain_n_4370815.html
    (Ignore the detox rubbish - a balanced diet is all anyone needs to worry about.)

    But yeah, fluctuations are normal. Here's my 30-day chart.

    0df1hd6qnr0e.jpg
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,253 Member
    bfanny wrote: »

    I understand fluctuations, like 2-3 lbs on Mondays for me is "normal" then they vanish... But 6 lbs seems excesive . . . .

    Meh. I've weighed daily for years (10, maybe?) and have gained as much as *five pounds* from one morning to the next. I'll guarantee I didn't eat 17,500 calories over maintenance in 24 hours.

    +1 to going back to your normal diet/activity for a week (longer if it's time of month), then reassess.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    You'll keep fluctuating. I have a post-period weight and a pre-period weight, typically (and obviously the huge first day of period weight). I just compare the lowest post-period weight from one month to another to determine if I've gained weight or not (when I know I'm not retaining water).. but my 'real' weight is probably an average of all of them.

    So basically, you want to maintain a weight range. Plus it's normal to gain water weight when you start eating at maintenance and your muscles regain their water reserves anyway... If you really want to see your goal weight on the scale, lose a bit more, and make your goal weight the top of your weight range.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I've been maintaining several years and log everything. I have eaten a ton of salt and had gained 10 pounds in a week as of yesterday. But of course that's silly - that would be 35000 extra calories, and I have been over by 600. But this morning I was down 4 (still up 6). Why? Pee and bowel movements.
  • shadowconn
    shadowconn Posts: 141 Member
    I would say do a water flush. The majority of that is probably salt intake. So I would handle this by drinking water and coffee only for a couple days while logging everything in detail. What you do down to in 48 hours will tell you what was water weight. What's left is weight gain.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    shadowconn wrote: »
    I would say do a water flush. The majority of that is probably salt intake. So I would handle this by drinking water and coffee only for a couple days while logging everything in detail. What you do down to in 48 hours will tell you what was water weight. What's left is weight gain.

    No.
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    edited January 2016
    It just makes me wonder since I did't track "everything" :#
    So eat at maintenance maybe a little less, wait one week and then what my weight is will be more real and I'll know what to do next...right?
  • JanetMMcC
    JanetMMcC Posts: 410 Member
    That sounds reasonable. :)

    Though I'd say every day's weight is real. Fluctuations are real, too. :smile:
  • its_betty
    its_betty Posts: 104 Member
    I get frustrated with fluctuations, too. When I only lose a half pound a week, 'normal' 2 pound fluctuations are really discouraging. To deal with it, I've been using an app called HappyScale on my iPhone. (There is another called Libra for Android. Or you could do the math yourself.)

    I weigh myself every morning and enter the weight into HappyScale. It gives me my average weight and some other stats based on averages of weights over time. It basically removes the noise of the fluctuations. Seeing an average really helps keep me on track and encouraged. There is a graph so I can tell if my weight is trending up or down over time (I aim for DOWN!).
  • DianePK
    DianePK Posts: 122 Member
    weight fluctuations can do your head in. Just wait till the Christmas overeating dust settles in a weeks and see where you are.
  • bioklutz
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    bfanny wrote: »
    It just makes me wonder since I did't track "everything" :#
    So eat at maintenance maybe a little less, wait one week and then what my weight is will be more real and I'll know what to do next...right?

    Eat at maintenance (not less). Wait and see if you really gained and deal with it then. This is a great time to experiment and find out how your body works.

    The absolute worst thing that could happen is that you might want to loss 1-2 pounds. You know how to do that. The best thing that could happen is that you learn that you can thoroughly enjoy occasional events without worrying about putting permanent weight on. That sounds like a worthwhile thing to find out!
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I really recommend having a weight 'zone' that you stay in that includes your fluctuations. So my zone is 150-155. My fluctuations are around 2 pounds. Last year I was 156-157 for a few weeks so went on a 250 calorie deficit until I got back into it.
  • Kim55555
    Kim55555 Posts: 987 Member
    bioklutz wrote: »
    bfanny wrote: »
    It just makes me wonder since I did't track "everything" :#
    So eat at maintenance maybe a little less, wait one week and then what my weight is will be more real and I'll know what to do next...right?

    Eat at maintenance (not less). Wait and see if you really gained and deal with it then. This is a great time to experiment and find out how your body works.

    The absolute worst thing that could happen is that you might want to loss 1-2 pounds. You know how to do that. The best thing that could happen is that you learn that you can thoroughly enjoy occasional events without worrying about putting permanent weight on. That sounds like a worthwhile thing to find out!

    I agree! Well said!! Great time to experiment. A good learning experience!

    My goal has been to maintain for the past 2 weeks and I succeeded. Its given me confidence for the future for when I switch to eating at maintenance. I'm back to eating at defecit now and have 4 more kg to lose. Ive decided to do the same again at Easter. Eat some chocolate and hot cross buns for the week of Easter and then go back to my defecit and my usual way of eating. I dont normally eat chocolate as its addictive for me. I felt out of control for a while there over Christmas but was able to regain control by going cold turkey just fine. This I feel is the key to keeping me sane. When I'm at goal weight I also plan to have small slices of birthday cake at family gatherings which occur half dozen times a year. You have to live a little sometimes!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    Give it a week and you'll see true, if any gain...average gain for holiday eating for me is 2lbs ....I'll increase deficit over a few weeks and ramp up my workouts which will see that gain history.
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    edited January 2016
    Ok I can wait and see...thanks :)
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    On the bright side, my loose jeans are still loose, and I'm down 1lb from Friday...
  • WillowKat2
    WillowKat2 Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks for this thread everyone - I had my first weight gain this morning after adding exercise to my routine to lose the last 5 kilos and was completely thrown. Am going to drink a lot of water today and just keep going. :)
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