It's amazing what your body can do. For that matter it's amazing what a person can do to their body.

I weighed in Saturday morning at about 162.5. I was feeling pretty good about that. Then I get a call from an old college buddy. It was time for a night of debauchery lol.

Verdict - I'm weighing in at 168.5 tonight!

Anybody have something similar happen? I've never had a swing that large before in a matter of less than 48 hours. I almost question the first weight in but even if it's 5 pounds it's still pretty ridiculous. Way too many beers.

What did you eat?

In general alcohol will dehydrate you, which will cause you to retain water the next day.
If you drink beer, you usually eat salty foods, so that will cause you to retain water
If you stayed out late and missed out on sleep, that will cause you to retain water.

6 lbs = 21,000 calories above and beyond your maintenance. So if you gained 6 lbs of fat, you'd have had to eat, what? Around 23,500 calories? You probably didn't.

My weight has fluctuated up to 8 lbs in one day due to sodium intake and hormonal changes. It's entirely possible.

Oh yeah it's definitely all fluids. I had like 9 beers, 2 large iced coffees, another 2 coffees.

For food I had awful things. Spilt some nachos, had half a turkey and swiss panini, slice of pizza, an egg white omelet and a pot roast dinner for dinner tonight. That was all over two days. Needless to say it was rich in sodium.

I am usually very regimented on meals. This weekend however since I had my buddy I had to make sure to show him a good time lol. He's also like a 100 pounds heavier than me, such a bad influence!

Oddly enough I'm a lot more sensitive to sodium now than I was when I was overweight. I'm sure part of that is that I never paid attention, but the other part is that my body is USED to not overdosing on sodium. So when I do, I bloat up enough that it's sometimes hard to button my pants the next day.

I can always tell when I've had too much sodium even before I step on the scale - I get up in the mornings and my fingers are puffy and swollen. I can feel it when I make a fist.

Interesting how our bodies become adapted to healthy eating as well as unhealthy eating.

I knew it was going to be bad before I stepped on, I feel like my stomach is going to pop. I haven't done something like this in months. It truly is a shock to the system.

I figure by Wednesday I'll be back on track.

Only if you drink excess water after the fact...

BTW, how does missing sleep cause you to retain water? I tried to hypothesize the science behind that, but could not.

Um no. You really don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Alcohol in your bloodstream causes you to become dehydrated, which prompts your body to begin retaining water in order to combat that. The way you keep your body from holding on to the water, is to rehydrate by drinking more - then your body doesn't need to retain to combat the effects of the alcohol.

Maybe some research would be better than just hypothesizing. When you miss sleep you are creating stress on the body. When the body is stressed, it releases cortisol in much higher quantities. Cortisol causes the body to retain fluid. That stress of being overtired also causes a rise in blood pressure, and rising blood pressure also causes the body to retain fluid.

If you drink alcohol, the best way to combat a next day jump in the scale is to be sure to REHYDRATE yourself before you go to bed, and to (if at all possible) make sure you get enough sleep.

oh Kara.... how i love your answers lol



this is good info!



to the OP... my body has fluctuated 4 lbs since JULY.... its strange how that works.


also, for alot of women, when they get their period they can gain up to 5 lbs!!!

i always go up 3 the week of.... and then those 3 are gone the day after


strange bodies i tell ya!

Oh Marie - I'm the same. I can see as much as an 8 lb fluctuation during the week of my period.

Damn hormones!

I know exactly what I'm talking about because I do it regularly and I have watched the results weekly, over a period of more than a year. Let me break it down for your simple, patronizing little mind. I drink a 750ml bottle of wine and as a result, let's be very generous, my body purges 1500ml of fluid, thus "dehydrating" me by 750ml. I drink 750ml of water to replace that, and I am right back where I started before I drank the wine. Or I can go crazy and drink 3000ml (3 liters) of water, and perhaps retain a net increase of 2250ml (2.25l). But I don't go crazy with the water the day after having alcohol; in fact, I have very little.

Keep your sodium intake right at the daily minimum and eradicate all forms of grains and potatoes from the diet, eat light, in addition cause your body to release water weight once a week with a bottle wine (beer is not good because it's grain). I always lose at least 1 pound after that. There is simply no denying that it works - I'm much lighter as a direct result of this combination (44 pounds in the past 4 months). No cardio, and very minimal and sporadic weighlifting - no other exercise, except for sex. I had a full blood count done by my doctor last week, and according to her everything was in spectacular order - including liver function. My blood pressure is in perfect range. I am down to 15% body fat now (caliper tested by my physical therapist), and my stamina (in every way you can imagine) is better than it was 30 years ago.

Say whatever you like. I am slim now, and I have a lot of energy. I don't think I've ever felt this good in my entire life. I've probably always been insulin resistant, but didn't even know that such a thing existed. Now that I understand it, I have taken control.

Ah, bro-science at it's finest. It works because I say it works. Nevermind the reams of scientific information that contradict your "experience".

Slinging insults is a violation of the rules. Do it again and you'll be banned.

Which means exactly nothing, in terms of explaining why your body holds on to water to combat alcohol dehydration.

The rest of your post is really just bro-science babble and not worth my time to respond to.

Here's an article I wrote for another forum, inspired by this exact thread:

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A lot of people are confused on how alcohol can affect weight loss. Hopefully this will provide some answers.

Calories
The first and most obvious thing is that alcohol has calories with no nutritional value - what we call "empty calories". There are general guidelines you can use when estimating calories in alcohol:
Hard liquor = 100 cals per 1.5 ounce (a standard shot)
Beer = 150 cals per 12 oz (1 can)
Wine = 150 cals per 6 oz (standard glass)
Beer calories can vary from a low of 55 for calorie reduced "lite" beers, to upwards of 200 for microbrew or custom brew dark beers. But 150 cals is a good average to keep in mind.

Also keep in mind that if you drink mixed drinks, you have to account not only for the liquor in the drink (often more than 1 shot) but you have to account for the other ingredients. A margarita, for example, can have up to 400 calories, depending on the amount of juice vs. sugar syrup or mix used. A pina colada can have over 600 calories - more than a Big Mac from McDonalds.

Munchies
The next thing to keep in mind is that alcohol stimulates appetite, which means when you drink, you often eat. And if you're out with friends, at a bar or a club, at a tailgate party, at a cookout, or any other social event, the food that's available is often not diet-friendly or healthy. Alcohol also lowers inhibitions, which can lead you to throw caution to the wind when eating and make unhealthy choices that you wouldn't necessarily make if you're sober.

Water Retention
Alcohol causes you to retain water, which can look like weight gain after weekend or night of even moderate drinking. How does that work, you ask? Well, you need to understand how alcohol is processed in your body.

When you drink alcohol, about 20% of it is immediately absorbed into your bloodstream through your stomach. The remaining 80% continues to your intestines where it is then absorbed into the blood. Your liver can process about 1 drink's worth of alcohol per hour - so if you drink more than that, the excess alcohol stays in your bloodstream and body tissues. That alcohol replaces the water that normally is in your blood and tissues. This causes dehydration and an imbalance of electrolytes. When your electrolyte balance is off-kilter and you are dehydrated, your body responds by retaining water to try to restore the proper balance of electrolytes.

(This dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, btw, is also why you feel hungover when you drink too much. Blood becomes thicker and the walls of your blood vessels constrict when you're dehydrated. This raises your blood pressure and reduces the flow of blood to the brain and other extremities. So you have headaches, body aches, dry mouth, and a general sense of not feeling well.)

The best way to make sure that water retention is kept to a minimum is to drink water - to keep your body hydrated to counteract the effects of the alcohol. One recommendation is to alternate drinking a glass of water for every alcoholic drink. Another is to make sure you drink a glass of water before you go to bed and another when you first get up in the morning - to help restore the fluids to your body and to help flush out the remaining alcohol.

Lack of Sleep
This is sort of an incidental side effect of alcohol that can affect weight loss. For many people, drinking involves going out or going to a social event, which coincides with staying up later than normal. Also having alcohol in your bloodstream can lead to a restless or disrupted sleep. Studies have shown that alcohol disrupts late stage REM sleep, as well as causing an increase in sleep apnea.

Lack of sleep can also lead to water retention as many of us who have been dieting for a while know. Lack of sleep is a stress on the body, and when the body is stressed, it produces more cortisol. Cortisol causes the body to retain fluid as part of the physiological process of dealing with stress. It also causes a hunger response and can lead to you eating more.

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That's pretty much the scoop on alcohol and weight loss. I would never tell someone they can't have alcohol while losing weight (I myself drink wine and have the occasional martini or vodka cocktail), but if you're aware of how alcohol affects your body and can influence your diet, you can be prepared and not let drinking sabotage your progress.

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Sources (these are two of the more readable sources I used for those who want to pursue their own research on the topic):
Effects of Alcohol on Electrolytes and Blood Serum Levels
Alcohol and Sleep

wow, I wish people understood, REALLY understood, how insulting people in this manner just makes THEM look unprofessional and childish. It also decreases the effectiveness in the message they are trying to get across.

Kara, your right on the money with your statements. Thank you for trying to educate the forum with documented education and not just your own 2 cents on the subject.

Alpha...insulting members is against forum rules. I am treating the matter the same if you were name calling a mod, the admin or a newcomer. Rules are rules and as a result, I'm going to give you an infraction. Any further name slinging/insults will result in being banned from the forum.

How true!!! well said Korrie.


Alpha,the moment those words are read... i stopped listening and was too busy thinking what an ignorant person you were.....


there may be a better way to get your message across? and if there HAD been some validity to what you said...... i would have missed it because you acted like a child and distracted me from the message you were trying to get across

The only thing I'm sort of confused about is that Beer, which is what I drank mostly that night, is 5% alcohol. Now when you say retain water you mean the water IN the Beer right. Because the only thing I drank was coffee, diet soda and beer the entire weekend. All things that I have been informed will dehydrate you.

I should also add my friend stated several times "Dude, I'm worried. I haven't peed all night."

I know, riveting conversation we had. lol

Tonight I'm already down to 166.

Right, but alcohol is alcohol and when it gets into your bloodstream it displaces water, which screws up your electrolyte balance. So your body retains water - any water really, from the beer, from the coffee, from the sodas, whatever.

The diuretic effect of coffee and diet soda (actually of caffeine, which is the common ingredient there) is much overhyped in the diet world. You have to consume a LOT of caffeine to dehydrate yourself. It's also a different dehydration effect. Caffeine is a diuretic - which means it makes you pee a lot, which removes water from your system - but not nearly as much as people would have you think. Alcohol infiltrates your bloodstream and displaces water. Different types of effect.

*snicker* Sounds like typical bar conversation.
Depends on what he ate or was eating as well. Lots of things could affect it.

But it seems you're already dropping the water weight ... it's a good thing!