So for 3 of the past 4 days I've had a friend over that I don't see very often. We did some "fun" things that I don't usually get to do, which included eating out a lot, ordering pizza and going to a fair. So I admittedly ate pretty badly on these days. I was so sure I would regret my actions when it came to getting back on the scale, especially since I've been doing so well when it comes to sticking to my plan all these months. However, I noticed something odd.

Each and every one of these days(I weighed myself the following morning on each of these days) I not only didn't gain any weight as result, but I actually LOST weight, according to my scale. Not a lot of weight, but it went from say 182.8 to 182.2 from the following day(the one I binged on). How on earth can this be? I'll use last night as an example, I completely "binged" in comparision to what I usually eat. I had a cheeseburger for lunch. Then that night I had 3 pieces of pizza hut pizza with pepperoni on them, like 3 breadsticks with sauce and 2 cinnamon sticks with icing. I also had some alcohol, mostly those sugary wine cooler types without much alcohol, but I had quite a few. I also had absolutely NO exercise.

How is it physically possible to lose weight after this when I've been living off 1200-ish calories and exercising daily and I've been stuck at the same weight for 2 weeks??? I just found this to be very odd. I mean, I am thankful that it didn't hurt my weight loss, but still baffled. And this wasn't just one day, it was 3 different days of fairly bad eating followed by a small weight loss. What is up with this?

Sometimes, you won't see the effect it has until a few days later. Also, I have found that I need to vary my intake to sort of jumpstart my system and not get it used to the exact same amount of calories every day. It might be that you needed a variation.

At 5'8" and 182lbs, 1200 calories is SUPER low to be living off of. It's possible that your body was in "starvation mode" and holding on to as much fat as possible (thus, why you were stalled for two weeks). You ate higher calories for a few days, popping your body out of starvation mode and it was willing to let go of fat again--that's my theory. I'd maybe re-evaluate the 1200 calories/day thing.

That "Starvation Mode" thing is a myth. Your body does not "hold on" to fat, but when you drastically reduce your calories, your metabolism does slow way down.

I didn't really look at your stats before, but I agree that 1200 is low for 5'8" and weighing in the 180s.

I've always considered "starvation mode" as being when your body perceives it's not getting enough calories to support daily functions (the requirements of your RMR/BMR) and as a result, slows your metabolism way down over time. Slow metabolism, cannibalization of lean body mass (thus slowing the metabolism down even more), etc. If your metabolism is low and your body is cannibalizing muscle tissue in order to protect fat stores, I think of it as holding on to fat.

At least that's how I understand it? I don't eat below my RMR/BMR to attempt to prevent the metabolic backlash (for me, that's 1500 calories/day).

Trust me, it'll catch up with you!

It's like everyone very rightly says on here to folk, *so, you've been eating 1400cals a day and working out like a fiend for a fortnight and lost nothing...don't worry, it'll show on the scale!*

Works other way round too, unfortunately!

Emily
xxx

I understand what you are saying. I typically go about 2 weeks on a strict diet, and then end up binging a day, and I have found that it actually aids in my weight loss. I have looked this up, and found that most dieters have better luck if they allow themselves a cheat day or a couple per week. It does boost your metabolism and gives some relief.