Weight Watchers Get Healthy Freestyle Journey Week 27
How Much Food Does It Take To Gain Weight?
It’s MONDAY and time once again to continue our journey into health and wellness. Thank you, for joining me as I reflect on the past week and explore the new! This week I as was looking for motivation for this post I started thinking about how I got to where I’m at. This is not the first time that I’ve had 100+ pounds to lose. How did I, after 10 years of keeping all 147 pounds that I previously lost off, did I find myself right back in the same boat? What changed so that I began gaining what I had worked so hard to lose back? Keep reading to learn what I discovered.
Also, if you’ve missed any of the posts in the recent weeks be sure to check them out. In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about how to overcome sugar cravings and got tips to fight obesity in children and teens. We’ve also learned how long it really takes to form a habit and how gut bacteria influences your weight and weight loss. As well as, the importance of hydration, where sugar is hiding in your food (aka sugar bombs), and looked at the benefits of shopping at farmer’s markets. In addition we’ve explored the importance of milestones, how to stay motivated, the smart use of free foods, some tactics for dining out, surviving the holidays while dieting, the benefits of a 5% weight loss, diabetes, the importance of exercise. We’ve started an exercise routine, learned some beginner exercises, and gotten safety tips for exercising in the summer heat. Since beginning my weight loss journey in January, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, and the fourth of July have come and gone.
This Is How Long It Takes To Gain Weight
If you’ve ever eaten a ridiculously huge meal and ended up feeling that you were ready to explode, you’ve probably thought that you instantly gained weight. Well, there’s good news and bad news.
Good News
What you eat or overeat does not instantly turn into weight gain.
Bad News
How much you eat over the course of a few days or a week, however, can result in weight gain.
“Weight gain simply happens when we have an imbalance between the kilojoules* we’re eating and the kilojoules we’re burning off,” Jemma O’Hanlon told HuffPost Australia. “It doesn’t occur just from one meal — it’s when this imbalance occurs over a period of time that weight gain can creep up on us.” – Huffington Post Australia
If you’re moderately active, you need about 15 to 16 calories per pound of body weight to maintain a healthy weight, according to the University of Washington and Harvard Medical School. However, as with anything related to the body, the amount of food we need to eat before it ends up as body weight depends on the individual. Each person has their own energy requirement which varies depending on numerous factors such as age, height, illness, and activity. Also, the rate at which we burn calories, otherwise known as your metabolism, varies from person to person.
Not surprisingly, since weight gain occurs when we don’t burn off the calories we consume the amount of food it takes to gain weight varies from person to person. One pound of stored fat comes from 3,436 to 3,752 extra calories. You can gain 1 pound per week by consuming roughly an extra 475 calories each day. That’s the equivalent to two slices of pizza or two iced doughnuts!
*1 Calorie = 4.2 Kilojoules
Reality Check ~ Lifestyle Changes
- Eat Until Your Full. It’s often when we eat past the point of being full that we’re likely to gain weight. Eat slowly and listen to your body. Stop when you feel comfortably satisfied. If you’re eating until you’re stuffed full, chances are you’re eating more than your body needs.
- Eat In Balance. When it comes to eating in balance, one meal can’t ruin your weight loss efforts. The key is to enjoy all foods in the right balance. Keep portions lean and focus on eating smart.
- It’s much easier to gain weight than it is to lose weight. It takes almost 20 minutes of jogging to burn 80 calories. That glass of wine you drank with dinner takes approximately 40 minutes of brisk walking for your body to burn off.
- Weight is influenced by what and how much you eat. You gain weight immediately when eating food or drinking liquids. You initially gain precisely as much as the food or the drink weighs. What happens after that depends on what you ate and on your energy-balance. Whether you’re taking in more energy than you’re spending or using more energy than you’re taking in will determine if you gain or lose weight.
- Timeline for weight gain. The process of ingestion, digestion, and egestion occurs over a span of roughly 12 hours on average. That’s the time it takes for the residual waste of food to pass out of us. The useable parts have all been put to use for energy expenditure, as heat generation, or placed into storage, as either glycogen or fat.
Although the question seems extraordinarily simple one, there is not a simple answer to it. While it is easy to say how long it takes for your body to digest food, it is very difficult to answer the question, how quickly does it add weight to my body? That’s a very individual phenomenon, based not only on the make-up of someone’s diet but on their unique hormonal and physiologic response to it.
I gained the weight back because not only did I quit being active and kept eating the same way I did when I was burning lots of extra calories. But, I also started to eat lots of the wrong types of the foods. The weight gain didn’t happen overnight. It was years of eating poorly and sitting in front of the computer for hours. Now, I am working on finding a proper balance in my life.
Stop focusing on the scale! Our weight is just a number and it doesn’t define who we are. Rather than just focusing on our weight, we should be focusing on the bigger picture — on our general health and wellbeing.
Weight Watchers Freestyle Progam – Learn more.
Our weight is just a number and it doesn’t define who we are. Rather than just focusing on our weight, we should be focusing on the bigger picture — on our general health and wellbeing.
How my freestyle weight loss week went:
I am still struggling to get and stay hydrated so the battle continues to drink and eat more water. With the two teens gone, this week was very quiet! Just two trips to Charleston for physical therapy and the pain specialist. We stopped by the store and restocked I was shocked at how much yogurt and cereal they ate. I sure do miss them though.
With preparations for back to school in full swing, before we knew it Sunday was here and it was time to step on the scale. I was excited to see that I had lost two pounds this week. I am two pounds closer to my goal of reaching 50 pounds lost before our trip to Richmond in September. Until next week… Remember to stay positive and keep looking forward.
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I am not a medical professional. The contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice. You should seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.
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Weight Watchers Freestyle Journey Week 26 – Great Tips For Fighting Obesity In Children And Teens
