i’ve been keeping a log of calories in/out and have steadily seen my weight decrease (roughly .2-.3 lb’s per day). however, when i have my weekly cheat meal on friday night, my weight jumps as much as 2.5 lb’s the next morning. this clearly can’t be possible, as even eating whatever i want for one meal doesn’t take me anymore than 1000 calories over my recommended daily allotment. my question then, is why how can one meal cause my the scale to show a 2.5 lb increase in one day after a week of very disciplined eating?
I would suggest weighing yourself only once a week at the same time or you will just drive yourself nuts. My weight will fluctuate during the week by as much as 5 lbs, but I track my weight by weighing myself every Saturday morning before my long run.
It’s water weight.
I recommend weighing yourself every morning after peeing. If you weigh yourself throughout the day, you’ll see weight fluctuate a lot.
Weighing yourself every day and looking for long term trends is the best way to go. The more data points you have, the easier it is to spot trends. If you weighed yourself only once a week, it might be 1-2 months before any pattern emerged.
2.5 lb’s of water weight from one meal?
I’ve done both, and I find weighing daily works for me best me. So long as I’m eating well and weighing myself under the same parameters every morning, I find the small but constant weight loss to be highly motivational. When I’m weighing myself weekly, I find it’s easier to lose discipline because I can rationalize that I don’t have to face the scale for 3 more days and thus have time to make up for any slippage.
Sure, your weight throughout the day should fluctuate by a few pounds even without a big meal. That’s one of the reasons you should weigh yourself at the same time of day with the same hydration and feeding levels (typically second thing in the morning).
I think the best thing for your sanity is to remember that there is no weird magic going on. Just stuff in your body that weighs something.
Water is the most likely cause. 1 litre at sea level is worth 2.2lbs (I think).
I reckon I can shit a pound too!
I’m in the middle project to optimize my w/kg to get ready for the mountain races and can relate. It has been a very slow process, but otherwise you’re just dehydrating and/or digging a hole into your energy reserves so you have crappy workouts. My protocol is to check weight/body fat in the AM and after work every day. The “driving yourself batty with the scale” idea misses the mark. If the goal is to lose weight, in needs to be in your face every day. Not like a crazy person, but if it is important you need to know the truth. Riding every workout except one/wk with a power meter would be kind of silly as well. Almost without exception the weight and body fat will go up and down, respectively during the course of the day, but the trend is what is important. Outliers will occur, but 3-4 days of trending in a bad direction is probably not good. Also I’ve noticed the day after a huge ride the weight will be a bit higher, but it usually comes back down even lower in a couple of days. Few other things I’ve noticed:
- Fuel during every workout, don’t finish workouts in panic-stricken mode ready to eat a box of captain crunch.
- I switched to green tea (2-3 cups/day) from coffee, it seemed to reduce the sugar cravings. Also, learn to just survive for ~20 min of low blood sugar, you get used to it and it becomes easier to weather the storm.
- Eating a almond butter samich ~2hrs before dinner helped to keep the beast a bay.
- Starting each dinner with a big ass salad or bowl of soup gets you eating, but it slows you down enough to reach the feeling by the time the entree is complete.
- After dinner I go by the growling tummy rule. If I hear rumbling, it is time for a cookie & milk (otherwise it is hard to sleep). if not, to bed.
i’ve been keeping a log of calories in/out and have steadily seen my weight decrease (roughly .2-.3 lb’s per day). however, when i have my weekly cheat meal on friday night, my weight jumps as much as 2.5 lb’s the next morning. this clearly can’t be possible, as even eating whatever i want for one meal doesn’t take me anymore than 1000 calories over my recommended daily allotment. my question then, is why how can one meal cause my the scale to show a 2.5 lb increase in one day after a week of very disciplined eating?
Do you eat regularly to maintain a high metabolism? Barring various rare medical issues calories in versus calories out will dictate weight. Fluctuations as your body deals with whatever it deals with will happen though. It is not a computer. Ignore major peaks and troughs and focus on your averages.
Glycogen (storage carbohydrate) can carry up to 4x it’s weight in water, so you’ve got to account for that, along with the fact that most people’s cheat meals include more sodium than usual, which can also add water retention.
Don’t worry, you’ll sweat it out in the next day’s workout. If you’re really concerned, just hit the sauna or steam room. Or you’re a glutton for punishment, you could combine the two!
Good luck,
Ben Greenfield
2.5 lbs in one meal is easy - I see that all the time in my weight - I actually fluctuate 5 or more per day.
A gallon of water weighs ~8.35 lbs, or a little more than 15 (liquid) oz. per pound.
One 32oz. gatorade plus 8 oz. of food > 2.5 lbs. That’s not even a big or salty meal, where it could be a lot more.
I disagree with this. How can you possibly tell that you lost .2 lbs in a day? So many variables. When was your last workout? Weather during the workout. Hot, cold, humidity. What you ate, how you hydrated, did you swim, bike or run?..the list goes on.
Once a week sets a baseline, if your “trending” the wrong way you would notice in a week or two. I lost 35 lbs with that approach. I think once you experience what your body feels like during weight loss, you can kind of tell. Just my opinion. Results may vary.
The Tanita scale can measure down to .3 # I believe and although it’s not perfect- one can generally tell with all the data you get if you are swinging with water weight or real fat loss.
what pacificfit said ^
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If your “cheat meal” is high in sodium that can also be a factor. Excess sodium makes you retain water. For weight loss you can safely cut around 500 calories a day. If you have a net loss of 500 calories/day it works out to be a loss of 2 lbs a week I think. Just don’t go too low and cut your nutrients short.
a deficit of 500 calories a day will lose a POUND a week
3500 calories = 1 pound
And for most athletes, a 200-300 cal deficit is good to aim for so you don’t lose too much energy to work out.
This is why 7 day moving average taken at same time every day is the key metric
But… the answer to your question is water retention from the crazy amount of salt (I bet)
Like everyone else said, but it could also just be the weight of the food itself. If I do a recovery day and only eat veggies in the evening (rare, but sometimes) I will often weigh lighter in the morning. If I put in a big effort, but rehydrated well and ate alot, I may weigh 2-3 pounds more the next morning. I often eat a half pound of steamed broc, half pound or more of pasta and rice, along with a little meat and/or sauce. So my dinner could weigh 2 pounds, not even counting any extra water weight.
And I thought I was obsessive! 
-Physiojoe
I think what I’m ultimately curious about isn’t whether I’ve gained back any of the previous week’s weight loss after a cheat meal/day, it’s whether I actually lost the weight in the first place, or whether it was water weight, etc.
Thanks for all of the replies!
you can’t really tell that day to day - why you need to look at averages over at least a week
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Better yet, see if you can get yourself DXA scanned or your hands on hydrostatic weighing methods. Then when you think you have actually lost weight, get scanned again and see if your BF% goes down. Some universities would be willing, just call around.