I finished a 5 day fast on Friday since I was going to visit family over the weekend. I had started that fast at 177 and ended it at 171. I was feeling really proud of my progress, and made absolutely sure that while I was visiting I ate 1600 calories a day. I counted everything and weighed everything. I came back home on Monday and weighed myself and was back up to 177! I don’t understand how that’s even possible. Is it just water weight gain? As I said, there is no way that I overate as I was extremely precise and careful this weekend. The only differences between the week and weekend were that I broke the fast and I took rest days from cardio. Is that really enough to gain 6 pounds over 2 days?
It is weight of your food. When you fast you clear out months of food in your intestine but when you eat again… you put a lot back. Your weight loss on a fast is 80% weight of food and water and 20% actual fat loss.
Carbs also attract water. It’s normal to lose 5lbs from water alone at the beginning of a fast. With the weight of the food it explains the number. Don’t get discouraged, you have likely lost 2.5 lbs since it takes a couple of days to lose 1 lbs… Also, hydration fluctuate from day to day too.
Completely normal. You didnt lose 6 lbs of fat to begin with, 70% of our body is water anyways so you lost some of it + old food in your guts.. It would be my assumption that you lost around 4 lbs of pure fat and now have increased water levels in your system due to hormonal changes that happen when you stop fasting. You see, when you fast your body breaks down, but when you start eating you get basically a steroid dose of growth hormones pumping in your system to quicky repare the body and to make it stronger for the next challenge. And then you kinda swell with water a bit while everything you eat goes directly into the fat and muscles… So eat protein and lift when you break a fast! What you should know is that cardio is the worst for burning calories. Literally THE worst! Its good for the heart and other stuff, but it uses almost no calories because human body is designed to chase after any animal untill that animal collapses. This is how we used to hunt before civilization. If our running used alot of energy we would end up losing more than we could gain from catching our next meal…
when you fast much of the weight you lose is water, some is body waste and some is fat. your body will want to go back to exactly what is was before the fast if it can. so you can weigh the same after eating normally for a weekend after fasting for the week. much of it will be water, some of it will be waste not dumped yet. never look at the week stats, look at it over a month of healthy eating.
i usually over drink water after a fast so it always looks bad to me, but i lost 40lbs total since January.
Along with all the other comments, weigh yourself often and don’t look at just one days weigh-in. Could easily be a little dehydrated on the before-weigh-in and then you might have had any reason to be holding water on the after-weigh-in