Gained 12 pounds in 2 weeks?!!

KittenTamer91
KittenTamer91 Posts: 54 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Long story short, I've struggled with emotional binge eating during the last few years. After some therapy I decided enough was enough and I got an idea to "ease" myself off my binging habits which is by eating mostly water dense low calorie high volume foods. So that's exactly what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks. I snacked on TONS of raw fruits and veggies, salsa, hummus (in small amounts), and so on. And I logged everything. My daily calories never exceeded 1300 (im very sedentary). In fact, there were a few days I was so full due to the high volume that I had to stop at around 800 calories. A lot of raw veggies I ate came in pre-packaged bags which made logging easy. What confuses me is how in the world did I gain a whopping 12 pounds in just 2 weeks???

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Water weight gain for many reasons.

    Fat is neither lost or gained fast. Water weight is easily.

    Time of month?

    More sodium than average, or at least a day or two before the weigh-in showing the increase?
    Combined with lower than average sodium prior to the start weigh-in?

    Stress in life, sleep - causing water-retaining increase in cortisol?

    Stress of way undereating by too much (you feeling full and your body being fully fed are 2 entirely different things)?

    More time in summer heat - causes body to increase blood volume for cooling effects, plus retain water for potential sweating?

    Did you weigh your food, pre-packaged veggies sounds neither accurate for total weight, nor what the label may say for cups or stalks or whatever the convenience serving size is - but grams is how calories is measured out by.
  • Dee_D33
    Dee_D33 Posts: 106 Member
    In order to gain 12 lbs of fat you would have had to eat in a caloric surplus of about 42,000 calories. That’s about 400 bananas or 100 tubs of hummus. Rest assured you did not gain 12 lbs. If anything, you need to eat more. This water retention can be caused by several factors, stress, sodium, etc. There is a lot of salt in salsa and flavored hummus too. Side note... prepackaged weights are not always accurate. It’s best to weigh those as well as I have found the weight of the product is often more than what is written on the label, but again, you didn’t gain 12 lbs from this.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    1- its HIGHLY unlikely you gained that much. most likely it is water retention from sodium and or TOM or a combo of the two.

    2- are you weighing all your food on a food scale? if you are eye balling, using cups, estimating, etc, then you are probaly eating more than you think (but certainly not enough to cause a weight gain like that)
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    Water retention is the most likely explanation but just to check are you weighing the same way each time? It is recommended you weigh after you get up, been to the restroom, wearing the same thing or nothing at all, and before you eat or drink anything. Even weighing yourself one day dry and the next day with wet hair from the shower/bath can add weight.

    In addition, make sure your scale is on a level surface and you weigh yourself in the same spot each time. If you have your scale in a closet make sure that it is not close enough to hanging clothes where they can touch you.

    Everything you eat and drink has weight and it will continue to have weight until it leaves you. So if you are constipated for instance that will skew the results too.
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    Something doesn't seem right to me. I guess it could be water weight, but that usually works itself out in a two week period. Also raw fruits, veggies, salsa, and hummus are pretty low sodium foods unless you are getting some sort of flavored hummus. I would also assume you are getting much less sodium than when you were binging so you would have probably lost a lot of water weight at first. Not sure if you are tracking accurately on here, but if you are can you open your diary without making any changes in to it?

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