Big OverFeed Ruins Everything? Nope.
Replies
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My husband and I just got back from a two-week cruise to Alaska. It was fantastic, BTW. Every day, we ate and drank so much food, things like king crab, lobster, steak, wine/beer/cocktails and we had a decadent dessert every night. We did stay active, however, by walking the open deck daily for 30 minutes or so, except when we were in a port. We did a lot of walking when in port.
When we got back, the first thing we did was weigh ourselves for kittens and giggles. I was up 7 pounds. OMG. and LOL. Four days later, those 7 pounds are gone. Whoosh. My husband lost one pound when he weighed in. Grrrr and LOL18 -
Well, count me in as one of those "woe is me" types today. I KNOW I should not get discouraged, but I cannot shake the blues. I worked my butt off this week. Killing myself in the gym and keeping to 1500 calories a day or less (some days were 1200-1300). Sunday night I went off the rails with wine and food. Today is Thursday and I am 2.2 pounds UP from last week. Does the bad day haunt you four full days later? I am not an overly emotional person but my efforts to see the big picture here are falling short. There is something that is a real mind f*#k about that number on the scale. Looking for my big girl panties and can't find them....
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Those to-be-expected from time to time northerly bumps in the morning BW scale readings are a fact of life in our journeys. For me, they were real motivators to double down my efforts and resolve to continue my journey. Now that I'm solidly in maintenance, they don't nerve me the way they did earlier but I still prefer to have small daily fluctuations now that I"m in maintenance. Do get a big kick out of the scale after a long run knowing that it's an artificial result. Have taken a photo of my lowest low just for kicks. I weigh daily, that's my personality and doing so helped me get my job done.
Don't know what's considered a cheat day. Do you consider it one where you go over a certain amount of calories? If so, I've had overage days but they typically are the result of a previous day's deficit, generally a running day where I'm unable to eat back my exercise calories. Don't think I've ended a week with a surplus though so daily deficits and shortages are no big deal. Never had back-to-back surpluses or diet breaks in my current journey of slightly over 8 months. Haven't yearned for them because I'm well-fed within my budget.1 -
margaret_anne wrote: »Well, count me in as one of those "woe is me" types today. I KNOW I should not get discouraged, but I cannot shake the blues. I worked my butt off this week. Killing myself in the gym and keeping to 1500 calories a day or less (some days were 1200-1300). Sunday night I went off the rails with wine and food. Today is Thursday and I am 2.2 pounds UP from last week. Does the bad day haunt you four full days later? I am not an overly emotional person but my efforts to see the big picture here are falling short. There is something that is a real mind f*#k about that number on the scale. Looking for my big girl panties and can't find them....
I think it kinda haunts you as long as it haunts you . . . it can even haunt you mentally after the scale drops again, if you let it.
The weight proper, though, or more accurately the fat: 2.2 pounds gain would require something like 7700 calories above maintenance. If that many calories didn't happen on Sunday, whether through eating or inactivity or a combination, you still have some water weight or digestive contents yet to be processed out. IF you did eat that many extra calories, you may have some fat to re-lose (though I think part of what we're recounting on this thread is that not all the calories from a truly rare, short over-goal sprint are necessarily going to show up as fat, if we're lucky).
To me, the beauty of calorie counting is that we can calculate these things, after a while (with experience), with fair accuracy, and that gives the scale less power.
You mention "killing yourself in the gym" - could be some additional water weight from that? Do you have a good handle on your normal menstrual-cycle-related water weight changes: Could that be a factor? Do you have a seasonal allergy thing going on, or minor injury, or anything like that? There can be a lot involved in what shows up on the scale (water retention, digestive contents, fat), and sometimes all we can do is trust the process, and try not to stress out (did you know stress can increase water retention?
) or give up.
Hugs, and hang in there. If your calories are in line, the scale will catch up to where you should be. :flowerforyou:
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@margaret_anne Looking for my 'big girl panties' too ... LOL! So far 2 lbs of the 5.5 lbs gained over Mother's Day weekend have come off. Working out like a fiend (2 workouts per day) and eating 1200 calories per day. Not eating back exercise calories, so actually netting 850 calories or so daily (just until I get back to where I was). I feel like my body is hanging on to those extra calories for dear life!2
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bjdavidson964 wrote: »@margaret_anne Looking for my 'big girl panties' too ... LOL! So far 2 lbs of the 5.5 lbs gained over Mother's Day weekend have come off. Working out like a fiend (2 workouts per day) and eating 1200 calories per day. Not eating back exercise calories, so actually netting 850 calories or so daily (just until I get back to where I was). I feel like my body is hanging on to those extra calories for dear life!
If you're logging accurately, please don't net that low. Stress, including the stress of undereating, can increase water retention and really muddy the waters about what's going on, sap calories out of daily life activity via fatigue, and create health risks. In the longer run, it's counter-productive.
The point of this thread is that some high-eating days may cause a few days delay in reaching ultimate goal weight, but there's no reason to stress out about it.
Please, take it gradually, stay strong, energetic, and healthy! :flowerforyou:10 -
@AnnPT77 Thank you for the words of wisdom! I'm trying not to let my frustration lead me into going about this recklessly. In the grand scheme of things, it has only thrown me off by 1 week so I suppose I really should lighten up. Now off to BodyPump and Zumba ... LOL! But I will eat a big dinner instead of the protein shake that I had planned on!2
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bjdavidson964 wrote: »@AnnPT77 Thank you for the words of wisdom! I'm trying not to let my frustration lead me into going about this recklessly. In the grand scheme of things, it has only thrown me off by 1 week so I suppose I really should lighten up. Now off to BodyPump and Zumba ... LOL! But I will eat a big dinner instead of the protein shake that I had planned on!
I'm betting it's thrown you off way less than a week, in reality, when it comes to reaching goal weight: To gain 5.5 pounds of fat, you would've had to have eaten 19,250 calories over your maintenance calories (not just over your weight-loss calorie goal) over Mothers Day Weekend.
That's really a lot of calories. I think I could eat that many extra calories over a weekend, and it might be fun to try ( kidding! ), but it would be pretty hard to do. I'm kind of betting you didn't eat that much.
What probably happened is that you ate more than usual (maybe even enough to gain back a bit of fat, but not much
); the "more" included more than usual sodium and carbs (both of which cause some water retention temporarily while your body's metabolizing them); and the weekend left you with more than the usual amount of food in transit in your digestive system, and until all the residue is excreted (can take multiple days, surprisingly), it has weight.
Neither water nor food-in-transit are fat, so they're really not worth worrying about, scary though the scale may look for a week or so. They'll drop off in their own good time (and under-eating or over-exercising won't make that happen any faster).
A normal dinner after your workout sounds like a really good plan.
Be kind to yourself, relax, everything is going to turn out fine! 9 -
@AnnPT77 You are a Rock Star!! And so kind...many thanks@margaret_anne I hope you find encouragement in these words also! 7
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Yes you are right. I used to not track when I fell off track because I felt guilty. Now I don’t feel guilty. I just brush it off and keep going. As you can see I spiked twice really hard, and ate on both instances around ~4000 calories. Just keep going as if nothing happened!6
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I try not to let the scale post vacation/big weekend get me down too much, but it still does a bit—usually enough to motivate me to log accurately until I hit my maintenance “happy number/range” again.
I just came home yesterday from a week long vacation involving lots of wine and food. Only physical activity was walking to a new wine tasting room. 4lbs up on the scale, though more annoyed by my post-lethargy slight drop in strength (although I’m hitting the week before my period, when I normally have slight dip in strength/increase in effort needed to lift the same amt of weight, so I’m trying not to be too bummed).
Intellectually I know these lbs will come off relatively quickly, but still...guess I haven’t quite reached the total shrug-and-move-on stage. More the grumble and move on stage.9 -
Great thread, really great
So here is a question I thought yesterday after eating 2000+ over maintenance calories yesterday. How much CAN you gain in one day? It know all about water and glycogen storage but I am wondering how many grams or muscle or fat can be gained in one day.
We all know 1 pound = 3500 calories...so let’s say we over eat by that number, how much actually becomes stored in our cells?
I assuming there is some research on this.
John3 -
Great thread, really great
So here is a question I thought yesterday after eating 2000+ over maintenance calories yesterday. How much CAN you gain in one day? It know all about water and glycogen storage but I am wondering how many grams or muscle or fat can be gained in one day.
We all know 1 pound = 3500 calories...so let’s say we over eat by that number, how much actually becomes stored in our cells?
I assuming there is some research on this.
John
I don't think there really is.
I mean, sure it's said 3500 = a pound, but even that is subject for debate.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Log food, take a walk. Step on the body weight scale regularly (I suggest daily) so you become comfortable with the weight swings. I've been in maintenance for over a decade and I still do that.4 -
Great thread, really great
So here is a question I thought yesterday after eating 2000+ over maintenance calories yesterday. How much CAN you gain in one day? It know all about water and glycogen storage but I am wondering how many grams or muscle or fat can be gained in one day.
We all know 1 pound = 3500 calories...so let’s say we over eat by that number, how much actually becomes stored in our cells?
I assuming there is some research on this.
John
Maybe it's just my reading comprehension, but I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking.
When we over-eat, we don't necessarily store as many calories as one would think (the video posted up-thread, top of page 2, about the massive over-eating by a fit woman, goes into some of the details). Part of this is that some of us (don't know if all) unconsciously/unintentionally get more active/twitchy/hotter and burn a bit more than normal. I suspect this might be somewhat individual (probably there's a bell curve/normal distribution?). (I think that because some people seem to report significant TDEE increases as they go to maintenance calories, and others seem not to see much effect - but this could be about their attentiveness and logging accuracy, even if my perception of their self-reports is correct.)
There's an open question in my mind about whether it may be possible to eat in a quantity very much beyond what our individual body is accustomed to and have that result in our bodies passing more through than one might expect because of limitations in ability to absorb it fast enough. I don't recall the video talking about that, and I haven't seen any relevant research that I can recall. It's idle speculation on my part. I'm not talking about eating a few hundred over maintenance: I'm talking about thousands over maintenance. Maybe it would even make a difference what was over-eaten, dunno.
I'd also make a distinction involving weight on the scale. The weight gain I see unavoidably includes water and disgestive contents. So, I've seen a "gain" of at least 4-5 pounds on the scale from one day to the next, even at my relatively moderate size (5'5", weight mid-130s pounds). On the flip side, I specifically recall "losing" 6 pounds from one morning weigh in to the next. Very nearly all of that is water & digestive contents.
Clearly, you're not going to gain more fat than the number of calories over (true, not estimated) maintenance calories, because you can't make something out of nothing.
So, I think the number of calories over (true) maintenance would be an upper limit on fat gain, but I don't know what the lower bound might be, or what mechanisms might shape it. It would be fun to know, but my interest in all of this is primarily practical, so knowing how my behavior affects my weight, short and long term, is the key thing, and n=1 experiments are helpful.
And I'll go back to the point of the thread: People on MFP regularly freak out over a day when they eat a few hundred or a thousand over their goal calories (without even giving thought to whether it's over their maintenance calories!). They shouldn't, as long as it's an isolated/rare thing (beyond figuring out why it happened, and adjusting plans going forward, if it wasn't a positive choice once they think it over). It's really no big deal, even it over maintenance calories . . . as long as it isn't a frequently recurring thing.
I can't think of any mechanism that would lead to a home-scaled-noticeable amount of muscle gain over a 24 hour period, nor any mechanism that would lose much muscle that fast (without surgery or some kind of horrifying medical condition). Consequently, I don't think it's even realistic/interesting to talk about muscle changes in terms of anything shorter than weeks. JMO.
Fun question you're asking, though.7 -
Great thread, really great
So here is a question I thought yesterday after eating 2000+ over maintenance calories yesterday. How much CAN you gain in one day? It know all about water and glycogen storage but I am wondering how many grams or muscle or fat can be gained in one day.
We all know 1 pound = 3500 calories...so let’s say we over eat by that number, how much actually becomes stored in our cells?
I assuming there is some research on this.
John
I don't know this for certain because I am not an expert but it is probably contained to the amount of fat you have eaten. So if in your single 3500 calorie over maintenance day you eat 120 grams of fat the most you would gain is about .25 pound but it is probably even a little less than that.
The results of my own overfeed was a little surprising to me. I did expect to gain more than .5 pound of the 2.22 I projected to gain by calorie. I knew I would not gain 2.22 but I figured half of that was possible since I ate so heavily not just for one day but for five.
My own theory is that the body doesn't shift gears that fast. I have been in a calorie deficit for a very long time with minimal breaks and I have had overfeed days on occasion but they have been regulated to normally no more than 1500 calories over maintenance.
For people losing I don't think the gain is the issue as much as the lack of loss. I erased a lot of deficit days in what I did. I was prepared for that to happen but it is not something I would do again anytime soon because it results in wasted effort. A little wasted effort is okay but that was quite a bit.5 -
I can't tell you how much I got out out of reading these posts...its funny how a bunch of complete strangers can make you feel so understood. We are all on a similar journey of health & fitness, all with our own challenges and unique circumstances. The shared knowledge and experiences are so helpful. I am always in a better mood when I am inspired. Thank you 14
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Great thread, really great
So here is a question I thought yesterday after eating 2000+ over maintenance calories yesterday. How much CAN you gain in one day? It know all about water and glycogen storage but I am wondering how many grams or muscle or fat can be gained in one day.
We all know 1 pound = 3500 calories...so let’s say we over eat by that number, how much actually becomes stored in our cells?
I assuming there is some research on this.
John
Maybe it's just my reading comprehension, but I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking.
When we over-eat, we don't necessarily store as many calories as one would think (the video posted up-thread, top of page 2, about the massive over-eating by a fit woman, goes into some of the details). Part of this is that some of us (don't know if all) unconsciously/unintentionally get more active/twitchy/hotter and burn a bit more than normal. I suspect this might be somewhat individual (probably there's a bell curve/normal distribution?). (I think that because some people seem to report significant TDEE increases as they go to maintenance calories, and others seem not to see much effect - but this could be about their attentiveness and logging accuracy, even if my perception of their self-reports is correct.)
There's an open question in my mind about whether it may be possible to eat in a quantity very much beyond what our individual body is accustomed to and have that result in our bodies passing more through than one might expect because of limitations in ability to absorb it fast enough. I don't recall the video talking about that, and I haven't seen any relevant research that I can recall. It's idle speculation on my part. I'm not talking about eating a few hundred over maintenance: I'm talking about thousands over maintenance. Maybe it would even make a difference what was over-eaten, dunno.
I'd also make a distinction involving weight on the scale. The weight gain I see unavoidably includes water and disgestive contents. So, I've seen a "gain" of at least 4-5 pounds on the scale from one day to the next, even at my relatively moderate size (5'5", weight mid-130s pounds). On the flip side, I specifically recall "losing" 6 pounds from one morning weigh in to the next. Very nearly all of that is water & digestive contents.
Clearly, you're not going to gain more fat than the number of calories over (true, not estimated) maintenance calories, because you can't make something out of nothing.
So, I think the number of calories over (true) maintenance would be an upper limit on fat gain, but I don't know what the lower bound might be, or what mechanisms might shape it. It would be fun to know, but my interest in all of this is primarily practical, so knowing how my behavior affects my weight, short and long term, is the key thing, and n=1 experiments are helpful.
And I'll go back to the point of the thread: People on MFP regularly freak out over a day when they eat a few hundred or a thousand over their goal calories (without even giving thought to whether it's over their maintenance calories!). They shouldn't, as long as it's an isolated/rare thing (beyond figuring out why it happened, and adjusting plans going forward, if it wasn't a positive choice once they think it over). It's really no big deal, even it over maintenance calories . . . as long as it isn't a frequently recurring thing.
I can't think of any mechanism that would lead to a home-scaled-noticeable amount of muscle gain over a 24 hour period, nor any mechanism that would lose much muscle that fast (without surgery or some kind of horrifying medical condition). Consequently, I don't think it's even realistic/interesting to talk about muscle changes in terms of anything shorter than weeks. JMO.
Fun question you're asking, though.
To honest in all my research I have never seen anything that stated weight gain per day. Muscle and fat is gained through eating, I really wonder how much per day can really be made part of our body (not water). People always talk over a few weeks they notice a gain, what would that equate to per day? I would assume a good chuck of over eating is expelled as waste but I bet that depends on the type of food you eat. For example red meat can sit in your digestive track for days....does mean it leads to more weight gain?
It’s like fitness. I train a ton, but even after 100 mile solo hard bike rides then next morning I am not sure if I have made even one real positive adaptation at a cellular level...4 -
I needed to see this post today, thank you! I have been over my calories most days for the past week (yesterday by 500+) and while I KNOW to get back on track and not beat myself up about it, sometimes easier said than done. Off to the gym!9
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Bump0
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I needed to see this post today, thank you! I have been over my calories most days for the past week (yesterday by 500+) and while I KNOW to get back on track and not beat myself up about it, sometimes easier said than done. Off to the gym!
I'm there with you! I just got over one setback (took me almost 2 weeks). This weekend I'm going to New Orleans, and want to enjoy all the things ... the sights, the sounds, the food, the drinks! Really don't want to derail again though ...ugh! Gonna just do the best I can, and get back in the saddle upon my return. Hoping for the best! Hugs to you!3 -
bjdavidson964 wrote: »I needed to see this post today, thank you! I have been over my calories most days for the past week (yesterday by 500+) and while I KNOW to get back on track and not beat myself up about it, sometimes easier said than done. Off to the gym!
I'm there with you! I just got over one setback (took me almost 2 weeks). This weekend I'm going to New Orleans, and want to enjoy all the things ... the sights, the sounds, the food, the drinks! Really don't want to derail again though ...ugh! Gonna just do the best I can, and get back in the saddle upon my return. Hoping for the best! Hugs to you!
Try to think of it as never leaving the saddle in the first place. Tell yourself that enjoying a trip like the one you are about to take is part of your plan.2 -
bjdavidson964 wrote: »I needed to see this post today, thank you! I have been over my calories most days for the past week (yesterday by 500+) and while I KNOW to get back on track and not beat myself up about it, sometimes easier said than done. Off to the gym!
I'm there with you! I just got over one setback (took me almost 2 weeks). This weekend I'm going to New Orleans, and want to enjoy all the things ... the sights, the sounds, the food, the drinks! Really don't want to derail again though ...ugh! Gonna just do the best I can, and get back in the saddle upon my return. Hoping for the best! Hugs to you!
Try to think of it as never leaving the saddle in the first place. Tell yourself that enjoying a trip like the one you are about to take is part of your plan.
I think the bolded is a great insight. Another person here said something like "there is no wagon, so you can't fall off it" - same kind of idea.
IMO, long term weight management is primarily about the habits we follow the overwhelming majority of the time forever, not so much about celebrations or indulgences that happen a few days in a year.8 -
Love it! Going to enjoy all the things ... in moderation! Gonna focus on 'maintaining' this weekend and get back to 'weight loss' mode afterwards.3
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Thank you all for this thread, it was precisely what I needed this morning 5
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BUMPITY bump bump2
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This is a great thread, thank you for the insight OP and everyone!5
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I am bookmarking this thread so that when and if I get to maintenance, I will remind myself to chill and not stress over daily fluctuations and enjoy the occasional food fests that make life fun! Thanks for the great info!
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Seems like this might be a good time to pre-emptively bump this thread, in the fond but probably quixotic hope that it will give people some reason not to freak out if they eat a little more than their goal, or their TDEE, or than is in any abstract sense really sensible, on US Thanksgiving.
Folks, it really isn't going to matter that much, if it's a rare thing, and you're on point the overwhelming majority of the time.
I've repeated the OP experiment, more or less, multiple times. Most recently, I went to a Friendsgiving dinner on Sunday, where I ate All The Things (well, all the vegetarian ones, but they weren't all low-cal at all, not even close), plus some wine. Probably 5000 calories for the day, around 2 x TDEE. Next day scale weight, up about 2 pounds. Days since have been normal eating/exercise (maintenance, tiny deficit (maybe 250 calories? maybe less?) because I calorie bank). By today, Wednesday, my AM weight was 0.2 pounds below the weight on the day before the big feast.
Moderation is a wonderful thing, and if you're shooting for that on US Thanksgiving, that's a great plan. But if you're not shooting for that, or you miss the target, stress about overage is totally optional. And stress can increase cortisol, and encourage water retention, so it's counterproductive. Just get back to your normal, healthy routine, and everything will be fine.
Happy US Thanksgiving!
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Happy Thanksgiving to our US friends
Unfortunately the refeed thing does have an impact on me. I'm not a binge eater, or do much over eating in general but if I have a few days of eating 500-600 calories over my TDEE I can expect to see that have an impact on the scales for up to 10 days and even then I will have some true fat gain (tiny gain but still a gain). I'm petite 5ft 2/50yrs and peri menopausal (that might be part of the issue). So I go back to deficit until the gain is gone, except it can take a month to lose. A few years ago I could go on a two week cruise, eat slightly above my TDEE every day for those 2 weeks, gain around 2lbs in fat and when I was back to normal eating for a few weeks my weight would be back to normal. Whatever is going on with my body now means this is no longer happening and it seems twice the effort is necessary. 1 -
LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Happy Thanksgiving to our US friends
Unfortunately the refeed thing does have an impact on me. I'm not a binge eater do much over eating in general but if I have a few days of eating 500-600 calories over my TDEE I can expect to see that have an impact on the scales for up to 10 days and even then I will have some true fat gain (tiny gain but still a gain). I'm petite 5ft 2/50 and peri menopausal (that might be part of the issue). I wouldn't like to see the results of what would happen if I were to manage to eat 5000 calories in one day...
I don't have data to demonstrate it, but subjectively it seems to me that several days of TDEE + 500 has a worse effect, for me, than one day of 2 x TDEE, i.e. that cumulative arithmetic doesn't work out exactly how I'd expect. Speculating wildly, I wonder if the bump to NEAT differs, or if there are absorption rate implications.
I don't think I'm a super-special snowflake, either: I've read others report similar things here about scale implications of a short big overage.
I'm postmenopausal, if that matters. And I don't think what I'm reporting here is technically binge eating, in psychological terms, either, BTW: Neither compulsive nor uncontrollable, just hedonic. Not that the psychology matters to the scale impact, though.
Regardless of the biology or math, I think it's common for people here to react disproportionately, in emotional terms, to a one-day major calorie excess, possibly because of the big next-day scale jump and how our brains process correlation. If the emotional reaction turns into a sense of failure, increasing odds of giving up the weight loss effort altogether, that's obviously counterproductive. I'm encouraging "let it go, keep going, see what happens in a week or so, don't do it often", instead.5
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