Confused about "free days"

so.. i allot myself 1 day a week as a "free day", meaning the obvious, I can eat what I like, have some ice cream, etc. now even though everyone says a pound of fat is around 3500 cals, I don't understand -- i find myself gaining 1-3 pounds in one day, right after my free day. and then it takes me like 2-3 days to get back to the start weight of the week... significantly slowing me down.

I'm just confused... it seems if I even eat a little junk and relax my eating, my body just gains weight so fast. obviously I'm not eating like 7000 cals to gain 2 pounds, so where does this instantaneous gain come from? should i reconsider my free days? (and no.. i dont think this is water weight.) thanks...

when you eat that junk, it latches onto your body. the simple carbs (sugar) and fats will sit in your intestine longer and wait to be used as energy or turned into fat, they are just thicker substances. The pros of the complex carbs (whole wheat, etc) is that they are considered ruffage along with fruits and vegetables, which all clean out your system reletively quickly.

So when your eating these bad things, they stay in your body and pollute it until vitamins and minerals come along and whisk them away. This logically will take the two or three days. If you eat 200 calories of ice cream before you go to bed, your going to feel noticebly worse the next day then if you eat 200 calories of broccoli. The broccoli will pass right through and the sugar and heavy dairy will stick to you for a bit making you feel sluggish.

my suggestion is a) not eat that crap; or b) have a little, but make sure it is within you daily calories. If it takes 3 days a week to get back on track, your spending 12 days a month just making up for your "free days". this means that all that hard work your putting in is only 60% effective. Is it really worth a bowl of ice cream every week to slow your progress by 40%? you have to really love ice cream...

thanks so much cycle, your reply was very informative! the only thing i don't understand is what do people do when they are maintaining? if my body gains a few pounds every time i eat some sweets am i never to eat them again? or is it just bad during weight loss..

and the other problem, is that i can't really deprive myself of them. i work in a bakery which takes willpower enough (heh), but mainly, i give myself the free day to control cravings etc. i have a big sweet tooth and i know i'll just pig out later if i don't eat the simple carbs i love once ina while. i know lots of people on this site have "free days" .. so how do you all deal with this dilemma?

A "free" day to me means simply eating what I already eat and a treat or extra, boosting my calories by about 300.  I usually have more fat and protein on those days rather than sweets.  Most of the time it's just olive oil in my salad dressing and maybe a steak.  I had the same thing happen when I decided to take a day and have whatever I wanted, calories be damned.  I won't make that mistake again! 

To keep from feeling deprived, I have a very, very little treat once every week or 10 days and work that into my daily calories.

Have a look at the Maintenance forum! 

yes, i think to have a free day to pig out isn't what you should be after... it is counter-productive! i think when most people say they have a cheat/treat day, they eat normally, but have a bowl of ice cream, OR some chocolate, OR some chips, OR somethng else they love... but just one of those things and in a manageable quantity, not the whole carton of ice cream, or... well you get the idea. you have to teach yourself moderation in everything you consume, even, or especially, where the cheats/treats are concerned!

Shoot, I try to have one of those things every day! I mean, for me, chocolate fits into my diet plan...I just eat less. But then again, I think I might be allergic to chocolate or something, because it kind of 'burns' my throat and stomach in a weird way, and I have to eat it with water, so it really fills me up and kind of works as a meal replacement (if, that is, it's not the waxy Hershey's chocolate, but nice creamy swiss Milka chocolate). I kind of gained that bad habit from my fiance, who is from Bulgaria and who came to the United States elated that he could have chocolate any time he wanted, so that's all he ever ate at first.

I didn't gain any weight from doing that, either. Not saying it's the healthiest route (to eat chocolate as a meal sometimes), but Dagnabbit, it staves off cravings for other things!

When I was in Italy, I noticed all these tall, skinny Italian women eating gelato like every day. I asked the Italian family I was living with about it, and my Italian mother said, "Well, they eat gelato whenever they want, but they usually eat it instead of lunch, and they walk while eating it, too." So there you have it. The Europeans do the same thing; they skip lunch and eat the crap.

I'm sure if the rest of your diet is good, it shouldn't impact you too badly.

could be from sodium - if your free day includes salty snacks, or actually, anything processed usually has loads of sodium in it, which will make you retain water - the same can be said for alcohol - whenever i drink a beer or two, i always notice a 1-2 lb jump the following day or two, but apparantly its just my body retaining water after feeding it alcohol, (note: i DO NOT nosh junk food when i drink)

Custard, there is a definite difference between "maintanence" and eating junk food.  My maintanence calories are aroune 2400, that does not mean on days I want to do maintanence that I'm going to eat 4 candy bars, a bowl of ice cream, and a big mac.  It means I'm going to fill it up with GOOD foods.  Sure, some junk is ok...but it shouldnt be the cornerstone of your diet.  Sure a calorie is a calorie...but a calorie from a tomatoe is a lot better for you than a calorie from a piece of chocolate cake :-P

On my cheat day I ended up having a sandwich instead of a salad like I usually do for lunch. And I had a fat-free no sugar added ice cream bar from Kemps. I was suprised at the end of the day that I still had about 100 calories left. So I had an extra 100 calorie pack. That's as "free" as my cheat days get lately, any more and I start to feel stuffed and sick.

I agree with the others... my "cheat" or "treat" day is not a license to eat everything in sight... it's that I may have an extra something.  For example, this weekend went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant ... had a grilled shrimp dish with mango salsa (well within my calorie range)... but did indulge in some chips and salsa (and didn't even begin to think about the cal count)... but weighed the same on Monday morning as I did on Saturday morning... absolutely loved it!

Well, I had ice cream yesterday, after lunch AND after dinner, and woke up to another pound gone, so that shoots down the theory of the simple carbs (sugar) and fats just sitting in my intestines polluting my body, and you can bet I had significantly more than 200 calories of ice cream before I went to bed! 200 calories isn't even ONE scoop of Ben and Jerry's.

I eat some junk every day, whether it's cookies, ice cream, or candy. I'm not suggesting everyone do this, but it works for me. I want an eating plan I can stick to. This, I can stick to. I work these things into my eating plan. I went to the pool and took a bike ride yesterday; I HAD to eat extra calories to avoid having a ginormous deficit. It wasn't a "cheat day" for me (I don't have them), but the ice cream was a planned for (and compensated for) indulgence.

As someone else suggested, your weight gain from your "free" day might be from sodium. If I have pizza or fast food, it's very likely I'll weigh more for a few days until I get rid of all the sodium that is in those foods.

thanks for all the tips guys. whatever it was, i dropped two pounds and now i'm lower than on sunday. (yay) yeah, whether it be the carbs clinging to my insides or the sodium i'm not sure.. the only thing I'm still sort of curious about is the maintenance thing.

of course I'm not saying I need to pig out on every free day, but even if I eat a little more, like a couple of cookies and maybe an extra helping of tortellini.. the weight just goes up so fast, and then if i go back to my "diet" regime it drops off within a couple days.

what i don't get.. is will my body be this sensetive when i'm maintaining? when I maintain, (which is for life..) will I have to "diet" again after every day that I have a little junk or extra food and my weight goes up (just to stay balanced)? it just doesn't make sense to me... before i started dieting (for lack of a better word) i ate more and had junk but my weight didn't fly up every time.. it's like my body is aching to gain weight any chance it gets.. will maintaining have to be super strict in order to  actually maintain?

custard my body does the same thing. I am currently maintaining at 107 on a good day but it fluctuates to 109 after my sunday binge which i am trying so hard to control.  I want to maintain at 105. I also wonder when i get to 105 will it be harder to maintain.

athena, lets be honest with ourselves..if you ate all that ice cream, and a pound of fat is 3500 calories, there is no way you could have lost a pound of fat in one day..unless you run for 7 hrs every day as well as not eat. Your weight loss could be due to loss of water, which weights 8lbs per gallon. A little water loss could add up to loss of a pound. btw, branched fatty acids (like fats and heavy diary aka alpha and beta lactose) will stay in your system longer. They bond to the stomach acids, which in tun takes longer to break them down (8-72 hrs)..its chemisty, my dear athena

I'm sorry, I can't let this statement go...vitamins and minerals don't "whisk away" the stuff in your intestines! o.0  That's peristalsis, plain and simple. 

Although nonsoluble and soluble fiber (which are considered neither vitamins nor minerals) will speed food more quickly through your system, simple sugars are quickly absorbed, as the body does not have to work so hard to break them down.  They don't hang around "polluting" your body.  They either get converted to energy, stored as fat, or leave with the poop.

Fat does take longer for your body to break down, which is why eating foods with fat in them is often more satisfying than eating fat-free.  I wouldn't call it polluting your body, just the normal process of digesting lipids. 

 If you eat considerably more food one day than another, you will weigh more until you excrete the mass, thus causing a temporary rise in weight.  Your body will use what it can, and store the excess as fat.  The useless stuff .... it leaves, eventually.  About 1-3 days later, for most people.   :)

jhealynyad that was a perfect explation! i was thinking the the same!! haha very well put, beter than i could muster up ;) haha hurah for villi!!

Villi are your friends!  :D

not to be confused with Villians.  who are not.

or vanilla, which remains neutral in the battle of the intestines...

could you just have one treat meal instead of a whole day, that would help control some of the calories, also I love chocolate so I have a small piece of dark chocolate everynight, its about 70 cals and I try to make it high in cocoa so it has more antioxidents and is heart healthier.

You guys are so anal. You're all saying you can never ever have a day to eat whatever you want.  I'm sorry, but that's retarded. Everyone needs a day every once in a while, not every week mind you, to just say screw the whole thing I'm gonna eat what I want.

For us NORMAL people, it's the only way to keep a little sanity. Going overboard every once in a while just makes it easier to get back on track.

"You guys are so anal. You're all saying you can never ever have a day to eat whatever you want.  I'm sorry, but that's retarded. Everyone needs a day every once in a while, not every week mind you, to just say screw the whole thing I'm gonna eat what I want.

For us NORMAL people, it's the only way to keep a little sanity. Going overboard every once in a while just makes it easier to get back on track."

Ignoring the gratuitous personal attack for the moment, but no.  We are not all saying that you can never have a day to eat whatever you want.  I personally schedule several "free-for-all" days thru-out the year.  On Mother's Day, and again on Independence Day, I ate whatever I dang well pleased.  Even giving myself carte blanche, I found my appetites have changed. I didn't go too far over my deficit allowance in May, and ate maybe 300 calories over my basal rate in July.  I burned that off the next day swimming.

 As of now, I've taken off about 37 pounds. And despite appearances, I'm quite "Normal".

Also, I eat ice cream, pizza, and other things occasionally.  I just use a little planning and fit them into my daily allowance. 

So... despite your inflammatory decree that we are anal, with "retarded" ideas... it ain't necessarily so.

I eat whatever I want every day! I had ice cream (regular full-fat ice cream) tonight and last night. I went to a party on Saturday and had, among other things, hot wings, deli platter stuff, M&M, veggies with dip, chips with dip, salami wedges, brownies, cookies, and cheese cubes.

"You're all saying you can never ever have a day to eat whatever you want. "

sparkles, I don't know to whom you were referring with the above. Would you please point out the specific post or posts to which you were referring? Thanks.

cyberpirate, apparently what I learned in my college physiology and chemistry classes (26 credits of the latter, IIRC) has changed. Thank you for bringing me up to date!

Oh, wait.... you said chemisty, not chemistry. Never mind!

So tell me again: what were you taking issue with? My having eaten ice cream last night? But I did! Or my having a pound gone today? But I did! I don't know anything about chemisty, whatever that is, but child, I do know what I've eaten and how much I weigh.