Hey yall so yesterday I had a off day..ate a bunch of food..anyways im up today on the scale as i expected.. 3.6 pounds..i know its not my real weight..mostly sodium and what not...well i know my body pretty well and ill be at my real weight in a good solid five days but i was thinking that probably if i restrict my cals by a few hundred I could probably get back to my weight in about 3 days and then go back to my normal routine..so what im asking is yall think I should do this? Or just wait it out the next few days. I'll still be exercising the same as I normal do..but instead of eating anywhere between 1300-1500 like i normally would im thinking of doing 1200 calories..so should i cut back a lil just to shave off maybe a day or two of waiting to see my real number on the scale?
Don't get so hung up on the number on the scale. You said yourself that you know it's just water weight, so just go about your business, and keep on keepin' on. You will get there eventually, so why be hungry just to flush water? Drink more water and then some more water. And don't eat any more of whatever it was that packed on 3.6 pounds of water weight in one day. Relaaaaaxxxxxx.....
I agree with the previous posters... I wouldn't change anything, well besides eating what you ate to pack on the 3.6 pounds, just stick to what you were doing before. It might even be a good thing, give you a little boost once those pounds drop.
I find after bad days, if I replace my carb calories with lean protein calories, i tend to lose the water weight faster. It helps me because after I eat badly (and for me that means lots of chocolates and cakes) the next day I crave sugar something crazy. replacing my toast with ff yogurt or cheese or egg helps me stabilise my blood sugar and makes the craving go away but also lowering the carb makes my body let go of the excess water. But definitely keep to your calories because if you lower it too much post badness, it can lead to more off plan eating.
If I gain something back due to high sodium I just suck it up and know it could take up to a week before it comes back down, don't change your calorie intake, just boost up your water intake and reduce your sodium.
..i kinda did lower my calories intake but only by 50-100 calories and have drank MAJOR water..and im now only 1.2 up and today is the end of the third day so hopefully by Sunday morning ill be all good thanks for your responses!
I find that trying to "catch up" by cutting calories more drastically tends to backfire (I get extra hungry and find it hard not to binge).
However, I do sometimes cut back a little further on carbs (but keep calories about the same) for a few days in order to get rid of extra water weight.
It doesn't really change true weight loss all that much, but it really does seem to help with water weight, especially TOM and restaurant/sodium water weight. A little water weight isn't really that important in the scheme of things, but severe water retention makes me feel sluggish and sore, so after a high sodium restaurant meal, or during TOM I find it helpful to decrease my carb intake to help encourage the water loss.
Most of the time, I find that even a very large gain from a very large restaurant meal usually is mostly (or even entirely) water weight gain. I could "wait it out," but it's less stressful to get rid of it in 3 days as opposed to 7.
I sort of look at it like this is what is gonna happen when you go into maintenance. You will eat less conciously probably and go back to holding onto waterweight more than you do during weightloss mode. So in the end, it is your 'real' weight. That's why in the end I'll aim for a goalweight that's about 3lbs lighter than what I'd like to see on the scale on a weekly/daily basis. So there's room for waterweight to come back.
Anyhow. That's not an answer to your question, or maybe it is. Just saying, don't worry. Your body is gonna do that anyhow. Unless you decide to NEVER eat processed/carby stuff again. I guess in a way it's good, because the scale will always tell you if you ate stuff your body ain't too comfortable with. Hihi.
Just go back on plan. I have had some off days lately, but if you over focus on that glitch you won't be able to get back on plan because you will feel so bad. learn from the experience and move on
Should I cut back on cals for a couple days?
