At Day 8 of the 30-day series, Dr. Mike stepped on the scale up 0.5 lb, but he'd just had 32 oz of water on the commute, so he wrote he was still about where he started. One water-heavy morning reading after 160 burgers isn't a verdict on eating burgers every day weight, it's a data point that needs the rest of the month around it.
Do you gain weight eating 20 burger patties a day for a week?
By Day 8, Dr. Mike had eaten 160 burgers, at 20 patties a day, and the scale barely moved. The film shows him stepping on it up 0.5 lb, and in the same entry he notes he’d had 32 oz of water on his commute that morning, so he wrote that he was still about where he started weight wise (the book’s journal, Day 8).
That’s the honest answer to whether eating burgers every day weight goes up in the short term: on this one reading, no, and the reading itself is muddy. A pre-breakfast weigh-in after a quart of water carries water weight, not fat gain, and Dr. Mike knew it well enough to write it down rather than panic over it.
What did the Day 8 weigh-in actually show?
The book’s journal has him up half a pound after 32 oz of water on the morning commute, with his own note that he was still around where he’d started (Day 8 journal). No pounds-lost or pounds-gained totals appear anywhere else in the book or the film for this stretch, so that half-pound bump after water is the only figure on the scale itself at this point in the series.
Coming right after Day 6’s meat-sweats test and a run of protocol days covered on the blog, Day 8 is a reminder that the scale doesn’t move in step with what’s on the plate day to day. In my experience, a single morning number rarely means what people think it means.
If you aren't testing, you're guessing. A scale after a quart of water is guessing.
Why can 32 oz of water move the scale that much?
Water has weight, and a body doesn’t process 32 oz instantly. Some of it sits in the gut and bloodstream before it’s absorbed and cleared, which is exactly why Dr. Mike qualified his own reading instead of taking it at face value.
The film suggests the scale is the least interesting measurement in this whole experiment. It’s why the real testing plan runs on bloodwork drawn at fixed points, not a bathroom scale checked whenever someone feels like stepping on it.
What does the evidence say about early weight change on very-low-carb diets?
Short-term weight swings on very-low-carbohydrate eating are well documented, and water and glycogen are a big part of the story. A meta-analysis of prospective RCTs comparing very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets against low-fat diets found the ketogenic groups showed slightly greater weight loss over the long term, but early swings are driven partly by water and glycogen shifts, not fat alone, and the differences between diets were modest (Bueno et al., 2013).
A separate metabolic-ward trial found that switching to an isocaloric ketogenic diet slightly increased energy expenditure but did not increase body-fat loss, and actually slowed fat loss at first (Hall et al., 2016). Both point the same direction: don’t read early scale movement, up or down, as a verdict on fat gained or lost.
Why do daily weigh-ins mislead people on keto?
In my experience, clients who weigh themselves daily chase noise. Hydration status, sodium, the time of day, even what you ate the night before can shift the number a pound or more with nothing to do with fat. If you aren’t testing everything around the number, you’re guessing at what it means.
That’s part of why the experiment leaned so hard on the bloodwork panel instead of the scale as the real measurement. A single body-weight reading tells you almost nothing about what’s happening with lipids, glucose, or inflammation markers underneath it.
Is a stalled scale a sign of a bigger stall coming?
Not necessarily, and it’s worth separating a Day 8 water-heavy reading from what people mean later by a genuine plateau. What a keto weight-loss stall means in weeks 3 and 4 covers that later phase; Day 8 is too early and too confounded by hydration to call anything a stall.
The film shows the numbers that matter coming later, at fixed test points, not from a bathroom scale checked on a whim. Individual results vary, and this is entertainment and self-experiment documentation, not medical advice.
Frequently asked questions
Did Dr. Mike gain weight by Day 8 of the burger experiment?
The book's journal shows him up 0.5 lb at the Day 8 weigh-in, but he'd just had 32 oz of water on his commute and wrote he was still about where he started.
Does eating burgers every day cause weight gain in a week?
On this one data point, no meaningful change showed up, though a single scale reading after heavy water intake isn't reliable evidence either way.
Why does water intake affect a morning weigh-in so much?
Fluid you drink sits in your gut and bloodstream before it's fully absorbed and cleared, so a large volume close to a weigh-in can add pounds that have nothing to do with fat.
Is the scale a good way to track this kind of experiment?
The film suggests it's the least interesting measurement here; the more useful data comes from the bloodwork panels drawn at fixed points.
Where can I see what happened by the end of the 30 days?
Days 1 through 29 are told on this blog; the day 30 outcome is only shown in the film.
The Bottom Line
Day 8’s half-pound bump after 32 oz of water is a footnote, not a finding. If you’re watching this series for eating burgers every day weight answers, the honest lesson so far is that a single scale reading tells you far less than you’d think, and the real measurements in this experiment come from the bloodwork, not the bathroom floor. Individual results vary, and none of this is medical advice.
Watch The Keto Project to see how the numbers actually land, and read 600 Burgers in 30 Days for the full day-by-day journal.
Sources
This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Individual results vary. Speak to a qualified clinician before changing how you eat.
The whole experiment is in the film. 600 burgers, 30 days, every blood test — and the ending we never post.
Watch The Keto Project on Amazon