Roughly how long does it take for a binge to register as a weight gain?

Jabbarwocky
Jabbarwocky Posts: 100 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Yes, I know that there is a lot that goes into this question but was curious if anyone knew a way to get a rough guess on it. Basically, through the week I do fine tracking and staying at or under my calorie count. The weekends are another creature entirely. This weekend wasn't bad but in the last month or two, I've had several weekends where I consumed double my allotted calories in a day by eating out. Working on that issue but was still curious as to when I should weigh after something like that to accurately reflect the overall trend more than the one bad weekend. I've asked my dietician this and she will hopefully have an answer for me this week but it never hurts to have several answers to the same question.

Replies

  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 994 Member
    If you know weekends are your weak spot, weigh on Fridays. Plot the trend in an app like Happy Scale.

    Or else weigh every day, log the results, and look for your own trends. Odds are you'll be high for a couple days post-eating poorly, and then your actual fat gain (if there is any) will show up after the bloat of sodium and increased food volume passes.
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  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    Never if you repair the damage before or after the binge. Sure, there's going to be some water weight gain probably within 24 hours, but simply don't weigh in for a week. Log it all, know where you stand and increase your deficit a little each day for the next week and undo the extra calories. It's not rocket science. Part of learning to maintain your final goal weight is going to be learning how to deal with high calorie meals/days/etc. I intend to work off extra calories with exercise and diet control so that's what I'm teaching myself during maintenance.
  • Jabbarwocky
    Jabbarwocky Posts: 100 Member
    I've considered weighing every day but doing it much more than once a week tends to frustrate me and make me want to give up. As previously stated, I'm getting better about the binges. This is more just a curiosity question than a real life application. I usually do weigh on Fridays but it was more about the first day of trying to get back on track than any conscious decision on my part about when to actually weigh in.
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,174 Member
    edited March 2017
    There are theoretically 3500 calories in a pound. So going over your calories for a day or two isn't going to have a massive effect in the long run, as @annacole94 says the majority of the peak in weight after a "binge" is water weight caused by sodium, I normally find if I have water retention from Sat/Sun eating at maintenance which I sometimes do that it's gone by Tues/Weds so after a couple of days you should be able to see if there is any true weight gain.

    Are you restricting stuff too much during the week that makes you want to splurge at weekends?

    Weighing daily can help you to understand the effects different foods, alcohol, exercises, hormones, etc can have on the body. I've found it very useful.
  • taco_inspector
    taco_inspector Posts: 7,223 Member
    While it's not precise, quite a few people tend to hold that 3500 calories are about a pound (origins are from an older study where a pound of fat had a bit more than 3400 calories of energy measured... but I digress)...

    So, what will show from a binge will be water retention from sodium and inflammatory processes (fairly quickly after consumption - like, within hours!), you'll also see the mass of the food (a one-pound bag of Oreos does weight 1-pound after all) until what you don't retain is processes as waste... those values should be nearly immediate and hang on for quite a few hours/ several days (weight from edema / hydration may actually increase as you hydrate as your waste processes begin to eliminate the bits/chemistry that you won't be holding onto...).

    Ultimately, as you reach a post-binge homeostasis, you should be left dealing with whatever calories you've retained and the format in which they've been stored -- So if you've eaten say 7000 calories over your maintenance, you MIGHT hold onto about 2-pounds after a week or so, depending on your physiology and stuff...
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    Eating in a restaurant and doubling your normal calorie intake twice in one month is not necessarily what I would call a "binge". That, to me, would be an indulgent meal that happens as part of my normal lifestyle - some days are going to be higher calorie because of special events. Especially if you have a lower calorie target to begin with, it's totally within the realm of reason that a big restaurant meal could result in double the calories. That doesn't make it a "binge".

  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    A binge will show up immediately as a weight gain. But binges are often followed by a "swoosh" releasing a large quantity of food that has been digesting for a while. (I'm pretty sure I just offended some people by describing that term that way.) The weight of that food may even exceed the weight of the binge, resulting in what appears to be rapid weight loss. If you continue to binge, you will replace all of that food and you will weigh more than you did before. But if you eat at a deficit after the swoosh then the food will be replaced more slowly and you won't see a weight gain, but you may not see weight loss for a while either.
  • Jabbarwocky
    Jabbarwocky Posts: 100 Member
    tinkerbellang83 wrote: »
    There are theoretically 3500 calories in a pound. So going over your calories for a day or two isn't going to have a massive effect in the long run, as @annacole94 says the majority of the peak in weight after a "binge" is water weight caused by sodium, I normally find if I have water retention from Sat/Sun eating at maintenance which I sometimes do that it's gone by Tues/Weds so after a couple of days you should be able to see if there is any true weight gain.

    Are you restricting stuff too much during the week that makes you want to splurge at weekends?

    Weighing daily can help you to understand the effects different foods, alcohol, exercises, hormones, etc can have on the body. I've found it very useful.

    No, during the week I'm much more restricted to access during the day while at work. I work at a prison so it makes it much more difficult to just pop over to the store or fast food joint to pick something up. I have a few things stashed in my desk but these things disappear from time to time so I don't have much.
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Eating in a restaurant and doubling your normal calorie intake twice in one month is not necessarily what I would call a "binge". That, to me, would be an indulgent meal that happens as part of my normal lifestyle - some days are going to be higher calorie because of special events. Especially if you have a lower calorie target to begin with, it's totally within the realm of reason that a big restaurant meal could result in double the calories. That doesn't make it a "binge".

    It tends to be an all weekend thing but as I've said, its getting more under control. I get 1900 calories a day to lose weight and on those weekends its not unusual for me to double my intake, sometimes almost triple. Granted, I haven't pulled a triple in quite a while but ice cream is usually involved when I do. Again, this is more of an academic question for me. My latest A1C check was a kick in the pants, especially since I thought things have been going pretty good since January.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    You have to remember that to show as a weight gain, your binge would have to take you not just over goal, but over maintenance. So if you are set to lose 1lb a week, your binge would have to leave you more than 500 calories over goal before any fat would be stored.

    Also, water weight fluctuation means it can be very hard to see the fat going on and coming off over a short space of time. A very considerable binge that left you 1750 calories over maintenance would cause you to gain half a pound of fat more or less at once (within hours) but also perhaps 3-6lb of water and food weight. The extra 3-6lb will come off again over the next several days, but while it is there it will completely muddy your perception of the fat gain.
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,174 Member
    edited March 2017
    Jabbarwocky wrote: »
    Granted, I haven't pulled a triple in quite a while but ice cream is usually involved when I do.

    I found freezing small packs of low fat toffee yoghurt does the trick for me if I get an ice cream craving. They are about 110 calories for a 125g pot or the tubs of flavoured Onken yoghurts (or similar low fat yoghurt) are around 100cals per 100g vs a tub of haagen dazs which is about 230-300 cals per 100g

  • HeliumIsNoble
    HeliumIsNoble Posts: 1,213 Member
    edited March 2017
    It is not set in stone that your body will actually entirely digest and store the calories from an unexpectedly large one-off meal. If the human digestive system was a person, it would be a person with a hole in his or her pocket, who kept losing coins down the back of the sofa, and dropping money on the floor at the check-out.

    Don't visualise your body as a Mr Scrooge who will save every tiny coin in order to taunt you with it in the mirror!

    Fact is, we all vary in how efficient our digestion is. Becoming overweight is usually the result of consistently eating too much for your activity levels.

    This is an easy read for the lay person, which doesn't need graduate study as preparation (always a plus).
    Amazingly, there are more ways in which a calorie is not a calorie. Even if two people were to somehow eat the same sweet potato cooked the same way they would not get the same number of calories. Carmody and colleagues studied a single strain of heavily inbred lab mice such that their mice were as similar to each other as possible. Yet the mice still varied in terms of how much they grew or shrank on a given diet, thanks presumably to subtle differences in their behavior or bodies. Humans vary in nearly all traits, whether height, skin color, or our guts. Back when it was the craze to measure such variety European scientists discovered that Russian intestines are about five feet longer than those of, say, Italians. This means that those Russians eating the same amount of food as the Italians likely get more out of it. Just why the Russians had (or have) longer intestines is an open question. Surely other peoples differ in their intestines too; intestines need more study, though I am not going to volunteer to do the dirty work. We also vary in terms of how much of particular enzymes we produce; the descendents of peoples who consumed lots of starchy food tend to produce more amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starch. Then there is the enzyme our bodies use to digest the lactose in milk, lactase. Many (some say most) adults are lactose deficient; they do not produce lactase and so do not break down the lactose in milk. As a result, even if they drink milk they receive far fewer calories from doing so than do individuals who produce lactase. Each of us gets a different number of calories out of identical foods because of who we are and who our ancestors were.
    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-truths-about-calories/


  • Jabbarwocky
    Jabbarwocky Posts: 100 Member
    tinkerbellang83 wrote: »
    Jabbarwocky wrote: »
    Granted, I haven't pulled a triple in quite a while but ice cream is usually involved when I do.

    I found freezing small packs of low fat toffee yoghurt does the trick for me if I get an ice cream craving. They are about 110 calories for a 125g pot or the tubs of flavoured Onken yoghurts (or similar low fat yoghurt) are around 100cals per 100g vs a tub of haagen dazs which is about 230-300 cals per 100g

    I tried something similar for a while but with lower calorie ice cream than haagen dazs. It worked for a bit but the problem with this for me is that if I do have a binge, ALL of that ice cream is there no matter what size container its in. Surprisingly, I've not been having a big issue with sweets cravings for the last several weeks so consider that a good thing.
    HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
    It is not set in stone that your body will actually entirely digest and store the calories from an unexpectedly large one-off meal. If the human digestive system was a person, it would be a person with a hole in his or her pocket, who kept losing coins down the back of the sofa, and dropping money on the floor at the check-out.

    Don't visualise your body as a Mr Scrooge who will save every tiny coin in order to taunt you with it in the mirror!

    Fact is, we all vary in how efficient our digestion is. Becoming overweight is usually the result of consistently eating too much for your activity levels.

    This is an easy read for the lay person, which doesn't need graduate study as preparation (always a plus).
    Amazingly, there are more ways in which a calorie is not a calorie. Even if two people were to somehow eat the same sweet potato cooked the same way they would not get the same number of calories. Carmody and colleagues studied a single strain of heavily inbred lab mice such that their mice were as similar to each other as possible. Yet the mice still varied in terms of how much they grew or shrank on a given diet, thanks presumably to subtle differences in their behavior or bodies. Humans vary in nearly all traits, whether height, skin color, or our guts. Back when it was the craze to measure such variety European scientists discovered that Russian intestines are about five feet longer than those of, say, Italians. This means that those Russians eating the same amount of food as the Italians likely get more out of it. Just why the Russians had (or have) longer intestines is an open question. Surely other peoples differ in their intestines too; intestines need more study, though I am not going to volunteer to do the dirty work. We also vary in terms of how much of particular enzymes we produce; the descendents of peoples who consumed lots of starchy food tend to produce more amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starch. Then there is the enzyme our bodies use to digest the lactose in milk, lactase. Many (some say most) adults are lactose deficient; they do not produce lactase and so do not break down the lactose in milk. As a result, even if they drink milk they receive far fewer calories from doing so than do individuals who produce lactase. Each of us gets a different number of calories out of identical foods because of who we are and who our ancestors were.
    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-truths-about-calories/


    Oh trust me, I understand. One of my sisters first husbands was skinny as a rail and could literally eat a gallon or two of ice cream a week and not gain weight. I'm not looking for a detailed description so much as a basic overview of the process. And its more out of curiosity than anything. I'm not one to feel too guilty for too long about a binge. Granted, that could be a major part of the reason I had to start the fight to stay under 300 pounds.
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