Most you’ve gained on scale from a cheat meal?
Options
Replies
-
InsertFunnyUsernameHere wrote: »Teabythesea_ wrote: »InsertFunnyUsernameHere wrote: »Christismylife wrote: »I am feeling a little frustrated and came here for some (hopefully) encouragement.
I have been diligent with sticking to my calorie goals for the last 3 weeks. I haven’t gone over by more than 100 calories any day (net)—until yesterday. I had a combination of feeling hungry much of the day plus a date night with my husband.
I made the conscious decision to go over on my calories for the day. I was over my net by almost 1,000. I counted my dinner at Chili’s: shared chips/salsa (it’s possible I may have not eaten exactly half the chips—could have been more, not sure, but I counted it as half), grilled chicken with rice and beans, and shared a dessert.
My weight is up this morning 2.6 lbs since yesterday! I so hope this is just mostly water weight. I expected a jump on the scale and have recently started using Happy Scale to watch the trend.
Please tell me, what’s the most you have seen the scale jump up in one day after a high calorie day? And how long does it usually take you to see the scale come back down somewhat after a high calorie/sodium meal?
Once you understand the math, you can remove your anxiety from the picture.
3500 calories = 1 pound (roughly)
You can't gain a pound by eating only 1000 over your TDEE, so you KNOW it must be a combination of water weight (fluctuations) and the weight of food still in your GI tract.
1 gallon of water = 8 pounds (roughly)
Changes to the amount of sodium in your system leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Changes to your exercise regime leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Stress leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Eating carb-heavy foods leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying.
Some combination of these factors can easily add up to a few pounds. This is why daily weight is USELESS. The error margin due to water weight fluctuation masks any real data that can be obtained.
Personally, I have seen 7lbs of water weight lost over 24 hours.
Spot on! Except for bolded. Daily weighing is essential for analyzing the overall trend in weight changes. Personally, I think that if everyone weighed daily we wouldn't see anywhere near as many of the, "help I gained 5 lbs overnight!" or, "I haven't lost weight in weeks!" type posts, because they'd know its completely normal. When people only weigh once a week or so, they may see the same or even higher number on the scale, not realizing that in the several days they didnt weight themselves, their weight went up and down.
Daily? Nope. It's a fool's errand.
Weekly? Sure.
Monthly? Definitely.
There is no useful data point when you have margins of error +/- 5lbs or 6lbs. This is simple math. If you are trying to see 1/7th or 1/4th of a lb of daily fat loss, it's indiscernible within the error margin. What's more, your body doesn't operate in a linear fashion anyway. If you have a 500 cal deficit per day, you don't lose 1/7th of a pound of fat per day... it comes off as some combination of glycogen stores and fat reserves that you cannot predict from day to day. Basically, the human body as machine is too complicated and you cannot get good data points using a scale on a daily basis. If you understand that, then weighing daily won't make you go crazy. However, a lot of people don't understand that and they let the scale mess with their minds. In fact, some people let the scale run their lives, to the point they are weighing multiple times per day. My advice is DON'T DO THAT.
So very very correct in understanding what is happening, and so very very very wrong in your remedy and conclusion.
You absolutely CAN discern a trend and pattern. In fact the MORE data points you have (albeit I will agree with you in terms of limiting the data points to one per day to avoid unnecessary angst)... the better you can figure out the overall trend.
The answer is called a weight trend app (or averaging/smoothing/some sort of trend analysis if you can math it yourself)
Your once a month weigh in is a recipe for disaster for someone who is losing slowly and can still easily hit a 4 or 5lb fluctuation that obscures a 3 to 5lb underlying fat loss. <-- in fact this is almost guaranteed to happen to people losing 0.5 to 1lb a week... which is where the vast majority of people who are not obese and have TDEEs in the sub 2500 Cal per day range SHOULD be.
As to the OP, 8lbs and it took a week. Included recovery from unusual exercise, air travel, and buffet.9 -
InsertFunnyUsernameHere wrote: »Teabythesea_ wrote: »InsertFunnyUsernameHere wrote: »Christismylife wrote: »I am feeling a little frustrated and came here for some (hopefully) encouragement.
I have been diligent with sticking to my calorie goals for the last 3 weeks. I haven’t gone over by more than 100 calories any day (net)—until yesterday. I had a combination of feeling hungry much of the day plus a date night with my husband.
I made the conscious decision to go over on my calories for the day. I was over my net by almost 1,000. I counted my dinner at Chili’s: shared chips/salsa (it’s possible I may have not eaten exactly half the chips—could have been more, not sure, but I counted it as half), grilled chicken with rice and beans, and shared a dessert.
My weight is up this morning 2.6 lbs since yesterday! I so hope this is just mostly water weight. I expected a jump on the scale and have recently started using Happy Scale to watch the trend.
Please tell me, what’s the most you have seen the scale jump up in one day after a high calorie day? And how long does it usually take you to see the scale come back down somewhat after a high calorie/sodium meal?
Once you understand the math, you can remove your anxiety from the picture.
3500 calories = 1 pound (roughly)
You can't gain a pound by eating only 1000 over your TDEE, so you KNOW it must be a combination of water weight (fluctuations) and the weight of food still in your GI tract.
1 gallon of water = 8 pounds (roughly)
Changes to the amount of sodium in your system leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Changes to your exercise regime leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Stress leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying. Eating carb-heavy foods leads to changes in the water weight you are carrying.
Some combination of these factors can easily add up to a few pounds. This is why daily weight is USELESS. The error margin due to water weight fluctuation masks any real data that can be obtained.
Personally, I have seen 7lbs of water weight lost over 24 hours.
Spot on! Except for bolded. Daily weighing is essential for analyzing the overall trend in weight changes. Personally, I think that if everyone weighed daily we wouldn't see anywhere near as many of the, "help I gained 5 lbs overnight!" or, "I haven't lost weight in weeks!" type posts, because they'd know its completely normal. When people only weigh once a week or so, they may see the same or even higher number on the scale, not realizing that in the several days they didnt weight themselves, their weight went up and down.
Daily? Nope. It's a fool's errand.
Weekly? Sure.
Monthly? Definitely.
There is no useful data point when you have margins of error +/- 5lbs or 6lbs. This is simple math. If you are trying to see 1/7th or 1/4th of a lb of daily fat loss, it's indiscernible within the error margin. What's more, your body doesn't operate in a linear fashion anyway. If you have a 500 cal deficit per day, you don't lose 1/7th of a pound of fat per day... it comes off as some combination of glycogen stores and fat reserves that you cannot predict from day to day. Basically, the human body as machine is too complicated and you cannot get good data points using a scale on a daily basis. If you understand that, then weighing daily won't make you go crazy. However, a lot of people don't understand that and they let the scale mess with their minds. In fact, some people let the scale run their lives, to the point they are weighing multiple times per day. My advice is DON'T DO THAT.
Nah, that's bad statistics. With a lot of noise in the data, more data points mean a better basis for analysis of the underlying trend, which - as others have said - is what weight trending apps are for.
But you're right, scales can mess with people's minds. Therefore, I'm not going to tell you or anyone else what to do.
But I certainly found that daily weighing helped me understand that my weight fluctuates for reasons that have nothing to do with fat loss/gain, but instead are mostly about fluctuating water weight (part of how a healthy body functions), and variation in digestive system contents. Neither of those things is fat, so why would I "go crazy" about them?
Over time, by weighing daily, I learned very well what kinds of circumstances caused water weight fluctuations, and even to be able to predict them fairly accurately. I don't stress much about the scale under any circumstances - it's just data, not the measure of my worth as a human being - but weighing daily made me even more relaxed about the fluctuations, because it helped me understand them.
And, of course, the daily weights improve the usefulness of my weight-trending app, because more data = better statistical analysis.
If you prefer to weigh weekly or monthly, that's fine. But it's not the strategy that works best for every human under all circumstances. (Any weighing schedule has pros and cons, and individuals have different interests and preferences. Makes sense if we explain the pros & cons, methinks.)7 -
I had a cheat meal once saw me gain about 15kilos, yes that's right, 15kilos. Cheat meal turned into cheat day turned into a cheat week turned into a cheat month, before I knew it a year was up and I had gained 15kilos. I am surprised I didn't gain more.
I know better now what works for me and what doesn't, and I just factor things I want to eat and drink into my daily menu and exercise.4 -
tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »I had a cheat meal once saw me gain about 15kilos, yes that's right, 15kilos.
🤨0 -
I track my weight on trending apps twice a day! Once right when I wake up and once when I go to bed! It’s done wonders for me. I totally know there are ups and downs. I don’t freak out. But it’s interesting to watch my trends based on certain meals I eat, alcohol impacts, etc. When I wasn’t doing this, I didn’t stay focused everyday and fell off the bandwagon. To each their own! I’ve lost 17 pounds since January 1. I have about 10-15 more to go. I’ll keep doing me!
4 -
In my opinion, I feel that a "cheat meal or cheat day" is super lame. The weight you gained is probably water weight and that's all. If you look at it from a scientific approach you can't gain that many pounds after eating over your calorie count for one day. My suggestion is to put that day behind you, keep practicing consistency and move on. You will be great! Also and more importantly I hope you & the spouse had a great time!4
-
I have gained 10lb in a day and then lost it the next day... 2lb is nothing.1
-
I was really sick once and for three days ate nothing. Gained 0.5 pounds. Snot weight is nothing to be trifled with! 🙂3
-
-
Just FYI, my weight returned to where I was the morning of the day I ate so high. So it took me 4 days. (Ate up Friday, back to starting weight Tuesday after eating at a deficit Sat-Mon.)0
-
The most I have gone up was around 4 lbs and it usually takes me around 1 week to go back down. Wish it was faster to return to normal...but alas what can one do.1
-
9 pounds ate a lot of deserts and sodium laden foods.1
-
7 pounds. Every time I go on holiday I come back and my weight is way up between more calories, more salt, and retaining water from the flight if I took a plane. I used to FREAK out but now I know it'll be gone in a few weeks at most.
I prefer the term treat meal to cheat meal. I usually have at least a couple a month because I'm going out with friends, or I'm just particularly hungry that day. Eating a donut isn't cheating, just means I wanted one and it means I'm less likely to freak out and eat 8 donuts at once.1 -
I'd need to look back over my data to be sure but off the top of my head I'd say probably 3-4kg so what's that like, 6.6-8.8lb.
That said it was gone less than a week later.1
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 389 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 918 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions