Episodically gaining weight from eating out or drinking, but doesn't come off? Any advice

jimmuzzall · February 2016

All:

I track my food meticulously on MFP. I'm 45 YO, at 210 lbs now. I usually run 14-20 miles/week in the spring/summer/fall or do crossfit, or a combination. I am looking to see if anyone has run into a problem I can't solve of gaining a pound or two over night from a big meal on the weekend, or from having a few drinks one night and it doesn't come off.

I count the calories from the drinks in my calorie counting, and at worst, I would gain a 1/4 to 1/3 pound from the extra calories. Even if I reduce my eating and do not exceed my recommended calories from the drinks (~2000 total), I still gain about 2 lbs about 2 days later. I've read many posts that talk about the water weight gain from the dehydration from the alcohol. For me, though, the weight doesn't come off. I've gained nearly 15 lbs and I can point to the 6 or 7 nights where my weight went up, and then never came down.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I may lose a pound after exercising, or maybe a few days later, but my baseline weight keeps increasing after these episodes. I'm really hoping someone else has cracked this problem.

girlviernes · February 2016

Curious, what is the time frame for this 15lb weight gain? Are you tracking/weighing all of your calories every day, or are you more lax about tracking on these days off?

jemhh · February 2016

Water weight can take much longer to lose than it does to gain. I gained 6-7 pounds the week between Christmas and New Year's. It took me the entire month of January to lose it.

If your weight is going up up up, you are most likely eating over your maintenance calories. You aren't going to have a sodium/carb-y meal and still be gaining weight from it a week later.

jimmuzzall · February 2016

girlviernes wrote: »

Curious, what is the time frame for this 15lb weight gain? Are you tracking/weighing all of your calories every day, or are you more lax about tracking on these days off?

I gained it over the period of about 7 months. I track and weight every day. If I'm just having drinks like at a happy hour or something, I add them to my total. I rarely go beyond 2300 calories, even with the drinks, and my measured RMR is a little over 2100. If I have a meal at someones house, and I don't know what is in it, I don't really track it other than a ballpark calorie total. Even if I do eat one big meal, I can't see how I would gain two pounds in a night.

lorrpb · February 2016

100 cals per day =10 lbs per year. It doesn't take much.

girlviernes · February 2016

Yeah, you would need to be having a crazy night to gain two pounds of fat overnight. However, it wouldn't be surprising that you are putting on water weight, and as jemnh said, it can take a while to get the water weight off, and perhaps during that process you are also enough over on your calories overall that your actual "fat" weight catches up more or less.

According to the math, you are 250 kcals over per day on average (perhaps a bit less if you think you are gaining some muscle). If you open your diary we could give you feedback about potential holes in your tracking. You've already acknowledged one, which is the ballparking.

Most of the time, there is something about tracking that will explain these things. I would definitely recommend opening your diary at least temporarily, because it is easy to think we are being 100% accurate but hard to actually be 100% accurate

If there is nothing, perhaps time to see the doctor just to double check medical explanations.

KiyaK · February 2016

Something in your calculations is off. Of you're steadily gaining over 7 months, you're consistently eating over maintenance calories. Small chance that you have a medical condition, so always a good idea to check with your doctor & all that.

Otherwise, do you use a food scale or estimate/use measuring cups? Food scale is the most accurate. They're not too expensive. You could be underestimating calories consumed.

Where are you getting the calorie burn numbers for the exercise? Many places (including MFP) overestimate burns. Do you eat back your exercise cals? If so, try eating only 50% or none of them. Another idea would be to cut back the amount of calories that you're eating.

Just sone ideas. Obviously something you're doing isn't working. So try changing one or two things and see what happens. You will find out what works best for your body that way.

callsitlikeiseeit · February 2016

jemhh · February 2016

lorrpb wrote: »

100 cals per day =10 lbs per year. It doesn't take much.

Correct.

If you weigh yourself every day and the overall trend is weight gain, cut your calories. Start by cutting them 100-200 a day.

Francl27 · February 2016

You might be underestimating your food/drink intake or overestimating what you burn from exercise. Eating out can be deceiving too because it's easy to underestimate the calories in your food... but the bottom line is that you're just eating too much.

michaela4910 · February 2016

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

I love this chart, thank you for posting.

Bry_Fitness70 · February 2016

With eating out, you are probably eating a lot of extra sodium, because fast food and chain restaurants saturate everything in salt to make it taste better and last longer. So there is probably some water retention happening.

Abby2205 · February 2016

You are attempting to link specific weight gain "events" to specific consumption events, but it's a spurious correlation. Your long term data (15 pounds gained in 7 months) is a better representation of what's really happening: you are eating on average 250 calories per day over your true maintenance.

Episodically gaining weight from eating out or drinking, but doesn't come off? Any advice

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