Weight gain ‘fluctuations’ for me are not temporary

phwdjones
phwdjones Posts: 37 Member
edited November 22 in Health and Weight Loss
Everyone says if you go up a pound a day after an excess of food then it’s temporary water weight the next day - no biggie.

Excuse my French but this is bs! I was 190 yesterday morning. Today I’m 191 and I can guarantee I will still be 191 tomorrow if I eat how I should be eating. It’s so frustrating having constant one step forward one step back syndrome.. I am STARVING at 1800 calories as a 6’1 male and apparently that’s not low enough to lose 2 lbs a week. I keep losing and regaining!! Last Friday I was 189.8, now 191. So depressing
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Replies

  • Christine_2017
    Christine_2017 Posts: 60 Member
    Also remember you may still be losing fat even if the scales don't move so quickly, that's the main thing x
  • maybyn
    maybyn Posts: 233 Member
    phwdjones wrote: »
    Everyone says if you go up a pound a day after an excess of food then it’s temporary water weight the next day - no biggie.

    Excuse my French but this is bs! I was 190 yesterday morning. Today I’m 191 and I can guarantee I will still be 191 tomorrow if I eat how I should be eating. It’s so frustrating having constant one step forward one step back syndrome.. I am STARVING at 1800 calories as a 6’1 male and apparently that’s not low enough to lose 2 lbs a week. I keep losing and regaining!! Last Friday I was 189.8, now 191. So depressing

    If you eat above maintenance, you will gain a bit of fat or muscle weight or both, whether it's a fraction of a pound, a pound or two pounds, depending on how much you ate above your energy requirements. Water weight gain will be the gain over and above the fat and/or muscle weight gain.

    All the stories you read about the weight going back to normal after eating huge amounts are really stories about people going back to calorie restriction after their excesses. If they did not restrict calories after eating excessively but ate at maintenance, they will maintain at the new weight even after water weight has gone.

    Clearly, if you keep restricting one day, eating excessively the next, you'll keep losing and regaining.

    If you're too hungry at 1800 cals, then my suggestion is for you to either up your calories and accept a slower weight loss, or look at what you're eating and see if you can tweak your diet so that it can sustain you at 1800 calories.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    Water weight sticks around for about 3-4 days for me normally.

    I had similar stats to you during my weight loss phase (6'2", ~1800 calories per day) and I hung around 190 pounds for about 2 weeks after months of steady loss. It was totally frustrating but stick to your plan and the results will show. Once I did finally drop below 190 my weight dropped pretty quickly. I set a new low weight every single day of that week until I got back onto my normal trend.

    Also, how much have you lost so far? It's a simple question but have you confirmed that your logging, etc. is accurate and complete? Not a biggie if you've already seen good losses but it always helps to confirm that the basics are in good order.

    Finally, I know that hunger is different for everybody but what are you finding so tough about 1800 calories per day? I found it to be a pretty reasonable amount of food. How do you structure your meals throughout the day and what are you eating?

    You might want to consider giving yourself a break once in a while. One meal per week where you can not worry about calories or a 2 week break from eating at a deficit altogether. Sounds like you could use the mental release.
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
    There are so many things that can cause water-weight, and as others have said, when you only have a little bit to lose, it can easily mask weight loss unless you really step back and watch trends instead of day-to-day fluctuations. Think about it: say on Monday you eat some fast food but are in a deficit. Maybe then Tuesday morning you're up a pound because of the high-sodium food. If that weight takes a couple of days to drop, what happens if, on Thursday morning, you tweak something weird at the gym? That first pound is gone, but now you're retaining because of the injury. So you take it easy over the weekend, stay at a deficit, stay away from the high sodium food, and Monday morning you've dropped back down, plus now you're showing a third of a pound lower than you were a week ago. Awesome, right until you check the news and find out that part of your extended family is stuck in the middle of a colossus fire-storm and no one is sure where your grandma is. Hello, stress, hello, water-weight.

    None of these examples were taken from real life, of course. >.>
  • hydechildcare
    hydechildcare Posts: 142 Member
    It takes me at least 4 days to loose the water weight if I eat to much sodium. For instance a few weeks ago. Gain 3 pounds from the weekend. Stayed in my calorie goal but had a lot of sodium. Held that till Wednesday, the dropped 2 pounds. Then Thursday I went down another 5 pounds. (I hadn't had a loss in almost 2 weeks, I blame this on sodium intake way to high!)
  • ashliedelgado
    ashliedelgado Posts: 814 Member
    I was looking at your diary, and all other things aside, have you tried eating more than once or twice a day? Maybe you need to eat more than one or two big meals to feel satisfied. Eat 3 smaller meals, or toss a snack in there.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    edited October 2017
    ashliedelgado wrote: »
    I was looking at your diary, and all other things aside, have you tried eating more than once or twice a day? Maybe you need to eat more than one or two big meals to feel satisfied. Eat 3 smaller meals, or toss a snack in there.

    You definitely don't have to stick to one or two meals a day. That's probably why you're starving. For my 1800 calories, my normal eating day looked as follows:

    10AM: 1 medium piece of fruit (100 calories)

    12PM: Large deli sandwich, wheat bread, 5 oz lunch meat, 1 oz. cheese, all the pickles, pepper spread, lettuce, and mustard I can handle (500 calories)

    3PM: Snack worth 150 to 200 calories

    6PM: Dinner worth 800-900 calories

    8:30PM: Snack worth 150-200 calories (usually cottage cheese with berries or jam)

    Lunch and dinner were really large and the snacks were enough to keep the edge off hunger throughout the day. I chose not to burn any calories on beverages or alcohol during the week because I will admit that I was walking a razor's edge with my hunger management. I did occasionally find myself getting hangry if I missed or delayed a meal but I rarely felt like I was depriving myself of anything.
  • phwdjones
    phwdjones Posts: 37 Member
    ashliedelgado wrote: »
    I was looking at your diary, and all other things aside, have you tried eating more than once or twice a day? Maybe you need to eat more than one or two big meals to feel satisfied. Eat 3 smaller meals, or toss a snack in there.

    That's a good plan, yes. I have a huge appetite though so its very hard to have smaller meals, when I eat I eat big.
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