When is weight gain "real"

mactaffy428
mactaffy428 Posts: 61 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I read all the time here that people complain that they overate and now they are a few pounds heavier and so many people say something along the lines of "Don't worry, it isn't real weight. It will drop off in a week". How is this any different than the 1-2 pounds people lose every week? Why is this not "real" weight gain. When does weight gain become "real". I just don't get it....

Replies

  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    "Real" weight gain is fat and comes from a consistent calorie surplus over time. "Real" weight loss is also fat, and comes from a consistent calorie deficit over time. Our bodies consist of more than just fat, and all those things have different density (weight) and some of them, like water, glycogen and partly digested food, are not present in constant amounts, and the fluctuations of these things in one day can be greater than one week's worth of fat change.
  • Stella3838
    Stella3838 Posts: 439 Member
    edited March 2017
    The "unreal" weight gain many times happens when one eats a lot of sodium heavy foods. For example, last Friday, I ate high sodium foods with several (okay many) beers, with not much water that day. I weighed in Saturday and "gained" 3 pounds. I went back to my normal eating, staying within my calorie targets, drank a bunch of water, and worked out the rest of the weekend. Come this past Monday, I was down 3.8 pounds. For me, it was water retention. When people binge, many times the sodium is the driver leading to the water retention and the "loss" they get is just water weight. This is just one example. TOM for woman can lead to significant weight fluctuations as well, but again, this is many times due to water retention.

    Also, if you consider that to gain 2 pounds, you'd need to eat about 7,000 calories, it puts in more into perspective. Now, if you did eat 7,000 calories, you probably did put on the weight. But in most cases, just not likely. :smiley:
  • mactaffy428
    mactaffy428 Posts: 61 Member
    Hmmmmm, I get weight fluctuations from one day to another, but if one over eats and gains 5 pounds in a week, seems like that's gotta be real weight. The other thing I don't get is when people say one day or one week of over eating isn't significant with the "whole picture" of one's weight loss, wouldn't every time you over eat - and it takes you a week to lose that indulgence - it puts you back a significant chunk of time in terms of your weight loss timeline. Seems real enough to me.
  • Blubberbuster1
    Blubberbuster1 Posts: 265 Member
    edited March 2017
    What Ninerbuff said, and best way to manage that trend is using something like a app called HappyScale.
    You weigh daily, and over time you will see a line/trend going down (losing), up (gaining) or straight (plateau/maintaining). Usually 2 weeks is enough data to read the trend to see if you're gaining, losing or in a plateau.

    Also, the reason you see these 2-5lbs increases daily is because the carbs you are taking in are stored as glycogens. Each gram of carb storage causes your body to retain between 2.7 – 4 times that amount in water. The combination of increased carbohydrates and the water bound to each of those causes our bodyweight to increase.

    Say you have been eating super clean/low carb for a few days/week, your happy with the big weight loss, then all a sudden you eat something a little different and with a little more carbs, boom.. there's your drastic fluctuation.

    Just one thing you need to remember is to not let your mind tell you its weight gain, you are in control of your body, track your meals, record your weight. That's how you manage this fluctuation between what's "real" and what's not.
  • Stella3838
    Stella3838 Posts: 439 Member
    I look at my calorie deficit on a weekly basis, never daily. Sometimes, I'm just not hungry and eat on the low end of my calorie target. Other times, with maybe a solid workout, I want to eat the fridge. If for the week, it balances out that I have that deficit, then it's all good. A lot of people like to "bank" calories for the weekend or a special dinner. No problems with that. It's a game of averages.

    Regarding weight loss/gain trends as @ninerbuff mentioned, I track in the app Happy Scale and look for the downward trend. I've got lots of ups an downs day after day, but that line is definitely going down. I find that's a lot more appealing than looking at the day-to-day fluctuations, which I find frustrating. Weight loss is not linear. It'll go up, down, sideways, stall.... As long as that trend line goes down over time, it's all good.

    For both it's finding your balance and in my humble opinion, looking at the trend lines over a longer period of time.
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
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    See that blip on March 5, followed by a drop and (generally) downward trend? That's how I know it's not a real weight gain, and why I weigh and record my weight every day I'm not away from my scale. Knowledge is power!
  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    edited March 2017
    mactaffy428 wrote: »
    Hmmmmm, I get weight fluctuations from one day to another, but if one over eats and gains 5 pounds in a week, seems like that's gotta be real weight. The other thing I don't get is when people say one day or one week of over eating isn't significant with the "whole picture" of one's weight loss, wouldn't every time you over eat - and it takes you a week to lose that indulgence - it puts you back a significant chunk of time in terms of your weight loss timeline. Seems real enough to me.

    If it takes you a week to lose it, it just puts you back a week. Weight loss isn't linear and it's a marathon rather than a sprint.

    5 pounds of fat would be eating 17,500 calories over maintenance. If you didn't eat 17,500 calories over then there's something like water retention that's showing up as scale weight.

    If you frequently overeat so that you aren't at a deficit over time, then you won't lose weight over time. The occasional indulgence within a lot of deficit days so that you have a net deficit will lead to a weight loss trend.
  • Blubberbuster1
    Blubberbuster1 Posts: 265 Member
    mactaffy428 wrote: »
    Hmmmmm, I get weight fluctuations from one day to another, but if one over eats and gains 5 pounds in a week, seems like that's gotta be real weight. The other thing I don't get is when people say one day or one week of over eating isn't significant with the "whole picture" of one's weight loss, wouldn't every time you over eat - and it takes you a week to lose that indulgence - it puts you back a significant chunk of time in terms of your weight loss timeline. Seems real enough to me.

    3,500 calories is 1lb of fat. Are you over eating 3,500 calories in one day? Or just a mere 100-400 calories once in a while?. This is why over the "whole picture" of your weight loss journey this is considered nothing. To gain 1lb a week of real weight gain, you need to eat 500 calories extra per day.

    Try and understand my message above about Glycogen stores. This will explain everything.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    edited March 2017
    Basically, we're on here to lose fat, not water. It's excess body fat that makes you fat. The water isn't relevant, it just comes and goes. One day's overeating may cause you to gain 5lb of water, which may hang around for a week, but if your average calorie intake is still below maintenance, the fat loss will continue, regardless what the water is doing. So it does not necessarily set you back at all - just temporarily hides your progress.

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