How Much Weight Can You Gain in a Day

Have you ever wondered if there is a limit to how much weight you can gain in a day, no matter how many calories you eat? Calories and Gaining Weight If you do the math, you need to take in an excess 3,500 calories to put on one pound of fat. Keep in mind, a pound of fat translates into more body weight because you gain water weight in addition to gaining fat. But, given that your stomach can only hold so much food at a time, there is a practical limit to how many calories you can consume in a day. If that day is Thanksgiving, for example, youre actually filling up on some foods that arent incredibly high in calories. Youre eating a combination of food, not just pure fat, which would be your quickest route to high calories. This means its unlikely youll intake more than 10,000 calories, no matter how determined you are to feast until you cant eat anymore. That translates into a couple of pounds, at most, because youre burning calories while youre consuming them. If the meal is high in sodium, you may retain additional water weight, but youll shed that over the next couple of days, assuming you return to your normal eating habits. You Can Only Gain So Much Another factor to consider is that you only produce a certain amount of the enzymes needed to digest your food. Now, dont delude yourself into thinking youll meet that limit with a normal large meal, but there is a limit to how much of any nutrient you can process and absorb. You also have your metabolism to consider. If you severely restrict calories, your metabolism adapts so you can burn them more efficiently. Eating too many calories can have the opposite effect, revving up your metabolism as part of a physiological process to maintain a set point. Whether you can alter your metabolism with a single days change is debatable, but even competitive eaters dont necessarily gain weight. If you do gain weight, most of it will be water and fat, since it takes time to add more muscle mass. Also, keep in mind you can increase your metabolism on your own by increasing your activity level.