How many of you gained weight over the holiday weekend? Probably quite few (if you dare to get on the scale!). Let’s say the scale jumped up by 3 pounds. Does this mean you gained 3 pounds of fat? Probably not. It takes an extra 3500 calories to promote a one pound weight gain of fat. So does this mean you ate an extra 10,500 calories over the weekend (in addition to the calories your body needs to maintain its weight)?  I guess it would be possible, but that is a lot of eating! Chances are that most of your Monday morning weight gain is due to fluid retention.

Here is what happens… your body is made up of about 60-65% water. Any increase in carbohydrate or sodium intake will cause your body to hold on to water. For example, lets say your normal diet is moderate in carbs. Then you overindulge on the weekend on bagels, dessert, and maybe some pasta. Your body does several things with these carbs:

1. some is used for immediate energy
2. some is stored as fat 
3. much of it goes into energy stores in the liver and muscles.

These stores are called  glycogen and will provide your body with energy as time goes on. Runners try to fill up their glycogen stores by eating pasta on the night before the marathon. They want to stuff their energy stores full of stored carbs to be used as energy during the race. Now here is the catch - in order to hold the carbohydrate in storage, your body needs to hold onto water. For each gram of carbohydrate, your body needs to hold onto 3 grams of water. This technical stuff may not mean much to you, but basically eating extra carbs will cause a temporary weight gain due to fluid retention. As the days go by and you go back to your normal diet, your body will release the water and you will lose a few pounds on the scale.

Keep in mind that consuming any nutrient - whether it be carbs, protein or fat - in excess of your caloric needs - will cause weight gain. It just looks like carbs cause more of a weight gain because of the fluid retention.

Don’t worry - you can get those weekend pounds off quickly!

Here are some tips to speed the loss of your weekend weight gain:

1. Follow a 3 day low carb diet. Here are 2 simple meal plans (pick one):

  Breakfast:
 a. egg whites with veggies 
 b. 1 cup cottage cheese and 1/2 cup berries
  Lunch:
  a. Big salad with 4 oz turkey, plain tuna or grilled chicken, 80 calories salad dressing
  b. grilled chicken, fish or lean meat, 4 oz and steamed vegetables
  Snack: 15 almonds or a string cheese
  Dinner:
  a. 6 oz lean meat, fish or poultry, large portion veggies or
  b. Steamed Chinese chicken/shrimp tofu and veggies, 3 T. sauce on the side
 Snack: diet jello or diet ice pop

2. Limit your sodium intake

3. Drink at least 10 cups of water a day

4. Exercise 30-60 minutes a day

Your weekend weight gain will be off in no time! Keep in mind that the goal here is to prevent a weekday starve weekend binge cycle. This not healthy physically or psychologically. While it is nice to take a break from always watching what you eat, the key should still be moderation on the weekends. More about this at a later post.

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