How long until a "Cheat meal" shows up?

How long do you have to wait before what you eat comes into your system? For example, I usually do my weigh-ins for the week Sunday afternoon or evening. If I decide to go out and splurge on Saturday night, how long do I have to worry about it showing up? Will it be reflected in my weigh-in that next day on Sunday or will it effect my numbers the next week?

How long is a piece of string...bodies are remarkably unpredicatable. From careful analysis of the days when I weighed daily I noticed that my weight would increase by 2-3 lbs the day after a "cheat meal" , probably a combination of the meal and water retention from alcohol. After an average of three days the weight increase would be gone and I'd typically be heading towards a weekly weight drop.

Provided it's not too high in sodium and I've had a good deficit every day for a week or two, I usually lose about 1.5 lbs after a cheat meal...  In .5 lbs per day intervals.  It's like that spike in calories makes my body feel it's ok to let a little go.  This may also be a bit of dehydration due to alcohol, but it usually stays off.

On the other hand, I overdid it with salty friend food on my birthday and the scale went up about 3 lbs of water weight and it took about 3-4 days of clean eating to go back to normal.  To answer your question, dehydration meant it didn't show up the next morning, but 36-48 hours after the cheat meal my body was hanging on to all the fluids I'd had and saw the temporary scale up...

If you're worried a high number will depress you, weigh yourself before your cheat meal and then wait until your next scheduled weigh in...  You may just see a little drop that way rather than worrying about the temporary rise...

you have to eat 3500 extra calories, beyond any deficit to gain a pound of fat. but if you eat masses of food, like two pounds in a splurge meal on satruday night, and you dont poo before you weigh, that two pounds is still in your body, even if it was all lettuce and only had a few 100 calories. its about the numbers, your system, water, your running deficit, all of it.

you could add a weigh in mid week, just to get a sense of how your body is dealing with such events. 

i try to plan for my "splurge" meals calorie wise, so i can keep a deficit going, despite the extra calories. and you can make lower cal choices at that meal if you want to, and still enjoy it. 

good luck.