Warning, science ahead!

Have you ever had one bad day that sent your scale through the roof? Here’s why: Our bodies have a few ways of storing extra calories. One of them is fat, and we also have short term carbohydrate storage called glycogen, which is in our liver and muscles. You know how athletes like to “carb load” the night before a big race? When they do this they are filling up their glycogen storage. But glycogen works like a sponge, it holds energy plus up to three times that weight in water, and water is heavy.

So if I eat a large amont of carbohydrates in one day I may have a calorie surpluss, but the weight I gain on the scale will be disproportionately large due to the extra water weight. If the food also has lots of sodium, I'll see my weight go up even more. That’s because our blood likes to be at a certain percentage of salt, so if we eat a lot of sodium our bodies bring extra water into the blood to dilute the salt, making us gain weight and increasing our blood pressure. You also need to add in water retention from inflammation caused by excessive blood sugar.

So I might gain 3-8 pounds on the scale overnight even if I've only taken in a calorie surpluss equivalent to half a pound of fat. But as soon as I get back to my healthy habits, drink a bunch of water, and return to earning a calorie deficit each day, the weight will drop off, usually in about 2-3 days. To sum up: mishaps are a part of life but the scale lies! Don’t let it have power over your emotions. You can do this one day at a time. =)