Sudden Weight Drop

I just went on a 6 day road trip, and decided I was just going to cut loose and have fun and not worry about what I ate or working out for 6 days. I figured it would be a change of pace that would have me come back super motivated and rested.

So, instead of my normal 5-6 high protein meals I ate 3 indulgent meals a day - breakfast omelette, burger & fries, a loaded pizza… total comfort food. A couple times I had chicken stir fries or some Taco Bell so I’d have some fibre :slight_smile:

I was a little worried that I’d put on a pound or so from eating so indulgently. Instead:

Last Thursday: 173 lbs.
This Friday: 169 lbs.

The only explanation I can come up with is dehydration. Yet, I’ve been on a salty, high carb diet the whole time I was gone, which if anything I would think would cause some water retention.

What gives?

Have you been back to the gym yet? How are your numbers? Maybe you ate less than you normally do, maybe your body up-regulated your metabolism to deal with the caloric excess. The last time I cheated, I went camping with some buddies. We ate literally pounds of brownies, s’mores, hot dogs, sausages etc. Came back to town after a week and a half, and I had lost 3 pounds.

What was your activity level? Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day doesn’t burn a lot of calories. Walking around, even if it’s just from bar to hotel to beach to bar to hotel again is more active than that desk job. Any dancing? That’s cardio, ya know.

altering types of “foods” eaten can have an effect. i recently upped my cals by at least 1000, but it was all liquid, and dropped 3 pounds in a week.

dont worry about it unless your next two weeks in the gym suck.

Maybe I am missing something, and I don’t want to seem like Captain Obvious, but are
you weighing yourself on the same scale? If not, just inaccuracies between scales could account for a difference. Once again, sorry if this is a stupid statement, but I wanted to make sure you ruled this out.

It’s the same scale. I was holding a consistent weight on that scale for a couple of months.

I was doing a lot of walking and a little bit of hiking over the week, and I guess it is possible that my calorie intake was actually down. But 4 pounds seemed a little extreme for such a short time.

I guess I’ll just have to see what happens over the next couple of weeks as far as performance goes.

You can lose 10 pounds of water without so much as blinking an eye - especially on vacation.

I wouldn’t sweat 4 pounds.