How Much Fat Can You Gain in a Single Day by Bingeing? What 20 studies say
Here is an iron diet canon:
If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight.
And the more calories you eat, the more weight you gain.
However, that begs the question. . .
For example, is there a limit to how much fat you can gain in a single day?
Can 24 hours unrestrained gluttony lead to several pounds of fat gain, as some claim?
In other words, if you really "let go", how much fallout can you expect?
The long story short is that you can put on a large amount of fat after a single day of eating, but it's probably less than you think.
By the end of this article, you will know how your body stores fat, how much fat you can really put on in a single day from overeating, and how to minimize fat gain if you put your heart on holiday hog.
How Much Fat Can You Put On In A Day?
Here is the short answer: not as much as you might think.
For the longer (and more interesting!) Answer we can go to a to learn conducted by scientists from the University of Colorado.
To simulate an attack of overeating, the researchers fed 16 men 50% more calories per day than they needed to maintain their weight (approx Calories per day).
After two weeks of feasting, they gained 3 pounds of fat. That works out to be 1.5 pounds of fat a week, or 0.2 pounds a day.
Well, this study wasn't a perfect portrayal of a vacation frenzy. Most of us might overeat a day or two, but not several weeks, as in this study, but we can still use the data to plan how much fat we might gain if we did a day or two eat a lot.
In this case, if they kept a 1,400 calorie excess, they gained a pound of fat.
These results are supported by another longer one to learn conducted by scientists from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
In this study, the researchers had 29 slightly overweight men who ate 40% more calories per day than they needed to maintain their weight for 8 weeks, equivalent to a calorie excess of 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day. By the end of the study, they had gained 9 pounds of fat, or about 1.1 pounds a week, or 0.16 pounds a day.
Even though they ate high-calorie foods daily, they only gained about a pound of fat a day.
Finally, it's worth taking a look to learn Conducted by Loughborough University scientists studying the effects of overeating high fat foods for a single day.
The researchers had 15 healthy, normal weight, physically active men and women (with at least 30 minutes of exercise three days a week) who consumed 78% more calories than they needed to maintain their weight in a single day. This resulted in 6,000 calories per day compared to her normal caloric intake of 3,350 calories per day.
Your diet was designed to be extremely high in fat, getting 68% of total calories from fat.
The researchers did not measure the participants Body fat percentage, but they recorded their weight before and after the all-day binge.
The result?
On average, the participants gained 1.76 pounds.
This is significantly more than the other two studies, but much of the weight they gained was not body fat. Plus, even if all that weight these people put on was Fat, two pounds of weight gain isn't a disaster considering how much these people ate.
Not all weight gain is fat gain
At this point you may be wondering why the results of these studies do not match your experience.
"Sure," you might think, "studies show that people don't get that much fat when they overeat, but why do I always put on 5 to 10 pounds after the holidays?"
The answer boils down to more or less four things: You sodium, carbohydrate, Water intake and the weight of your stool.
You see, consuming large amounts of sodium, carbohydrates, and water leads to a disproportionate increase in body weight, although it does not increase body fat significantly.
And when most people eat a lot, they inevitably eat a lot more sodium and carbohydrates than normal.
Well, sodium and carbohydrates alone won't cause much weight gain. Instead, they increase your body weight by increasing your total body water stores.
sodium brings Water enters the cells and can therefore be eaten in large quantities increase Stores all of your body water. Most people would call this "Flatulence" or "Water retention"And you probably noticed it after eating a big, salty"cheat meal“Like pizza, burritos or fries.
A single high-sodium meal could increase your body water stores to the point of adding several pounds to your body weight. This can add your scale weight for several days before your body gets rid of excess sodium and water retention.
Carbohydrate intake and body weight
Carbohydrates can have a similar impact on your body weight as sodium.
Carbohydrates are stored in the muscles and the liver in the form of Glycogen. Every gram of glycogen is stored with 3 to 4 grams of water, which means that if you ingest 400 grams of carbohydrates, that could bring 1200 to 1600 grams (~ 3 to 4 pounds) of water to your muscles and liver.
Taken together, the increases in sodium, carbohydrate, and water storage could add 5 to 10 pounds or more to your weight overnight. This can also lead to a puffy, puffy appearance (which will also go away).
The good news is that your body is excreting most of that extra sodium and water and your carbohydrate stores are gradually returning to normal, but by the time that happens you may think that if you just stick to your scales weight, you might have gained several pounds of fat .
Finally, another reason your body weight will skyrocket after a day or two of overeating is because of an increase in the weight of your stool.
By the time your body has digested and cleared the extra food from your feast, you will likely be carrying several extra pounds of food around in your digestive tract, adding to your body weight. This usually goes away after the kids have been dropped off by the pool a couple of times.
You can also see these effects in studies.
In the first study you just learned about, participants gained 7 pounds after 2 weeks of overeating, and in the second study they gained 17 pounds after 8 weeks of overeating. In both cases, however, only about half of that body weight gain was actual body fat (the remainder is water, carbohydrates, and stool).
The bottom line is, if you eat 1,000 to 1,500 more calories than it takes to keep your weight off in a single day, you will likely only gain ⅕ to ¼ pound of fat, even if your scale weight tells a different story.
Let's say you really throw caution to the wind and eat 2,000 to 3,000 more calories than you need to maintain your weight (pretty common on Thanksgiving). The damage?
Maybe half a pound of fat gain.
The only big caveat here is that this assumes you are only overeating for a day or two. It is continually overeating which leads to weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and the many other health complications associated with overeating.
What if you eat a lot more than normal?
Most of the studies we've looked so far have involved people.Scramble“To 1,000 to 1,500 more calories than they needed per day.
But what if you're the kind of person who likes to get out of hand?
You know, instead of having a large bowl of oatmeal and a bar of chocolate (~ 1,000 calories), you decide to destroy a whole pizza, milkshake, and 16-ounce package of Twizzlers (6,000 calories).
What will the consequences be?
It's impossible to say exactly how much you'll gain for reasons you're about to learn, but let's try napkin math to find out.
Let's say you need 3,000 calories in order to Keep your weight every day.
On the day of your high, you eat 2,000 calories from your regular meals and 6,000 calories from your pizza, milkshake, and twizzlers.
2,000 + 6,000 = 8,000 total calories eaten.
8,000 calories eaten – 3,000 calories burned = 5,000 calories excess.
In the studies you learned about earlier in this article, people gained about 0.2 pounds of fat for every 1,000 calories they ate beyond their maintenance needs.
If you ate five times that amount – 5,000 more calories than you need to keep your weight on – you could expect to gain about a pound.
You can get rid of that in about a week proper diet.
(And if you want specific advice on how many calories, how much of each macronutrient, and what foods to eat to lose fat fast, Take the Legion Diet Quiz.)
When we look at real-world examples of extreme hedonism like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, we have even less reason to worry. On average people only to win about a pound of body weight during the vacation.
Talk to people who have participated in such binges and you will quickly find that often they don't put on as much fat as you would expect. After a few days of normal food intake and a decrease in your additional water, sodium, and glycogen stores, your weight will drop back to what it was before the calorie bonanza.
In other words, caloric intake and fat gain don't go up in lockstep.
5 Ways To Enjoy The Holidays Without Gaining A Lot Of Fat
Every Christmas season you will find a number of articles on “Avoiding Weight Gain On Vacation”.
Most of the time these items are crammed with useless platitudes like "mind your portion sizes", "skip the dessert" and "use a smaller plate".
Yes . . . No.
Not only are these strategies largely ineffective (what's the use of a small plate when you get seconds and thirds?), But most people will never follow them. Same for me.
I don't know about you, but I look forward to enjoying generous servings of many different dishes over the holidays. While I'm not soaking myself up to the point where I'm forced to lie on the couch like a harpooned beluga, I'm also not letting a small amount of fat spoil my fun.
Remember – it is continual overeating that leads to weight gain, a flabby body, and poor health, rather than the occasional high calorie indulgence.
Nor does that mean you have a license to go wild. While you may not gain as much body fat as you would expect if you overeat, this isn't an excuse to turn Thanksgiving into a long frenzy through New Years.
With that in mind, here are some strategies to enjoy the holidays without gaining too much fat (which actually work).
1. Eat a few large meals, then stop.
One of the main reasons people put so much fat on vacation is that they never stop eating.
Instead of having a big Thanksgiving dinner and maybe a few high-calorie leftover meals, eat several large meals while laying down cookies, candy, and desserts in the meantime.
This is especially true for people who have been in a calorie deficit for a long time before the holidays, who have been salivating in the last few weeks in anticipation of the coming festival.
Do not do that.
Eat some large, high-calorie meals instead, and maybe a few snacks here and there, but know when you've had enough.
In other words, eat a couple of large meals of all the foods you want, but stop grazing on cookies, cakes, and so on long after you are full.
2. Eat lots of protein and some fruits and vegetables.
You likely feel like you have eaten 5 (or 10 or 15) cookies and still haven't been full.
Why?
Most of the calories in foods like cookies come from refined carbohydrates, sugar, and fat, which are not very filling (although they are high in calories).
Protein, on the other hand is more filling as carbohydrates or fat. Likewise, foods high in fiber, such as fruits and vegetables, are better at promoting satiety than foods high in refined carbohydrates, sugar, and fat.
I'm not saying you have to cut out all processed foods and stick to turkey and Brussels sprouts, but some high protein and fiber foods are an easy way to limit the wanton mess.
In short, stock up on protein, veggies and fruits first, then move on to the really high calorie foods like cookies, cakes and so on.
3. Stay active and stick to your normal exercise program as much as possible.
The struggle to gain fat during the vacation is more mental than physical.
That said, if you get in a few workouts over the holidays, you won't burn enough calories to make up for the amount you eat.
However, what it will do is remind you that fitness is a priority. Every workout forces you to think about why it is important to you to stay in shape and how much more comfortable it is to have a fit, firm and healthy body than one that is out of shape, limp, unhealthy. In other words, it's a moment of episodic future thinking.
You see, I have a little theory that one of the main reasons people “fall off the cart” after overeating, for example on vacation, is because they put their entire health and fitness routine by the wayside.
Not only do they overeat – they stop exercising, stop weighing themselves, stop eating fruits or vegetables, and stay up late, drink too much, and so on.
In other words, people shoot themselves in the foot by telling themselves they "screwed up their diet" and then using that as an excuse to give it all up healthy habits during the holidays.
Of course, they know in the back of their minds that the chickens will soon be coming home to sleep, but This is a problem for future Homer, not current Homer.
Aside from the other solutions on this list, one way to avoid this problem is to stick to your normal fitness routine despite overeating.
That said, even if you eat a lot more than you normally would, keep exercising, staying active, eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein, and going to bed on time.
When you're feeling really brave, keep rocking yourself. The number will be higher, of course, but the habit of monitoring your weight counts.
Keeping a few important habits like exercising will also make it easier for you to get back to your normal routine after the holidays.
4. Reduce your calorie intake before and after your large meals.
Some people practice intermittent fasting during the holidays so they can save their calories for large meals.
While this strategy can work, I prefer to keep my normal eating frequency but eat smaller meals when I'm not feasting.
I also keep these meals low in calories and high in protein. For example, on Thanksgiving morning, I usually eat some fruit and a lean source of protein, like a couple of sliced apples and strawberries with Greek yogurt or whey protein powder.
That night, if I ever want to eat after Thanksgiving dinner, I'll likely have something similar to low-fat cottage cheese or leftover turkey before bed.
5. Cut after the holidays, not during.
After a day or two of overeating, many people feel the need to start cutting right away in order to get rid of any fat they may have gained.
While it's okay to stay in a calorie deficit when you just don't feel like eating a lot (which I usually do), I warn against it Crash diets.
Instead, I recommend that you maintain a slight calorie deficit for a week or two after the holidays to shave off the fat you've gained. If you've kept fat gain in check with the other tips on this list, that should be enough to get you back to your pre-vacation body.
+ Scientific references
- Horton, T.J., Drougas, H., Brachey, A., Reed, G.W., Peters, J.C. & Hill, J.O. (1995). Fat and carbohydrate overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62 (1), 19-29. https://doi.org/10.1093/AJCN/62.1.19
- Johannsen, D. L., Tchoukalova, Y., Tam, C. S., Covington, J. D., Xie, W., Schwarz, J. M., Bajpeyi, S. & Ravussin, E. (2014). Influence of 8 weeks of overeating on ectopic fat deposition and insulin sensitivity: testing the hypothesis of "adipose expansionability". Diabetes Care, 37 (10), 2789. https://doi.org/10.2337/DC14-0761
- Parry, S. A., Woods, R. M., Hodson, L. & Hulston, C. J. (2017). A single day of excessive dietary fat intake reduces the insulin sensitivity of the whole body: the metabolic consequence of binge eating. Nutrients, 9 (8). https://doi.org/10.3390/NU9080818
- Heer, M., Frings-Meuthen, P., Titze, J., Boschmann, M., Frisch, S., Baecker, N. & Beck, L. (2009). An increase in sodium intake from a previous low or high intake affects the water, electrolyte, and acid-base balance differently. The British Journal of Nutrition, 101 (9), 1286-1294. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114508088041
- Singer, D. R. J., Markandu, N. D., Buckley, M. G., Miller, M. A., Sagnella, G. A., Lachno, D. R., Cappuccio, F. P., Murday, A., Yacoub, M. H. & MacGregor, G. A. (1994). Blood pressure and endocrine reactions to changes in dietary sodium intake in heart transplant recipients. Effects on sodium control. Edition, 89 (3), 1153-1159. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.CIR.89.3.1153
- Kreitzman, S.N., Coxon, A.Y. & Szaz, K.F. (1992). Glycogen storage: illusions of easy weight loss, excessive weight gain, and bias in estimating body composition. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 56 (1 Suppl). https://doi.org/10.1093/AJCN/56.1.292S
- Ack, J., Anovski, A. Y., Usan, S., Anovski, Z. Y., Ovik, A. N. S., Guyen, U. T. N., O’n Eil, A. M. & Ebring, A. G. S. (2009). A prospective study of weight gain while on vacation. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1056/NEJM200003233421206, 342 (12), 861-867. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200003233421206
- Hull, H.R., Radley, D., Dinger, M.K. & Fields, D.A. (2006). The effect of the Thanksgiving holiday on weight gain. Nutritional Journal, 5 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-5-29
- Paddon-Jones, D., Westman, E., Mattes, R.D., Wolfe, R.R., Astrup, A. & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. (2008). Protein, weight management and satiety. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87 (5). https://doi.org/10.1093/AJCN/87.5.1558S
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