How much have you put on weight wise after cheat night?

equidivine
equidivine Posts: 101 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Iv done well last 2 months
Lost 1 stone 11lb
Hit 11 stone Tuesday
Walk 5000-10,000 steps a day
Had a cheat night
Had bottle of barefoot rose
Curry from Indian so tikka masala tikka bites cottage cheese in sauce 1 poppadom and finished with bar of chocolate

Iv put on like 5lbs 😭 I’m intrigued how much others have put on and how long to lose it again. Feel so sad 😞 it’s like 5 weeks to lose the 5 lb and put it on in 1 day

Replies

  • sarahneverquits
    sarahneverquits Posts: 5 Member
    That sounds about right. LOL there was a recent encounter with some tacos and chips and salsa and soda and well, it is what it is.

    I will say for me, weight gained due to an indulgence comes off fast. It’s usually salt, carbs, water weight, and waste. I don’t do anything different, but just hop back on track and make sure to drink water. It goes back down in a few days and usually doesn’t hang on.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited March 2023
    I'd be surprised if you gained more than half a pound from last night, once the dust settles after a few days. It's mostly water weight from the carb surge (each gram of glycogen adds three grams of water), and waste product working through your system. You'll have burned more calories than normal in the last 24 hours processing it all, and probably burned more with NEAT and higher body temp.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    Jeez, I can't even remember the highest number. It was for sure multiple pounds, even at a light body weight (after most of my weight loss, so not when I was obese, but later when in the healthy range).

    Equally for sure, what you're seeing on the scale is mostly water weight and digestive contents on their way to becoming waste. It's not fat, unless you ate that 17,500 calories above maintenance, so it's not worth catastrophizing about. Stress burns no extra calories, y'know?

    For me, the weirdness can take a week or two to resolve on the scale, but it happens. It may be on the longer side for women who have menstrual cycle weight fluctuations.

    Can I suggest you read this thread, if you haven't (and especially read the article linked in the first post there):

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

    Very informative, probably calming.

    This might also be amusing for you to read (it's an n=1 personal case study I posted some time back):

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10603949/big-overfeed-ruins-everything-nope#latest

    It'll be OK. Just get back on your healthy routine, and things will turn out fine, I predict.
  • ruqayyahsmum
    ruqayyahsmum Posts: 1,513 Member
    7lb
    Went from low carb to eating alllllllll the carbs (pizza, fries, pasta, desserts) highly salted foods at that and alcohol
    Hopped straight back on it next day
    After a week it had all gone with an extra pound
    It's just water retention from the salt plus extra food weight in my stomach/bowels
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,205 Member
    5 pounds up on the scale in one night is not five pounds of fat. you still have some of that excess food in your intestines, and it has weight. you probably retained some water / got bloated, which will also make the number of up. there are lots of reasons for your WEIGHT to change without your fat changing
  • ToadstoolBetty
    ToadstoolBetty Posts: 292 Member
    It's a temporary gain.
    When you weigh yourself you are seeing a gain or loss due to what you are 2 or 3 days earlier.
    Unless you have a thyroid condition which can cause a big gain of fluid.
    A friend has this problem and if she eats salty food like gammon the next day she can easily so heavier my an about like 5lb or more because the salt has caused water to build up.
    This is also why weight ourselves everyday unless you have a reason like a health condition isn't a good idea and weighing weekly can be better.
    I've gained and lost one day to the next and can pin point the gain to at least a couple of days before when I over ate.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I don't consider corned beef and cabbage a cheat meal, but a yearly celebration of my Irish heritage. But now I wish I'd weighed myself the morning after, because it was super salty (and fatty) (and delicious) and I'm curious. If I remember, will weigh tomorrow AM.
  • Kiwi2mfp
    Kiwi2mfp Posts: 166 Member
    edited March 2023
    The wine likely dehydrated you. With slight dehydration the body holds on to water. In later stages of dehydration the water disappears but then you are highly dehydrated. Salty foods added onto that will make the water retention even worse. I would suggest drinking lots of water daily (64 ounces at least) and getting right back on your diet. It should fall off within days. I had a bad week last week (fibromyalgia flare that zapped my care away) but certainly didn't eat 14,000 calories over maintenance but I gained 4 pounds in a day. Over 2 days of drinking my water again, 3 pounds have fallen off. I suspect another pound or more tomorrow. My wedding/ engagement rings started falling off despite my "weight gain" when they weren't falling off before. Water weight is not fun but it's temporary.
  • noodlesno
    noodlesno Posts: 113 Member
    So I had a similar thread a while ago as I wanted to know what number most people would expect after a night/day of indulgence.

    I went all out at an event and these were my results

    So the results are in. Sorry I was too hungover to weigh the day after

    Thursday Event Day - 197.8lbs
    Saturday (2 days after) - 199.2lbs (+1.5lbs up)
    Monday (4 days after) - 196.4lbs (+1.4lbs down from the event)

    I did not hold back on the evening with drinks and a three-course meal. The next day, as planned, I returned to my deficit of 1800kcals and dragged myself to the gym as usual. And similar for the rest of the weekend. I did go out for dinner on Saturday but did not drink and pretty sure I held within the calories as I was tracking best I could.


    I am sure if I wasn't so hungover I couldn't lift my head up let alone stand on a scale I would have been 4/5lbs up. So hopefully this gives you a bit of hope. Just go back to your deficit and the water weight from the wine and salt in the curry should come right off.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    OP, it's been five days presumably since the splurge. Update on weight?
  • klepregnancy
    klepregnancy Posts: 7 Member
    Recently had this question myself haha. I had a cheat on Sunday and woke up 3 lbs heavier. Now 3 days later, I’m only 1 lb heavier. In the past though, I would often be 2-5 lbs heavier the next day.
  • equidivine
    equidivine Posts: 101 Member
    Sorry late updating took me 2 weeks to get it off did go up 6 lbs in total. Then I got I’ll with flu and couldn’t eat for 2 days then back to keto. Did manage to lose all the weight and some around 4lb extra off but was my birthday last week and seriously overdid the weekend. Back up 5 lbs again 🙈 I also had like 3 weeks of a cold as caught 3 strait after one another.
    Keto seems to be only thing that works for me defo feel carbs and sugar pile on weight for me.
    I have read you should take 1-2 weeks break as I have been dieting for 4 months now. Have lost 1 stone 10 lbs since January. Not sure I could eat for whole week as felt so I’ll after eating carbs and sugar.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    I still feel like you're over-reacting to water weight, TBH. For most of us, when we want to "lose weight", what we really want to lose is body fat.

    Multi-pound quick gains (or losses) over a day or two are almost always primarily about water retention shifts, sometimes with an assist from variable food residue in the digestive tract that's on its way to becoming waste. Yes, it can take a week or two to drop off again sometimes.

    Fat loss - even fast fat loss - is a gradual thing, a small number of ounces or a few dozen grams per day. If we lose 2 pounds of fat a week (fast), that's about 4.5 ounces a day - just over a quarter of a pound. If we lose a kilogram a week, it's about 143 grams a day. That's going to show up on the scale in weight trends over multiple weeks, not reliably quicker. (It can be even weirder for adult women not in menopause yet.)

    Muscle mass gain - mentioning this only for completeness - is many many weeks to months to see a clear scale impact.

    The inescapable conclusion is that water retention shifts are going to confuse the heck out of scale weight results in the short term. Over-reacting to that leads some people to adopt strategies that manipulate water weight, but that potentially can make fat loss more difficult (if the strategies are restrictive and difficult to stick to).

    To gain 5 pounds of fat, we have to eat around 17,500 calories over maintenance calories - not just over weight loss goal calories, over maintenance calories. Anyone who's calorie counting - even rough estimating - has a clue whether they did that over the course of a weekend or something. If they didn't, the 5 pounds isn't fat. It can't be. There's no way to gain more weight than is in the energy content of the food.

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