cheat days and discouragement
lane220
Posts: 11 Member
Hi everyone, i’ve been on a good diet and exercise regimen for about 3 months now. i’m doing absolutely great progress wise, but this weekend I had some friends over and I ATE SO MUCH FOOD. i’d say over 2k calories on both days. so I definitely get it if I gained 1-2 actual pounds. Yet, when i weigh myself, it shows I have gained 5 pounds, close to 6. I’m scared because it was literally only two days of bad eating, tomorrow I go straight back to my diet and exercise schedule... but after seeing the scale (which, in turn, makes me see myself as HUGE in the mirror), i’m really discouraged. is this normal and real? how long will it take me to lose all that weight again, it took me so long already.
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Replies
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It’s normal. Don’t stress. I’m bn 118-120 and I can go up 5-7 pounds from having carbs, alcohol, cheese...it takes me a good 3-5 days to drop back down.7
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Odds are, along with extra calories, you had more salt than usual and more carbs. Both will make you retain water. Don't worry about it. It will be gone in a week. Just start over tonight.8
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Its normal, it's not fat, it'll come off in usually a few days, maybe a week or two at most.
There are 3500 calories in one pound of fat. So you have to eat that much over your maintenance level to gain fat. What you gained was a ton of digested and undigested food, all of which is holding onto several pounds of water.
Drink lots of water and you'll see it flush away in a little while.5 -
Like others said, it's largely water weight and extra digestive contents (waste to be) still in transit in your digestive tract. It's no big deal. From my experience, I think a rare and unusual very high consumption day or two may not even result in the fat gain you'd expect from the number of calories above your maintenance calories.
Do you mean you at 2000 calories each day in total, or that many more than your usual weight loss goal, or that many over your maintenance? Even in the most extreme case (that it was 2000 calories over and above current maintenance calories for 2 days), that's just a little over a pound of fat (3500 calories in pound, roughly, so just a little over 1.1 pounds, at the outside).
You might find this (below) entertaining to read: It's a detailed description of a super indulgent weekend during which I ate more than twice my maintenance calories for two days, with calorie estimates and scale weights, plus the length of time it took to re-normalize.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10603949/big-overfeed-ruins-everything-nope#latest
No need to stress. It might take a little longer for you (or go a little quicker), but everything will be fine, as long as you get back to your healthy routine. No need to game it or make up for it in any way - just go back to your routine, truly.
I hope it was a fun weekend, by the way!
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I agree with all the above comments. For me, it's usually 5 days of being back on plan to fully dispense with the water weight of a gorge-fest. I've been up as much as 12-13 pounds in a single day after serious binging, but all (or most of it) is gone in 5 days. Definitely within 7 days it's all gone and there's new weight loss. Just get back on the horse and move on.4
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As long as you didn’t go over your weekly calorie goal you’ll find it’s not fat but temporary water weight1
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Your biggest enemy the day after a time of overeating is not the number on the scale but your BRaIN! There are always going to be weekends of overindulgence. All these feelings of guilt and fatness are not healthy and need to be reeled in by actual rational thoughts of MaTh! The most damage any of us will usually do is maybe gain a pound (probably not even that if we actually take time to calculate the numbers) so the worst case scenario is that we would have to lose that pound twice. We're not in a race anyway. This is for the rest of our lives so there's always going to be times we celebrate with food and pounds we have to lose more than once. No biggie...just keep chugging along and don't sweat the small stuff!3
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I believe it's normal and you will lose it back in no time. just don't weigh yourself every day. I do this when I reach a plateau. I have a crazy carb day then go back to my diet and start losing weight again. Keep it up.0
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Totally normal and most of that is water weight. Give it a week or so to come back down. It’s really not a big deal. Remember it takes 3500 over your maintenance calories to gain 1 pound. You certainly didn’t enough in two days to actually gain 5-6 lbs.1
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One take-out Chinese meal and I gain 4 pounds within 48 hours of eating it even if I haven't overeaten by thousands of calories. It then takes about 6 days to pee it back out.1
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