Masturbation, NoFap any connection with weight?

Hello, this is going to be a lengthy post so I would appreciate you reading it to the end.

I am not new to NoFap, I first experienced it when I went several months without fapping when I was 17 years old. I have been on and off since then but have managed to steer clear of extreme pornography.

Without going into too many details, I will just say I am a 19 year old guy and for several years have had an ED (eating disorder). I am underweight and still in my recovery phase, which means of course attempting nofap I am curious to how it affects the body, so I will ask these questions off the bat:

1.Does participating in nofap make you gain any excess weight from all the extra semen?
2. If not/ where does the excess sperm go?
3. Has anyone else had similar experience, is it possible to get a good physique whilst on nofap?

Whilst these questions may not make sense to others please consider that having an ED can change ones thoughts. I would appreciate an answer to all 3
Thank you.

(If this is in the wrong section, I apologise)

 

Thank you for all your help T22, also appreciate you answering all 3.

When you say it gets reabsorbed, does it actually do anything like go to certain parts? Is there benefits when it reabsorbs?
And so basically your saying giving up Fapping completely will not lead to any weight gain/excess sperm build up in the longterm?

Cheers

 

The total amount of excess sperm you're going to gain is going to weigh milligrams. That's thousands of grams, or millionths of kilograms. In other words, you could practice semen retention for 100+ years and the scale wouldn't move a single millimetre in either direction.

Gaining weight is simple, in order to gain weight your body must be in a calorie surplus. In other words you need to be consuming more calories than your body is expending. If you are not doing this, you will either maintain weight (if you consume around maintenance calories), or lose weight (if you are in a calorie deficit). There is literally nothing else at all in the world you can do to gain weight. Only a calorie surplus can do this.

I cannot comment on your specific eating disorder since you did not name it in your post, but as someone who had eating troubles of my own at a younger age I can offer some tips that helped me. I was also very underweight last year due to a prior drug problem that left me not eating etc - so I've since recovered from that and can share my advice there too.

• Take a look at what foods you find easier to eat. Even people with the worst eating disorders often find they have an easier time with certain foods. Perhaps your eating disorder revolves around the tastes of foods being bad - in which case maybe some milder foods like bread etc might have less of this effect on you. Perhaps your eating disorder revolves around self image and you being concerned about getting fat etc - in which case ensuring you eat healthy foods and in small amounts could help you to eat easier etc. Rather than stacking the odds against yourself by forcing yourself to eat things you struggle to eat - just focus on the things you can eat easier to begin with.
• Stop smoking cigarettes, drinking anything with caffeine in, or taking any prescription or non-prescription stimulants (adderall etc) as all of these things will reduce your appetite and make it harder for you to maintain/gain weight.
• If appetite is the central issue of your eating disorder, then get physically active in the mornings. The trade off here is the more physically active you are, the more calories you'll need to eat to be in a surplus - however, that early activity in the morning should get your metabolism revved up and get you hungry. Eat something small right afterwards, and try to keep eating something little every few hours.
• Experiment with different meal sizes. Perhaps you'll find it easier to eat one really huge meal each day and then nothing else - or perhaps it's easier for you to eat small snacks 5-10+ times a day.
• If you have an eating disorder where for example you make yourself sick after meals, try to force yourself to go out of the house into public after every single meal you have, somewhere where you wouldn't be able to do this, and remain there for the next couple of hours so that you can at least get some of the nutritional value of the meal.
• Consider using "weight gain" shakes, which are like 50% protein and 50% carbs and can be drank to consume calories without eating a meal. If it's the actual eating you have a problem with, then these could completely solve your problem - but also, because no food needs to be broken down, these'll be absorbed much quicker than a regular meal so if you are someone who say makes yourself sick after a meal - you'll get more benefit from such a drink before you lose it all than you would from food.

Perhaps most importantly: Count calories. Each time you first consume a particular meal, weigh the meal, or look at the box to work out the calories etc. It's a pain in the ass at first but it'll help you out hugely. Just as counting your calories makes things a 1000x easier if you're dieting and trying to lose weight, it does the same if you have an eating disorder and need to gain weight. Go to this website, work out your body fat %: http://www.thrivepersonalfitness.com/bodyfat-calculator/ - then, remove that % from 100%, and you'll be left with your lean mass %. Take your total body weight, and work out the lean mass % of it. I.e. if your lean mass % is 85%, and your body weight is 120lbs, that'd be 120*0.85=102lbs of lean weight.

Now convert that lbs to kg if you don't have it in kg already, you can go to Google and just type "102 lbs in kg" and it'll convert it for you. In this case 102lbs = 46.26kg.

Now use this formula to get your basal metabolic rate:
BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Then times your basal metabolic rate by your activity factor:
Activity factor
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2 X day training, marathon, football camp, contest, etc.)

The number you get at the end, should be your maintenance calories. I.e. roughly how many calories you need to consume each day to maintain your current weight without gaining or losing any fat or muscle. If you want to put on muscle or fat, you need to eat more calories than this. If you want to lose fat or muscle, you need to eat less calories than this.

How much more do you need to eat though? Well okay, let's say the number you got at the end was 2000 calories. Well, there are two ways you can go about gaining weight. The fast and dirty way will get you a higher % of body fat quite quickly and put on the lbs/kilos, but if you continue with that diet eventually you'll gain *too* much weight. The better way to do it is by a slow increase in calories. I.e. start with maintenance (2000) calories, then increase to 2100, then 2200, then 2300, and don't go above 2400-2500 or so. This gradual increase will help you get used to the new diet, but also ensure that you don't gain too much weight too fast.

Since a calorie surplus will also help you build muscle, you should make the most of such a diet by also doing some resistance training (i.e. working out). If you have access to a gym, go look at some beginner workout routines online. If you don't, then look at some beginner calisthenics routines or consider buying yourself some weights/equipment.

The great thing about if you start working out, is once you start building some muscle, even if your body fat % remains extremely low, your body will start to look a LOT better.

 

Appreciate everyones kind words, honestly.

I don't want to pry but can anyone vouch personally and say they have never gained weight whilst attempting nofap?

 

It's not as simple as "stay calm" but I appreciate what you say nonetheless.
I was just curious to know from the beginning, I really want to do an overhaul of my life including stopping this, healthy eating, and just reading up about all those rumours about how nofap is bad for your prostate also makes me skeptical.

 

Don't make fun of me when I'm asking a serious question again. This is supposed to be a supportive forum, everyone else has managed to support me, so stop or leave if you have nothing to contribute.

Thank you everyone who answered properly!

 

I may have overreacted in the above post, but I still don't believe it was necessary to mock my question :/

 

Although I've already answered this by explaining that semen weighs virtually nothing (and I really mean this. If you were to somehow like cut open like 20 guys, steal all their semen, and add it to your body weight, the scale still wouldn't move at all, it weighs so little) - I'll also chime in and say, I've lost several lbs this time while doing NoFap. This of course has nothing to do with NoFap itself though and is simply because my diet puts me on a small calorie deficit - as I'm trying to get my body fat % down to a certain range. Before I started NoFap my body fat % was around 23-24% or so, it's now 16.6% last I checked.

I've also done NoFap before when I was trying to gain weight when I was underweight - and I gained weight just fine. No quicker or slower than off NoFap. So basically NoFap isn't going to affect your ability to gain or lose weight at all, the only thing that's going to do that is the amount of calories you consume, and your activity level. If you want to lose weight on NoFap, you can. If you want to stay the same weight on NoFap, you can. If you want to gain weight on NoFap, you can.

That is how weight gain and weight loss function - calories == the amount of energy from the food you've consumed. If you were to consume exactly the amount of energy your body needed for the things you did today, your weight wouldn't go up or down at all. If you consumed a slight amount more or less, the change would be so minimal it would appear to not change at all too.

If you consume a noticeable amount more (200+ calories) than your energy needs, those extra calories will be stored as fat and some will be used to build muscle if you've been working out too. If you consume a noticeable amount less (-200 calories) than your energy needs for that day, then your body will need to get those calories from your existing fat and muscle stores, and will start to burn fat and muscle, causing you to lose weight. These kind of changes don't really happen immediately overnight, but more over a period of several days - so it's okay to eat a bit too much or a bit too little one day as long as it evens out over the rest of the week. After a week or so, you could be gaining or losing lbs depending on your diet.

 

No it wasn't your fault. You made a light-hearted joke and I acted like a drama queen, I did also chuckle myself. You have been helpful and I appreciate everyones advice, and I appreciate you going the extra mile and searching for threads for me, friend.