The FastDay Forum

Every single time I eat lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant I gain 2 lbs. It takes 2 more days to go away, which it always does. It must be the salt, as all I have is a cup of wonton soup with 2 dumplings in it, a half-a plate's worth of a mix of cabbage and pork and green peppers in brown sauce, a small portion of rice, a few fried noodles and a few bites of chicken (which I have divested of their fried coating.)

Stepping on the scale this morning I was very tempted to log my weight as 2 lbs less than what I saw, because I knew that what I was seeing was that water weight.

Nothing else I eat does this to me, so reliably, though plenty of other things I eat have salt in them. I find it baffling.

Do you have any particular meals you've found have this same effect on your weight?

@peebles I seem to remember @carorees posting same effect can't remember the reason but I'm thinking you are right water weight so choose your Chinese meal night accordingly or scale day. Lol

Yes Sue.Q you are right - Caro mentioned this last summer, after having a chinese buffet meal out, and several people have mentioned it since. Think it might be the carbs too, but I am sure Caro will be along to comment soon ...

When I have pizza it happens to me. So I have cut down the amount of times I have it.

I put on 4lb 2 weeks ago with chinese buffet lunch. Its a well known side effect of eating chinese meals.

Any smorgasboard or buffet style meal does it to me too. The kind where you can eat as much as you want. It takes quite a few days and fasts to shed the effect but it's still worth it. I just have a mental note not to do it more than say once a month, or better once every 2 months.

Ohhhh flip wouldnt you just know it! I LOVE Chinese food..and i could just eat a Chinese meal,but have already had 1219 cals today x

I only have 1 Chinese within my area and it is fairly bland (to cater for the local "mayte n 2 veg" market), so sadly I can't indulge. However, I have noticed that I undeservedly gain weight after eating bread or drinking beer. I am begining to realise that anything with yeast I can only have very small amounts of. In addition to weight gain, my skin is affected and I can get bouts of thrush. Funnily, bread and beer is probably my biggest downfall. I can enjoy small portions of chocolate, take or leave cake and sweets or have an odd glass of wine. But its hard for me to stop at 1 round of hot buttered toast or 2 beers. Anytime I splurge it tends to be on these foods that just dont suit me.

Eat Vietnamese food instead. An order of magnitude lighter food with a wider flavor base as well.

Actually the more northern the latitude, the more calorically dense the foods become. Penguins (and Eskimos) must eat really heavy fish.

@ADFnFuelThe Vietnamese food they sell in my region is a mix of terribly carby things and stuff that is full of soy sauce. Perhaps it isn't authentic, but I do a lot better, blood sugar-wise, with the Chinese than I do with the Vietnamese or, for that matter, Thai, which is always so sugary, though very delicious.

@scubachick, though there is a popular belief that the yeast in bread and beer can cause health problems, it is actually dead by the time you get to consume either. Beer stops fermenting when the alcohol level becomes high enough to kill the yeast, but when that happens there are still what they call "residual sugars" which can give beers like porter a sweet taste. These are sugars the particular yeast being used can't break down. Your body, sadly, can. (My hubby used to brew craft beers at home and is a walking encyclopedia of facts about beers and brewing.)

So while it probably isn't the yeast giving you problems, it may be the surprisingly high carb count in both these classes of food. The thrush you report is a classic response to high blood sugar.

If you have been relying on your doctor to find out if you have high blood sugar, you are probably missing the fact that after eating carbs your blood sugars are soaring. Your fasting blood sugars may still be fine, and your A1c lower than the diagnostic level, but if those post-meal blood sugars are high you will get yeast and urinary infections, often for years until a doctor says anything.

Chocolate, in contrast, has a fairly low carb count, especially the darker stuff. So it won't raise blood sugar if eaten in small bits.

Thanks for the info @Peebles. I got my hubby a homebrew kit last year. We have had some dreadful batches, probably because of a lack of sugars or something! He thinks he knows how to fix it for the next batch, fingers crossed!

I had Indian cuisine recently and saw numbers on my scales which I hadn't seen for 12 months. It was fleeting thank goodness. Come to think of it the garlic coriander naan and rice were probably the culprits. I had vegetarian. Maybe more salt than I use as well.

Great night as it was a celebration and I got back on track quickly

Has anyone considered that this reaction to Chinese food could be due to MSG, rather than salt? (monosodium glutamate)

I presumed mine was the white carbs with Indian mainly as don't think Indian food has MSG