Quick weight gain quick loss?

[walkthisway]

Many of us will have had the experience of piling on a few pounds over a couple of weeks - or even days.

Does anyone know if weight gained quickly is easier to lose? I have this idea - probably completely wrong - that if the weight hasn't been there for long it hasn't had time to create fat deposits and will therefore disappear just as quickly.

Can someone tell me what the quickly piled on weight is made of - and how long before it gets made into something permanent?

[MW50]

I found this online that might explain it.

Once food is consumed, your body either uses calories as energy to fuel your body, or stores these calories in fat cells to be called upon at a later time. Dr. David Katz, reports that the body begins to store consumed calories as fat within four to eight hours from the beginning of the meal. As you consume these calories, the body automatically stores the first 1,000 calories within the liver and muscles for immediate energy reserves. This calorie storage is known as glycogen. Once the glycogen calories are utilized for energy, the body then activates stored calories within fat cells, known as triglycerides, to replenish the depletion of glycogen calories.

[walkthisway 2 stone Maintainer in reply to MW50]

Thanks that is very interesting - and makes it really clear why too many calories in result in a disaster!!

[DartmoorDumpling Restart Feb 2024]

When you first start to lose weight, you will remember that you can lose a lot of water before you start to lose the fat, which gives you a very good first week's weight loss.

Subsequently, after some weeks of calorie controlled eating, when you have a slight over-indulgence, you will again retain water which adds to the weight gained, so shows up as a quick weight gain, and is often followed by a quick weight loss when you lose this extra water if you go straight back to a calorie controlled intake of food and drink.

[walkthisway 2 stone Maintainer in reply to DartmoorDumpling]

Thanks for that - good explanation.

[Osiris275]

Funny I saw this. I ate really badly yesterday, thousands of calories over my goal. Gained 4lbs, in a day!!! That was this morning. Just weighed myself after finishing work, lost 1lb already. That was in about 6 hours. I had 2 weetabix after my weigh in this morning, and granted my job is active, but I believe the sooner you try to get it off, the quicker it does come off. Not sure if there's truth in it but it's been my experience several times.

[walkthisway 2 stone Maintainer in reply to Osiris275]

Wow 1000s of calories over - bet that was fun! I hoped it was true - but I am not so sure. I just couldn't lose the weight I gained quickly a couple of months ago - and I tried to do it asap. Now I seem stuck with it and it won't go at all.

Did you lose all your 4lbs straight away in the end?

[Osiris275 in reply to walkthisway]

Not good was I? But it happened, all I can do is learn from it! I'd lost another pound this morning, hopefully by Monday's weigh in I can be back to what I was last week.