[GlamourGirl827]

I wanted some opinions on what might be going on.

On Friday, I went off plan....way off plan. Ate tons of carbs / food, including pizza. Yikes! Anyway that morning before all this I was 187.4.

Saturday morning, I was 188.4 and I was grateful not to have put on a lot more weight mainly in water weight and all that food in my system. Saturday I stayed on plan and exercised.

Sunday I was 189.4 I'm not sure why I saw a gain 2 days later, but I figured it was from Friday, so I stayed on plan and exercised.

Now this morning I'm still 189.4

And I'm getting discoraged. So then the will to stay on plan and exercise starts to disappear because I start thinking "for what?" One mess up and I'm being punished for days?

TOM is still about a week and a half away, I think, since mine is pretty irregular.

Anyone have this after over eating? I ate a lot but I know I did not consume 3500 extra cals on Friday.

[Rosinante]

"punished" might not be quite the word but otherwise: Yes, you're right; we can feel the effects of unwise eating for quite a few days afterwards. Unless you did eat an extra 3500 calories (or 7000 to allow for the second lb up) - and you Know you didn't! - then it's likely to be "only" mostly water as your body reacts to the kind of stuff you ate. Not so much the quantity but the kind. All those carbs.

Don't get downhearted! It's not fat, it's "just" weight. I know we don't need any extra weight, wherever it comes from but if you stick with your Plan and your Water, plenty of water, the extra weight will wash away pretty quickly.

As to gaining on consecutive days, despite being on plan but after a carbcrash ~ I call it the Stopping the Queen Mary Syndrome: When they want the ship to stop, they put on the brakes or engines astern or whatever but she doesn't stop immediately, she is carried along by her own momentum for some distance before stopping. Same with this kind of weight gain: you've stuck on the brakes but the momentum of the carbs has carried your bodyweight forward a ways.

Two certainties:
1. I you stay on plan, your QM Will stop, and you'll start losing again.
2. If you get disheartened and go off plan, she won't.

[Ruthxxx]

Great analogy, Rosinante. I'm going to file that response away for future reference.

[Cat86]

On Wednesday, I weighed in at 137.8. I ended up having a dreadful 2 days and by Friday my weight was up to 139.8. But today, after a weekend of hard work at the gym and really watching what I've eaten, I'm now down to 136. Stick in there, you'll probably drop the extra water weight relatively quickly, and maybe a bit more!
Good luck!
Cat

[seagirl]

Are you on a plan that is sustainable? If you start thinking "why am I doing this?" after a gain, that may be a sign that "this" is not sustainable.

I do Weight Watchers. I eat a certain way. It fuels my body and makes me feel good. The weeks I've had small losses or even a gain, it never once dawned on me to go back to how I used to eat. That was how I got fat.

Veering off plan is what you should be saying "why bother?" to. Not the healthy food and exercise. Was the extra food worth it? Can you eat it next time in smaller amounts?

[GlamourGirl827]

Thank you everyone for your support. Rosinante, that was a great analogy, and the 2 points at the end were very helpful. I need to keep QM in mind when I feel like things should immediately be fixed after a carb fest.

Seagirl, you made a really got me thinking. I dont know if what I'm doing is sustainable. It should be. I see a lot of people on this board that simply dont eat processed carbs. I think what I follow is lower carb. I dont count carbs from veggie (not startchy, but other veggies, I watch the starchy ones) I also will eat beans and occasionally nuts. And I will a few times a week have a wholoe grain bread, say with lunch. But I dont eat any white sugar, flour, ect. It just triggers a binge. But then after weeks of not eating anything like that I begon to think "Why cant I have some goldfish, or crackers?? I dont want to go the rest of my life without ever eating them again."

And then I do eat some and eat and eat, because its a forbidden food, so its like I want to eat as much as I can before I "cut myself off" from it again.

I really need to re-evaluate my eating plan, to prevent this.

[shcirerf]

Hang in there. It sometimes takes the body several days to make adjustments for what you put in it.

I'm a WW as well, and I can't deal with the forbidden food thing. Those foods that are not as good for a person, I still indulge in now and then. I just make sure I can really enjoy it, not mindlessly eat, and watch the portion, and of course, I plan for it.

I know some can't do that, but saying I can never have another cracker, just wouldn't work for me.

[Heather]

I like that Queen Mary analogy too!

Another way to think of it is this. This is a thought experiment! Get on a scale and weigh yourself. Weigh out a pound of food. Eat the food and weigh yourself again right away. You should weigh one pound more -- you plus the weight of the food!! Again, thought experiment only! Please don't eat a pound of food!

Now, what happens to the food? It has to be digested, processed, and eventually, the waste eliminated. Depending on what kind of food it was, different things might happen -- fat might be created, etc -- but the whole process can take a few days.

So, when we first eat food, we weigh more from the weight of that food! Later, fat might be added, but that takes a while. In the meantime, all sorts of other things are going on (you eliminate older food, eat new food...)

Anyway, not as elegant as the QM example... but maybe a little helpful...

[carter]

Sometimes my weight fluctuates by as much as two pounds up (or more) even when I am completely on plan. Going off and on plan is practically asking for bounces and fluctuations.

Fluctuations are part of this process for many of us - you have to take a longer view than one day or one week, and look at changes in your weight averaged over several weeks and months of consistent, on-plan eating.

Try not to let fluctuations discourage you so much. I think seagirl hit the nail on the head - take a look at why you are veering on and off plan, and why you are tempted to go off plan just because you had a small fluctuation.

[KlasseMutti]

I do the same thing to myself. I eat so much one day then I check my weight the next day and it goes up, and I expect that, so We are better off NOT checking our weight for an extra FEW days, maybe a week, you will see that it goes down as long as you stick to your routine of eating habits. Best of luck!

[Ultreos]

I drink a gallon of water every day, some days in the morning, I wake up, weigh myself, and I weigh 221 pounds, despite the fact I know I am 214. My body does not always expel all the water I drink right away, nor does it get rid of all the food waste over the same period of time.

Sometimes to such an extent my body will hold on to nearly all 8 pounds of that gallon of water I drank despite having gone to the bathroom repeatedly.

I guess what I'm saying is, you see a two pound fluctuation right now, you're probably just fine, because the only way you will get truly accurate is essentially by not eating until you are pretty sure all the waste in your body is gone... And that isn't very easy to accomplish.

So relax, take some time away from the scale, and focus, bet you'll see that number return to what it was, if not lower in no time.

[stacygee]

[QUOTE=GlamourGirl827;3657769] But then after weeks of not eating anything like that I begon to think "Why cant I have some goldfish, or crackers?? I dont want to go the rest of my life without ever eating them again."
QUOTE]

You can do it until you reach your goal...then once you reach your goal you can have anything in moderation.

[mascara blue]

haha I am in exactly the same situation! I went way off the plan on saturday night and all of sunday. gained 2.5 kg and was really good yesterday but only lost 0.5kg. Which upsets me to no end mostly because 1- its so easy to gain but so hard to lose and 2- i dont think about the **** i go through afterwards to lose the weight, when i am eating all the forbidden food. Because if I stop and think about it, surely I wouldnt eat it!! BUt somehow I dont remember the time it takes to lose it when I am eating!

[rachael]

I weighed 3 pounds more a day after eating something low cal, acceptable, and high in sodium. It took several days to go away. It sucks, but it happens.

[Deena52]

The underlying physiologic cause for this is fluctuations in fluid balance...esp. when suddenly changing what we've been eating or significantly increasing calories suddenly. And it works both ways, the body will often dump fluid initially when we start a new eating plan....and what shows on the scale for a week or so can just be fluid loss....why we can gain it all back in a heartbeat when we go off plan. Or....it can hold on to fluid for a certain period of time...making it look deceptively like we suddenly gained 8 lbs. overnight....which is not really possible....and why we can weigh one thing in the morning and a have a completely different weight in the afternoon....or the evening.

This whole fluid balance phenomenon can be a huge pitfall for those who are on maintenance. What can happen is that one day we eat off plan....and the next day, we have not gained or might have even lost. And we begin to think we can get away with this.....but after doing it several times, we actually DO start to see the lbs. go up on the scale and this time they stay and ARE true weight gain.....and it is critical to get a handle on this ASAP...as this is how people gain all their weight back. It's a spiral and MUST be stopped quickly.

It is really helpful to realize that what the scale shows often takes a few days to become correct....whether it's weight gained or weight lost. And one of the worst things we can do is to get an upsetting reading that causes us to spiral down even further due to anger and frustration.

If you hang in there and try to stick with the plan as much as possible, you will begin to learn and expect your body's particular fluctuations and will have confidence that it will show on the scale....but that it might not be until a few days later.

deena