Why do I keep gaining weight after I stopped drinking and eating bad food?

[Anonymous]

My undergrad diet was awful but I only gained 12 pounds in college and went from 5"9 158 to 5"11 170 from 18-21. My diet was mess hall food for a year then cheap beer that the upperclassmen bought for me for 2 years. Then I was 21 and got an apartment and lived on frozen pizza, easy Mac, wine (alot of wine), and ham sandwiches. I was awlays skinny and now that I'm in grad school i only drink once a week and learned to like vegetables, fruits, and salad while being overall healthier. I also picked up basketball again and play three days a week. With that said I've gained 10 pounds in the past year and since I don't lift it's not muscle. I haven't had to buy clothes but I'm gaining weight for sure.

[redeyemindtricks]

This response is basically a "bookmark" so I can type out a fuller response later.

But, basically, here are a couple of points to consider:

• You mentioned "vegetables, fruits, and salad", which are all carbohydrate foods.
Especially fruits, which are... well, sugar -- and mostly the bad kind of sugar (fructose), too. Fruit has a mostly undeserved good reputation, but, the fact of the matter is, fruit can absolutely make you (or keep you) fat.
How much PROTEIN do you eat?

• Alcohol is a diuretic, so, it *can* actually make you piss out a certain amount of water weight. If you've drastically lowered yr drinking along with changing yr diet, that can have an effect on water retention ("bloating"), too.

More later.

[OhioNativeForLife]

But don't you need fruit for vitamins and minerals?

[Asker]

I eat 2 boneless skinless chicken breast a day. For dinner.

[OhioNativeForLife]

You should vary it up. Too much of one meat can become toxic. Canned fish is the cheapest source of complete protein, but also can lead to mercury poisoning.

[redeyemindtricks]

Okay well... A few thoughts.

• If you have gained ACTUAL BODY MASS -- in other words, not in the form of retained water -- then, the only way that could actually happen is through a long-term energy surplus.

Intriguingly, some recent studies have shown that it might actually be *impossible* for this energy surplus to come from protein... yes, that's right, it might actually not be humanly possible to gain weight from eating excess protein.
The most interesting study put 3 groups on identical, supervised, long-term diets, with identical amounts of exercise; the only difference was that that one group consumed an additional 100 grams (+400 calories) of protein/day, and another group consumed an additional 200 grams (+800 calories) of protein/day. NONE of the groups gained excess weight compared to any of the others -- and, in fact, the highest-protein group actually lost some bodyfat! -- so, yeah, basically the evidence seems to indicate that protein can't make you fat. Therefore, the

[redeyemindtricks]

energy surplus pretty much has to come from carbohydrate and/or fat.

• I saw what you wrote in the other comment thread. You described a LOT of high-fat foods in there -- oil, bacon, eggs (which I assume are the whole eggs, since you didn't say just whites), salami.
You would be surprised how easy it is to rack up the calories with this stuff. I mean... there's about 200 calories in just three or four slices of bacon, dude. As for eggs, check out what I wrote here:
www.girlsaskguys.com/.../q2031675-eggs-good-or-bad

Honestly, I'm pretty confused about yr diet, since what you've written in these threads seems to contradict what you wrote above. In the comment threads, you're describing what is MOSTLY a high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carb diet... but then, in the original post, you described exclusively carbohydrate foods. So, tbh, I don't think I actually have any real idea what you eat.

• Was the 10lbs weight gain gradual, or

[redeyemindtricks]

was it pretty sudden (once you stopped drinking as much)?
If it was SUDDEN, then, it might just be bloat, from not consuming as much alcohol (since alcohol is a diuretic, which makes you piss out a certain quantity of yr body water). In fact, fitness girls even use red wine at competition time (and male bodybuilders probably do, too, idk), because of its diuretic qualities, combined with the fact that it increases vascularity for the stage.
So... yeah.
I mean -- you are about 6' tall. A lot of 6 foot guys EASILY lose between 9 and 13 lbs in the first few days of a low-carb diet, just from pissing out the water weight that's retained from eating carbohydrates (combined with partial or complete glycogen depletion, if that happens) -- so, honestly, this alone could EASILY explain the entire 10 lb difference, if you gained most or all of that weight soon after adjusting yr drinking habits.

• If not, then, what about yr other activity?
Did you WALK AROUND a lot in college as an

[redeyemindtricks]

undergrad?
At most American universities, people don't drive, and they pretty much have to walk or bike everywhere on campus (and sometimes TO campus, too, if they live off-campus). You'd be surprised by how many calories are burned just by walking -- it's about 200-250 calories an hour, depending on yr speed and how much stuff you are carrying. That adds up, especially if that's yr only mode of getting around and you're doing it all day and all night.
If you've suddenly switched to driving -- or if you just don't move around as much as you used to -- then that could easily explain the difference. Remember, 10 lbs over a YEAR only requires a surplus of 100 calories a day!

Read that again...
ONE HUNDRED CALORIES A DAY over baseline... translates to about a 10-lb weight gain over the course of one year. So, really, you should think about these smaller variables, in addition to the larger, more obvious dietary stuff.

[Asker]

I mean I walked everywhere in undergrad and avoided touching a car mostly cause I I'd drink a lot and it was a gas saver to walk. I also did work in a restaurant and serve tables so I was active and often inna sweat if a good push of came in I never thought of that as physical activity but it probably did add up.

[redeyemindtricks]

Oh yeah, that's probably the reason. Remember-- just 100 cal/day adds up to 10 lbs of weight gain over a year.

But, of course, the same is true in reverse: taking *away* (or burning) just 100 EXTRA cal/day means a LOSS of 10 lbs in a year.

[redeyemindtricks]

Tx for the MH luv <3

[Asker]

And for my diet I eat eggs every morning and bacon. I drink 2 cups of black coffee as well. Lunch is a salad with 2 slices ofsalami and a some sprinkle cheese. The issue with the oil and vinegar dressing is its better than ranch or Italian for you and fat free dressing isn't too good. Dinner is 2 grilled chicken breast. I snack on fruit throughout the day. It adds up to about 1700 to 1900 calories a day based on my fitness pal. I do dislike veggies though and never learned to suck it up so I don't know how to make those good without cheese or butter which kills the purpose of veggies.

[redeyemindtricks]

Myfitnesspal is pretty much bullshit -- it relies on foods that you have to pick out of predetermined lists, and you *can't* circumvent this. It's literally not even possible to enter macros directly, even if you know them exactly. Such crap.
In general, MFP has an error of AT LEAST ±20 percent -- yep, we're talking ±600 calories on a 2000 cal/day diet bruh

Get a food scale, measure stuff out, and learn to calculate actual calories. It's a pain in the ass for the first week, and then it's really easy after that. If you have a TI-83 calculator from high school, you can even use the matrix functions to enter data from a nutrition label all at once (bet you never thought you'd use *that* in real life), and then just multiply by the number of grams, add to a running total in memory, and off you go.

If you cook yr own food and don't mind reheating food, then, doing WEEKLY calories will step up the accuracy big time.
Daily calories are still off by ±5-10 percent even if you are meticulous

[redeyemindtricks]

about any and all measurements, but, weekly calories can easily be within ±1-2 percent, because the measurement tolerances are the same even though you're making 5-7 times as much food.

Weekly calories are also good for people who sweat this shit on a daily basis -- you can naturally eat more on training days and less on other days, without stressing excessively over the individual numbers per 24 hours.

But, regardless of how you do it, ditch MFP, get a food scale, and get with the program.

[Smmyskittles]

Drinking enough water?

Are you stressed?

Are you actually eating ENOUGH healthy food? You might not be getting enough calories.

Are you sleeping well enough?

Is it muscle?

[Asker]

I don't lift all I do is play basketball m, w, f for 2 hours.

[Smmyskittles]

What about the rest of it?

[Smmyskittles]

@redeyemindtricks - You know what? You'll know more about this than I would.

That's where I should have started.

- Now, Asker, if she does comment. Her answers are long and detailed. HOWEVER, they are ALWAYS worth the read.

Redeye knows pretty much everything there is to know about nutrition.. among other things :* She's amazing.

[redeyemindtricks]

Tx for the "reference" hahah <3

[JohnDoe3000]

You can get muscles from playing basketball, not a throbbing biceps, but still muscles. Also what kind of salad do you eat (lots of dressing?) and what else do you eat?

[Asker]

I'm boring I eat salad with oil and vinegar and add salami and cheese for lunch. Also I eat 2 grilled chicken breast a day for dinner. My only bad habit is I am addicted to overeasy eggs and bacon so I have that every morning.

[JohnDoe3000]

So you eat eggs and bacon for breakfast, plus cheese and salami for lunch, and you wonder why you can gain weight?

[Miezko]

It's actually a really simple answer. You consume more calories than you burn.

[Asker]

Well I know my metabolism will slow a little as I age but my diet was 1200 calories a day from alcohol, and three huge meals a day with terrible food. I'm eating 1700 calories day and only drink water so I don't know how I can be gaining weight.

[Miezko]

I find that hard to believe. The average man at 1700 calories a day would be considered malnourished and beer losing over a pound a week.
I bet your getting calories that you're not aware of. Try keeping a food journal for a month. In it you'll write down every, and I mean every single thing you eat and how many calories are in it.
I'm willing to bet that you'll find out that you're eating more than 1700 calories a day.

[Anonymous]

Make sure your at a calorie deficit