BindsThatTie

The obligatory joke is "when she resizes her ring". 💍😂

I don't believe it has anything to do with a specific number. From my experience; it's purely the social aspect. It's when it's finally verbalized to friends and family that she's "fat", "heavier now" got a "mom bod". This most often comes in some form of a self-deprecatory joke on her part about her gain or cracking a joke about her new "big ass" or needing new clothes, etc. But the moment when the "cat is out of the bag" and she no longer feels that burden of keeping the secret, trying not to pig out in front of family/friends, avoiding photos, feeling like everybody is always comparing her to her old self – it then will become simply ubiquitous that she's one of the chubbier girls of the group. It's often also when she casually buys new clothes. This is critical: most women draw a mental line in the sand with clothes. They're expensive, they have very limited closet space and the personal contract they typically hold to themselves is "I'll let my figure slide BUT I will diet once I can't fit into _____". Therefore it's a giant emotional leap when she can guilt-free shop and move up in sizes. Once that acceptance is experienced, it's much easier for her to really let go and move into the 'no turning back' camp.

This is exactly why women get caught into the yo-yo dieting trap for years and years. They refuse to reverse diet properly so they end up heavier than they were with an even slower metabolism than they had before. So what do they do? They diet again, often more determined with an even BIGGER caloric deficit (we mean business this time!!) > further slowing down their metabolism... and the vicious cycle continues every time they break the diet. You'll hear them complain "I honestly am not pigging out! I don't understand why I'm gaining all of this weight back". And they're not lying.

I experienced post-diet rebound just a few months ago. Currently I'm in a bulk right now and my TDEE is at 2,400 calories per day. I will maintain my weight eating 2,400 calories a day. Last summer I dieted down to 9% BF for a vacation and over the 5 months of dieting my metabolism was slowed down to 1,200 calories a day at the very end. I looked great. BUT after the vacation, only eating a paltry 1,500 calories a day I was getting FAT because I was now in a calorie surplus. I lost a lot of my ab definition eating almost nothing! It's taken me 7 months to get my metabolism back up to 2,400 cal a day to maintain my weight.

The thread is about post-diet rebound wherein yes it's all about their metabolism being ultra-slow, in starvation mode from the diet. Now when you're talking about an obese person, the metabolism is generally irrelevant because no human metabolism can process 6-7K calories a day like these people and not gain weight. You layer on that most of them have destroyed their insulin sensitivity with the carbs/sugar they're consuming, which packs on fat even faster. Given their sedentary lifestyles, their metabolisms are probably on the slow side even with their large calorie intake. Remember, most obese people also have very little muscle mass (increases your TDEE) and 58% are malnourished because they eat shit and receive no micronutrients in their diet. Underneath all of the flab, you generally have an emaciated malnourished person. Regarding your situation, it's very easy to gain 10lbs in even one day through salt, carb intake, let alone 3 days. Bodybuilders do this all the time for photoshoots and shows, called 'refeeds'. It's also very easy to lose 10lbs in a couple days by restricting carbs which is why keto diets are so popular, you shed water very fast. Losing 12-15lbs the first 3-4 days is very common. Virtually none of that is fat - but it gives the keto dieter motivation to stick with the diet because they see instant results.

I'd be curious to see those studies as it doesn't really add up to me. The body is very comfortable with losing muscle and maintains the bit it needs for survival until all fat is used up. What generally causes massive post-diet gains is metabolic damage: when you've brought your metabolism down to such a slow pace through calorie restriction that you will now GAIN weight even eating much less than you did prior to the diet. As you diet, your metabolism slows down to offset the caloric deficit to keep you from starving to death. As this goes on for months, your metabolism will slow down to the point that I've worked with bikini models preparing for a competition and they were unable to lose weight eating only 900 calories a day! They plateaued. It's a scary place to be because you can't cut any farther without major health risks and the only alternative is to increase calories to increase their metabolism. But because their metabolism is so slow, it meant anything above 900cal was now a surplus and would be converted to body fat – a SHIT TON of weight gain. The only way to avoid this was increasing calories super slowly over many weeks (reverse dieting) but some weight gain is unavoidable. Now you take your average fattie and what do they do post diet when their metabolism is at a crawl? They go absolutely ham in celebration! 🥳 They eat like they did before if not MORE because of the mental anguish of starving yourself for months. And virtually everything they eat is now causing a caloric surplus and is stored as body fat. The weight will pile back on and then some for many weeks until their metabolism adjusts (the body does not like change and the change is SLOW). I've seen some bodybuilding physique competitors in this state after a big show, they pig out for days. And I've seen many put on 15-20lbs in 3-5 days. It's crazy to witness - but their metabolisms are so slow. Everything turns to fat.

Right around your weight is when my wife hit the wall with the heavy breathing, snoring, hikes not being enjoyable any more. Some aches in the joints. Always wanting to sit.

The laziness. Increased tiredness evolves into learned laziness. Constant wanting to sit down, lay around. Which makes them gravitate toward more slothful hobbies that snowball into more laziness and weight gain. Also the exaggeration of your activity. My wife will make folding the laundry sound like she was doing hard labor for 4 hours. Or simply running an errand becomes such a big deal in her mind. Any physical activity is exaggerated and blown out of proportion because of how much more effort it takes carrying around an extra 100lbs.

Absolutely. Kids add the weight, just look around! Especially when they can start to do some chores like laundry, empty the dishwasher, "grab mom a snack"; they start to feed into her growing laziness and fattie lifestyle.

It made my wife gain a LOT more. Kids notoriously don't eat their food. And being sensitive to money, my wife always feels the food shouldn't go to waste. A good mom is frugal and resourceful in her mind. So inevitably at restaurants, she polishes off the 8 uneaten chicken fingers and heaps of cold fries. Painfully stuffs herself in the guise that this is what 'good moms' do. I've noticed many other really fat mothers doing the same when eating out. Also we never really had overflowing snack cabinets until kids. I distinctly remember the first time she came home with $160 in junk food and her remarking that we need to have this regularly stocked moving forward "just in case" for "the kids sleepovers". Of course she inevitably grazes on this at night and has become part of her lifestyle. She wasn't a junk food eater until we had kids. Plus, the exhausted "let's just order a pizza" or "let's get Taco Bell delivered" nights popped up and only increase in the rat-race with kids in the equation.

I know what you're going through with the pants issue. Leggings are the gift that keeps on giving. It took a handful of years for my wife years to shake that "chasing her past" figure game. After a few job changes and meeting a number of new friends, the skinny person that she once was became just a blurry memory from some distant past life. No coworkers and almost no friends even knew of that skinny version of herself. And the shame of thinking about that young skinny person slowly evaporated away. In fact, she always focuses on the morbidly obese people in her group and still thinks of herself as the "thinner" one most of the time! 😜

My wife's meds aided in her gain. But I will say this: it then evolves into a chicken-egg scenario as they use their medication as an excuse to completely let go and embrace their gluttony. And the story for the family quickly becomes about the weight simply being out of her control because of her meds.

I've said it a thousand times. Nothing puts on pounds faster than new pants. And nothing causes negative body image faster than ultra-uncomfortable outgrown clothes. Seriously, affirm her and make consistent clothes shopping a "thing" in your relationship.

My wife likes jalapeños on her pizza. And the kids and her would argue about that topping on the family's pizza. So I just started getting her her own jalapeño pizza which she really enjoyed and would save the rest for the next day. But over time now she just finishes the whole pizza, if not that meal but later in the night. It's a weird psychological thing. She doesn't perceive eating an entire pizza to herself as gluttonous. It's just the "way things are" because the kids can't eat jalapeños. The pizza thing was a gigantic step in her gaining because it normalized the idea of her eating a separate meal of her liking. So there's been other times where the family eats a small modest meal but she'll pig out on 4 takeout sushi rolls or whatever "wish" she has that night. To your last question on "math miracles", one of the first things I did years ago was replace our plates and got very large plates. It was crazy how much larger her portioning got, which just became normal.

Sugar is actually physically addicting, and has calories. And caffeine is an appetite suppressant. So I'm not sure how diet soda would be beneficial. There have been studies showing a small percentage of the population has an insulin release with diet soda because their brain is so addicted to sugar that even the thought and taste of artificial sweetness in diet soda causes an insulin release (which prompts fat gain). But it still wouldn't outweigh the release of *actual sugar*.