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For our 20th episode of the Community Conversation, Prototype Nutrition Coach Jon Collette and Prototype Nutrition’s registered dietician, Sam Russo will be discussing why the scale changes overnight. If you’re looking to learn more about Nutrition for yourself or pick up some good eating habit tips, you will want to check this out!
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Jon Collette 0:00
All right, thank you for tuning in to the community conversation brought to you by a prototype Training Systems home of CrossFit prototype. And the community conversation, we typically highlight a different member of the prototype community each week, this week, we’re going to spend some time providing those members with science based nutrition education. Don’t worry, we’re not replacing Mike on the community conversation. But you might see us on here from time to time, if you’re new to the protect community, I am coach john, and this is coach Sam. And together we run the prototype nutrition program. There’s a lot of misinformation on nutrition, and we get questioned a lot, we aim to provide you with some clarity. This week, we are answering a very common question that we get all the time is, why did I gain so much weight overnight? So we’re gonna dive right into why that might happen. So to start, why does this scale move up or down. So for one is going to be energy intake, right, so how much food we’re putting into our body. So if we know that food as holds weight, and holds calories, we can also assume that it is also going to not be the same every single day. So before we talk exactly about the scale, Sim, maybe we should talk a little bit about how the scale can either go up over time or down over time. So let’s maybe not talk about directly one day at a time, maybe let’s talk about overtime, how will the scale might go up? And how might the scale go down?
Sam Russo 1:37
I like that Jon, you led me right to this. So every pound is 3500 calories. So you add 3500 extra calories above your maintenance. to your diet, you gain a patent, you take away 3500 calories from your maintenance, you lose a pound. And like typically, we split that up across several days. So if you’re trying to lose a pound a week, you decrease your calorie intake by 500 calories a day and you’re losing a pound a week. The same goes for if you’re trying to gain weight, you do the same thing in the opposite direction. So when you see the scale, say that you are two pounds heavier than you were yesterday, you obviously did not eat 7000 calories extra on top of your maintenance intake. To gain weight. There’s clearly plenty of other reasons that that would be showing a weight that you were not expecting when you stepped on the scale in the morning. And so john, why don’t you start? Tell us I guess one of the main reasons that someone would actually see that scale change.
Jon Collette 2:44
Alright. So the scale is going to fluctuate from time to time for mainly these two reasons. And then we can go off into other reasons why it might happen. But what is mainly happening when the scale goes up. And let’s say it goes up by several pounds is going to be water retention caused by something and also um, sodium level. Okay, so if your water is being retained, it is going to be happening for a number of District different reasons. But it typically is going to be some form of a stress response. Okay, so Sam, what is one reason that you can think above the top of your head that the scale might go up to three pounds overnight?
Sam Russo 3:37
A lot. Um, first, a major reason is like the time of day that you’re weighing yourself. Where it’s like yesterday, I woke up and I weighed myself first thing in the morning, I had just gone to the bathroom, I hadn’t had any water. And so I am like at the lowest of low because I was completely unclothed, and I weighed myself yesterday. And then today, I waited until after 5pm, I had eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner, drink water throughout the day, I’ve been wearing my workout clothes, and I just like jumped on the scale after my workout at the gym, it’s going to be a very different number, despite not actually having a huge change in weight from a span of what 36 hours. So time of day is like probably the first place to start. Like if you’re trying to track your weight, you have to stay consistent at the time of day. Because if you change it up, it’s a big reason you’d see a fluctuation.
Jon Collette 4:30
Now what about if someone weighs themselves at the same point every day and they weigh themselves the same way? why might that happen? Where the scale might fluctuate up? Like what’s another like possible example?
Sam Russo 4:42
Some bathroom habits would be top of the list? Yeah, I it’s like, you know, there’s no sugarcoating it. If you pooped and you weigh yourself, you’re going to be lighter than if you didn’t. And shockingly digested food and yeah, food has weight like He said at the very beginning, so like the food that comes through you and out of you also has weight. So you can see fluctuations like before you go the bathroom and after you go to bathroom. And it can be a lot more than I think some people might expect.
Jon Collette 5:15
Yeah, so something else to think about to guys is also what if you a the majority of your calories, let’s say you eat the same amount of calories, both days, let’s say, Sunday, you ate 2000 calories, Monday, you ate 2000 calories, you weighed yourself on Tuesday, and you gained weight. Even though you ate two days in a row, the same amount of food that you normally do. Think about if you eat your calories later in the day, or a good majority of them later in the day, you’re going to probably have more undigested food in your system. So, um, we don’t think about too is probably do carbohydrates matter at all, when it comes to how much water is going to be retained in our bodies him
Sam Russo 6:00
100% Um, there’s a reason people lose weight on keto. And it’s literally just because without carbs in the diet, there’s not as much water retention. So when people say, Oh, I lost a pound on keto, it’s like literally all waterway that comes off. And then when we eat carbs, again, we gain weight. And it’s not like a failure in a diet, necessarily, it’s just that like carbs in themselves cause the body to retain more water. And that’s a good thing. Like that is a very good thing that the carbs do that for the body. It like prevents us from getting dehydrated or having imbalances and other ways. But yes, eating carbs can be a source of water retention. JOHN, you got anything out to that?
Jon Collette 6:39
Yeah, don’t take away that carbs are bad. And from that, amen, it’s that just hold on to a little bit more water. But when you guys are training, carbohydrates are stored in the form of what’s called glycogen in your muscles in your liver. So when you guys are doing stuff like CrossFit, or thrive, you’re doing something that’s high intense, those stored carbohydrates are what’s really going to drive you for a great performance and your workout. So what can also happen leading to why the skill may change is, um, we’re talking about working out now is that when you work out, there is a stress response, right? Just stress response that happens when you exercise. If you do, you know, raise your hand, if you’ve ever gotten sore after doing lunges, it’s a movement that is going to probably be for a lot of us a new adaptation. So a new adaptation is going to cause a stress response. Whenever we have a stress response it’s going to, it’s also going to impact what’s called our cortisol, which is our stress hormone. And when cortisol goes up, that also impacts our sodium levels and our water retention. So if we have any form of stress, whether it’s for a positive, you know, we’re building muscle, or that we are under a lot of work stress, we are going to potentially have a weight fluctuation up or down depending on what is going on. Um, I don’t know about you, Sam, have you ever gone on vacation? Or maybe gone away for the weekend, come back, and thought that you ate a lot more than you usually do. But you actually lost weight? Yes,
Sam Russo 8:29
yes.
Jon, do you want to dive into why that happens
Jon Collette 8:32
It’s stress relief if you got stress relief, if sometimes it doesn’t, it doesn’t always sound like it would make sense is that if you ate a little bit more than usual, is that you would actually potentially lose weight. And now don’t take away that, okay, calories don’t matter, it’s that stress has a huge impact on the scale. So if we are chronically under eating, that’s going to be stressful on our body over time. And we’re probably going to have a really hard time understanding how much food we actually need. Because when your body is constantly under stress, you’re constantly retaining more water and fluid. And when that’s happening, it’s easy to get frustrated with thinking that you know, just because you had one glass of wine that you just ruined your whole week. It’s a little things that because we’re not having a better understanding that sometimes we actually need to eat more to have less stress in our life. That is actually going to help us with having a better understanding of you know what we actually need on a daily basis. Um, those are like big ones, but if we can, can you think of any others off the top of your head? I have a couple of mine but
Sam Russo 9:52
Okay, so we went into water retention. We went into stress, we went into time of death. We went into pooping, we definitely didn’t talk about sodium. So I think that’s worth mentioning. Sometimes you don’t eat more, sometimes you don’t eat less, you just have a high sodium meal, where it’s like something that’s processed has sodium in it, or you salt something, or you go to a restaurant where they sold everything. And that’s why it tastes so delicious. We’re not having bad food, you shouldn’t feel bad that you ate something in a restaurant The next day, the scales five pounds heavier, it’s just literally it’s more sodium that your body’s used to. And so the homeostasis that you’re at is just altered. I would say sodium would probably be one of those ones, that’s definitely near the top of the list. JOHN, what do you have on that
Jon Collette 10:39
list? I mean, alcohol too, is a big one that is also going to really impact not has nothing to do with the calories just the way your body kind of processes. Alcohol is alcohol is not carbohydrate, fat, or protein is some carbohydrates and alcohol, but your body doesn’t process alcohol the same way it does your main macronutrients. So there is going to be a little bit of like, whenever your body is confused, it’s going to have like a little bit of like, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. And that’s going to be a little bit of a water spike in the scale when it comes to that type of stuff. Um, but if you just did a hard workout, your muscles are swollen, and then you had alcohol, you’re impacting how your muscles. So what’s actually the process of called protein sensors, like the fancy way that your body recovers from muscular training, if you have alcohol, that totally impacts it, so you’re going to what’s the word you’re gonna like, exaggerate the the soreness that you’re gonna feel. So whenever you feel sore, that’s again, we’re saying the same thing over and over and over again. But it’s going to be a lot of muscle retention, if you have an inflammatory response to training, life stress, anything that’s going on, that can totally impact the scale. So kind of back to what Sam said the beginning, unless you’ve over consumed by 3500 calories. That’s only one pound, but most people might have. If they went out to a restaurant, and ADA, Ada higher calorie meal than they normally do, they might have like 500 calories, or let’s even say that they had a few drinks, let’s say they had 1200 more calories than they normally do. That’s still not even a third of a natural pound of weight that you gained. But a lot of it is just food on digested in your system. And and yeah, it’s just probably a lot of different things that are happening, like eating later in the day, like a number of different things. And then you hop on the scale, and you’re like I ruined all my progress. Progress, because I went and had, you know, one enjoyable night, where if we have a better understanding of these things, it’s a lot easier to not get stressed out over the scale. And if the scale is something that really does stresses you out, maybe it’s not the best tool for you to use every single day, or every week. Maybe you want to have better relationship with how you feel before you use that tool. What do you think about that, Tim?
Sam Russo 13:26
Yeah, I think that’s a perfect explanation of like, the scale can be a really good tool for some people, it can also be a hindrance to a lot of other people. And so if you’re looking at trends, I got to make sure I do this in the right direction, but like the scale increases, or decreases, and it’s never linear. When we’re trying to adjust our weight, it’s going to be up and then down, and then up and then down. We’re looking for it as a general trend line. So if the scale goes up to pounds more than you wanted it to overnight, well, maybe the day after, it will be back to where it was the day before. And then you’ll see a general trend in the downward direction. That’s why it’s like weighing in can be a positive thing every single day. If you’re someone who’s okay with those fluctuations and understands that the general trend line is what what we’re really looking for. But if those fluctuations do worry you like maybe the scale is not your friend, maybe we look at things like waist circumference, or percent body fat using the body scan, or different things that are like non scale related that could be like how your clothes fit or fitting into different size shoes is like something that comes up that people don’t really realize is a byproduct of weight loss, where we can see fluctuations and changes in what you’re doing that don’t require you to step on the scale. And so with that said, john, um, let’s do like a recap. Because I know we like kind of talked in a couple different directions. Let’s like list all of the reasons that the scale could change. Tonight, what do you got?
Jon Collette 15:02
So number one guys is going to be a water retention and your sodium level, okay, that’s going to be one, retain water based off of different things that are happening, whether it’s stress related, or if it is sodium impacted, whether it is from your training, whether it’s from if we’ve introduced alcohol on even certain certain medications can go ahead and impact the scale. We didn’t mention that, but that just that just keep in mind, um, and one we didn’t even mention his female menstrual cycle
Sam Russo 15:41
a lot, huh?
Jon Collette 15:43
that was gonna happen once in a while. So expected that is also going to have an impact on on the scale digested food. Sam helped me out. What are some others that we meant? Um,
Sam Russo 16:02
if you’re wearing clothes, like take your clothes off every time you buy yourself or keep your clothes on, but just keeping
Jon Collette 16:06
consistent? Yep, that’s a big one there. being consistent the time and day feels a tool to help you out. Um, and yeah, it’s, it’s funny, your body adapts to everything you do. So if you have a certain amount of sodium in your diet, or you have a certain amount of carbohydrates in your diet, and you have a different amount, you’re going to have a response to that. So if you normally have like you, you might have some friends that, you know, they can go ahead and eat like 400 grams of carbs, and nothing happens to them. But that’s just like their normal standard diet. So whenever you do something different, your body responds by having a little bit of a stress response until it gets adapted to it. Yeah, so.
Sam Russo 16:56
So before we before we sign off on everyone, let’s like, let’s get like a call to action. Like, Hey, guys, we want you to focus on this this week. So based on everything you said, john, what’s your like last bit of advice. before we say goodbye,
Jon Collette 17:13
my bit, my my bit of advice for everyone that weighs themselves is to try not to use the scale as the only indicator of progress. You don’t know what’s really happening on an internal level all the time. If we are bloated, we don’t necessarily know that that is the case, unless we’re more in tune with how we feel day to day. Um, and if looking at the scale is something that is not working well for your mental health, then maybe the scale isn’t the best thing for you to use on a consistent basis. So my call to action to you is to try not to freak out or get really hard on yourself. If you notice a fluctuation on the scale, have a better understanding of why these things are happening. And it’s a lot easier to be consistent making progress because you’re not going to jump ship going to be able to continue making progress because you understand these things better. So you’re not thinking that you’re a failure.
Sam Russo 18:23
snaps to that. Yeah. Cool. So um, thanks guys for listening and or watching to this podcast. If you ever have nutrition questions, you should reach out to john or myself directly. And as always, we love that you are listening to community conversation. So go ahead and follow along subscribe on was it YouTube and Spotify and all other streaming services, and we’re excited to bring you more and more nutrition information. Please let us know if there are other topics you want us to cover. And we’ll see you guys again soon.