For the past week or so I've really been struggling to stay committed to eating within my calorie range (I'm a calorie counter, my limit is 1750 as I'm a nursing mother). Last night I pretty much lost control and had a huge binge, lasting all evening. I won't say on what because I don't want to trigger any cravings for anyone, but let's just say that it was on absolute junk with little to no nutritional value.

I weigh in daily. Yesterday morning I was 141.0. This morning I was 139.2! My weight fluctuates of course, but I had been battling 141.6-141.0 for maybe 2 weeks or so, and my progress has slowed down significantly. The last thing I expected to see this morning was 130-something, and I was quite surprised.

I don't know what could have accounted for the 1.8 pound overnight drop after having such a bad binge. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the scale didn't go up 1.8, I'm just wondering how the heck that happened!

Anyone have any experiences like that? Ones that just don't seem to make sense? Thoughts?

That has happened to me before. I can't explain it, but I don't think it's a fluke. Though... binging normally will lead to bad things and most likely if you wouldn't have binged, you would have seen an even larger drop on the scale, but sometimes just as I'm having a big weight drop, the cravings kick in... It's very odd.

I think sometimes your body just needs the extra food/calories and doesn't really care where they come from. I have nothing scientific to back that up, just my experience.

The only problem I personally have with it is that it creates a false security in my head like, "I ate a bag of Doritos and lost a pound but last week I ate a bag of spinach and gained 1/2 a pound." Maybe the loss and gain would have been the same but mentally I would dream about Doritos and evil eye the spinach now!

You have accomplished so much and look so great in your current pictures, try and get back on track if you can. I wouldn't want you to compromise your awesome success! Congrats on the 130s!!!

I hear of this happening so often on this forum...but somehow i'm guessing those people aren't talking about 5000 calorie binges. Maybe more like 500 extra calories. So i'm going to try to remember this the next time i go over my calories! Out with the black and white thinking! Instead of thinking "i went over by 500, might as well eat the whole box of cookies...and go out and buy ice cream," i'm going to tell myself "an extra 500 is no big deal, if you stop now you may even LOSE weight."

I've experienced both an unexpected loss after eating more than usual and a re-gain that happens a day or two later rather than the very next day.

Fingers crossed for you that it was the first and not the second! But either way, just get right back on track and keep going!

I have things like this happen all the time... So in my never ending battle to make peace with the "scale" I just keep a running average of my weights for the last 7 days and I'm happy if I stay within a 4lb range of that "average"... So a couple of lbs up or a couple of lbs down... most of the time it makes sense, but sometimes it doesn't... But at least this way I can sort of keep things in some sort of perspective...

I have had it but then the weight does not go down for some time afterwards. I guess it can cause me to briefly plateau.