Quote Originally Posted by Susan Otcenas View Post
As for this weekend: I weighed myself the morning before the event. I weighed myself again this morning. I am UP 6.5 pounds. That has been the typical pattern for me after all of my long brevets. 6-8 pounds of fluid retention. In 2-3 days I'll start peeing like a racehorse and all that extra water weight will disappear in a day.
That's absolutely consistent with what I experience on rides over 150 miles. Up quite a bit (4 - 5 lbs is usual for me) in the week after, then back to normal. At some point, there is an absolute caloric deficit - you just can't take in enough calories to maintain your weight for a ride of that length. With the fluid balance and retention, I find that caloric deficit weight loss doesn't catch up with me until a couple of weeks following. (I'm still in moderate losing weight mode, so I do ultimately like the caloric deficits ).