Not so smug now

I am 6'2" and had gone from 220-183 over some months, went out to party @ weekend drank 15 beers and 3 cocktails over 2 days and gained 3lb...2 days, 3000 cal of food and 16 miles running later I have lost 0.2lb..

Now, no way I consumed 3lb extra of calories, (10,500 right?), a beer is say 180, 13 is 2,800, say 2000 in cocktails, so according to what I have read it's water or something as well, question is then, can I lose it rapidly (like more than 2lb a week) or does that now drunken reward now cost me 10 days of dieting?  How come it can up like lightening but has to come off so slow?  It is nearly weds now and I drank on saturday...0.2lb....my weightloss line has even crossed the dotted trendline...

And what the hell is going on  is going on?  I seem to have hit the wall, I think I am in danger of becoming one of the 95% who fail.  If I hit 190 I may as well forget it, it's taken WEEKS to go from 190-183....pfffffffff

Alcohol makes you retain a ton of water!  Try drinking more water to help flush the impurities out of your system.

Original Post by chicanamama03:

Alcohol makes you retain a ton of water!  Try drinking more water to help flush the impurities out of your system.

 what, I thought alcohol dehydrates you?

Original Post by geturdone:

Original Post by chicanamama03:

Alcohol makes you retain a ton of water!  Try drinking more water to help flush the impurities out of your system.

 what, I thought alcohol dehydrates you?

Dehydration = Water retention

Original Post by geturdone:

Original Post by chicanamama03:

Alcohol makes you retain a ton of water!  Try drinking more water to help flush the impurities out of your system.

 what, I thought alcohol dehydrates you?

I have heard both that it's a short term/ long term thing AND that individual bodies vary. I think it also has to do with what type of booze you drink, what you drink mixed with it, and how much salt you chomp when you get the drunken munchies.

Anyway, OP, i think you are being too all-or-nothing about this. If you become, in your words, one of the "people who fail," it won't be because you had some drinks over the weekend or because it goes on easy and off hard, or because of some wall. It will be because you're making an action flick out of what should be a nature documentary. You have to take the tension down a notch. You have to adjust to a horizon-view attitude. Stop counting days and cals and how long it took to put it on and how long to take it off.

Make long term, lifestyle changes. Celebrate when you hit a milestone, and shrug when you stumble. This is a long long long journey, to lose weight and to keep it off, so sit back and try to relax. I somehow doubt that so many people "fail"... (at what?? at reaching set-in-stone goals at breakneck pace?), but if they do it's probably because they do not figure in time for human error, patience for biology's nonlinear reactions to our efforts, and wiggle room for fun here and there.

If looking closely at the numbers helps keep you focused, use this as a data gathering opportunity, not a self-bashing fest. See how long it takes you to recover from this fun weekend, and compare it to the next weekend. Stroek your beard (real or imaginary) and say Hmmmm, Verrrrry EEnteresting. Cordie's first commandment: thou shalt be chill and kind to thyself.

best of luck!

Cordie

Alcohol does not make you retain water. Alcohol inhibits ADH (antidiuretic hormone) which normally acts to make your kidneys keep sodium and water in your system when your blood volume is low. So when ADH is inhibited, you pee a lot and actually lose a lot of h2o from your system. Makes sense because when you are drinking, you usually have to pee like every 5 minutes (at least I do). So alcohol dehydrates you, hence the headache the next morning! Your body has probably compensated for this by holding on to EVERYTHING you have eaten and drank since then. So you need to drink tons of water to rehydrate yourself and flush the fluid your body is holding on to from your system. Keep on your diet, exercise and drink, drink, drink (water this time, not etoh :D) and weigh yourself in a week, you will see that the weight is not permanent. Don't be too hard on yourself!

Original Post by allison7305:

Alcohol does not make you retain water. Alcohol inhibits ADH (antidiuretic hormone) which normally acts to make your kidneys keep sodium and water in your system when your blood volume is low. So when ADH is inhibited, you pee a lot and actually lose a lot of h2o from your system.

nice work lab partner. here's something cool you might not also know ---

vasopressin (other name for adh) rebounds when it is suppressed (the body releases more of it into the blood), so during hangover you have even more of this hormone in your bloodstream than normal (hence the water retention). high concentrations of vasopressin affect not only urine concentration in the kidneys, but blood pressure as well. this increase in blood pressure caused by increase (rebound) concentrations of vasopressin causes... BINGO, the hangover headache. neat, huh?

Which is why I always force myself to drink a big glass of water before I sack out if I'd been drinking, and help my wife do the same if she's been with me. It really helps keep you from feeling absolutely wretched the next day.

Corduroy, you are a 100% sweetheart. Your advice was so sensible and supportive, and I took great heart from it. Thanxevasmuch!

Temporary weight gain.  Based on recent experience, if it took 2 days to put 3 lbs on, I predict it'll take a week for it to come back off.  If you don't maintain calorie deficits more or less equal to your original 2000 calorie excess it'll take longer than a week. 

My personal rule of thumb is that I do not drink when I am obsessing over results, and when I do drink I make sure to wait about two weeks to compare my weight to my log to see if I am on track or not.

Original Post by corduroyfirekills3:

Original Post by allison7305:

Alcohol does not make you retain water. Alcohol inhibits ADH (antidiuretic hormone) which normally acts to make your kidneys keep sodium and water in your system when your blood volume is low. So when ADH is inhibited, you pee a lot and actually lose a lot of h2o from your system.

nice work lab partner. here's something cool you might not also know ---

vasopressin (other name for adh) rebounds when it is suppressed (the body releases more of it into the blood), so during hangover you have even more of this hormone in your bloodstream than normal (hence the water retention). high concentrations of vasopressin affect not only urine concentration in the kidneys, but blood pressure as well. this increase in blood pressure caused by increase (rebound) concentrations of vasopressin causes... BINGO, the hangover headache. neat, huh?

 ah just reading this is making me retain water.

potassum, you are not failing, its all a journey. some days good some days bad. are you worried about fat or weight exactly?  you actually sound in pretty good shape if you can run 15 miles after all that booze. i like running but after a party like that i'd be done for for awhile. stress makes you gain weight too.

I agree with all of the above posters about water retention.

There is a guy on another forum I visit (fitness forum) and he routinely gets what he calls "swole" from his Friday happy hour.  He has a couple of beers and some salty food and the next day the scale is way up for him.  Sometimes as much as 10 pounds or more. 

He doesn't let it worry him, as he knows that by the follwoing Tuesday or Wednesday he will back down to his "normal" weight. 

Does anyone know the lab work on say, diet soda?  I enjoy my diet coke, but worry that it is having the same water retention effect of the alchohol.  True?

I'm not so sure about the effects of diet coke, but I do know that with all that carbonation= MAJOR abdominal bloating!!! I love a good diet coke and have one almost everyday, but when I went on vacation, all I had was iced tea and other non carbonated beverages (it was in the mountains, iced tea is big there :)), I noticed my stomach felt a lot flatter! That might be something to try, going a week or so without carbonated beverages and seeing how much thinner you feel. All that said, it still didn't keep me away from my diet coke :/

Thanks all.

So I have been eating next to 1500 per day.  Then last night I was asked out for beers again by someone hard to say no to.

So I read up on any ways to help myself.  I found some stuff saying if you use diet mixers with spirits your peak blood alcohol is like 66% higher than if you use the full sugar ones coz it stay less time in stomach. <<this is a bad thing...I just mention it because of the diet coke stuff>>

I then read that soya milk blocks alcohol uptake so drank two big glasses before going out and one when I got back (at 3.30).  Only had 3 beers though so not a great test, but I lost 2lb since posting and felt fine at 8am..(weighed same time same scales same everything).  I have some unavoidable pub nights coming and will report if the soya thing works for real.

HOWEVER I remembered I have been eating a tub of very salty (nearly inedible) liquorice over the past few days.  So I guess I gained a pound and the rest was water.  So the no more than 2lb a week thing, does it count if it is water or will I get wrinkly if I loose more...should I try to keep weight stable for the rest of the week?

Regarding why do I care and what's all the fuss I guess looking at the weightlosss chart go back to where I was 5 weeks ago makes the month of being hungry choosing the healthy option, running round like a maniac etc seem pointless.  I don't mind suffering for results.

Fat/weight?  I am trying to loose my flabby gut, so fat I guess but that is pretty hard to measure except by looking..

I am training for half marathon in 5 weeks...that's why all the running

I guess too, being honest, I am about to be reunited with old friends who have spent the last 10 years taking the piss out of me for being fat...It was quite funny I suppose but for once I wanted to shut them up as now they are getting  chubbier too.   I was on course and that was my shallow goal which was slipping away far too easily......pathetic perhaps but enough motivation for me.

Nature documentary...like it..keep it in mind..

So far so good with the soyamilk. 4 high cal beers last night continued weightloss today. Anyone read this? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8186947.stm how do you think it would affect weightloss? Got to be worth a go, do you make it yourself or can you buy it?