Water Weight Gain - STOP PANICKING!
Options
SuzySunshine99
Posts: 2,984 Member
I see a lot of panicked posts from people fretting about a sudden jump on the scale. Usually, it's " Help! I went on vacation and gained 15 pounds!" Or, "Help! I had a crazy weekend and gained 4 pounds!" Or, my personal favorite, "Help! I ate a piece of bread and gained 1.27 pounds!"
The replies always try to assure the OP that it is water weight/natural fluctuations and will go away. There are so many causes of water and fluid retention, but really, any sudden jump on the scale is not likely to be fat gain.
I wanted to share an example of multiple combined factors that I recently experienced. This is a little extreme, but here goes:
I maintain my weight between 125-130. Before leaving for a week-long vacation, I weighed myself at 126. After my trip, I weighed myself at 136. Did I really gain 10 pounds of fat in 7 days? Unless I ate 35,000 calories above my maintenance for the week, then no. Here were the main factors for water and fluid retention in my case:
-Air travel: 6 hours of flying each way.
-Eating out at restaurants: Sodium and carb-heavy foods, alcohol.
-Increased exercise: Strenuous mountain hikes.
-Injury: Got flipped out of a raft into whitewater and slammed against rocks. Bruising and swelling.
-Dehydration: Was probably not drinking enough water for the amount of activity.
So, after returning from the trip, I got back to my regular eating habits, rested, and drank a ton of water. The 10 pounds was gone a week later.
Anyone else have water weight gain examples that can help convince people not to obsess over every pound on the scale?
The replies always try to assure the OP that it is water weight/natural fluctuations and will go away. There are so many causes of water and fluid retention, but really, any sudden jump on the scale is not likely to be fat gain.
I wanted to share an example of multiple combined factors that I recently experienced. This is a little extreme, but here goes:
I maintain my weight between 125-130. Before leaving for a week-long vacation, I weighed myself at 126. After my trip, I weighed myself at 136. Did I really gain 10 pounds of fat in 7 days? Unless I ate 35,000 calories above my maintenance for the week, then no. Here were the main factors for water and fluid retention in my case:
-Air travel: 6 hours of flying each way.
-Eating out at restaurants: Sodium and carb-heavy foods, alcohol.
-Increased exercise: Strenuous mountain hikes.
-Injury: Got flipped out of a raft into whitewater and slammed against rocks. Bruising and swelling.
-Dehydration: Was probably not drinking enough water for the amount of activity.
So, after returning from the trip, I got back to my regular eating habits, rested, and drank a ton of water. The 10 pounds was gone a week later.
Anyone else have water weight gain examples that can help convince people not to obsess over every pound on the scale?
56
Replies
-
171.4 here - went on a work trip to the Virgin Islands. Ate all of the food and drank all of the rum. Lol - "weighed" 181 when I returned. All gone within a week because of the reasons you mentioned. Even though I felt like I ate a lot I was not above maintenance that much.
That's the benefit of 2 years of slow, reasonable progress and understanding the math of weight loss. I get why some people freak out but hope they take the responses to heart and take the time to read the wealth of info here to help them!16 -
My favorite is: Help gained 5 pounds!! I was 160 yesterday and today I'm 165 and I'm on my period and I'm so bloated!!1!
Well.
YA DON'T SAY. GO ONNNN.
Gee whiz I really thought that extra water retention would make you drop 5 pounds.
Wait a week and try weighing again.
If it doesn't go down, adjust calories and food scale as needed... *flies away*10 -
Great post!
You even see this emotional panic response to a sudden weight jump in the Maintaining Weight forum.
I'm currently losing my temporary weight gain - I was up 10lbs the morning after a 10 day vacation....
Borrowing your headings:
-Air travel: 4 hours of flying each way.
-Eating out at restaurants/hotel: They really do use a lot of salt, we hardly add any at home. The food also was delicious and plentiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it, definite significant calorie surplus in my case. No regrets!
-Increased exercise: Opposite for me due to back injury on holiday, did manage a 4hr mountain bike ride before my back went and loads of walking every day but exercise volume well down on my normal level.
-Injury: Major back spasm, very swollen - about 1.5" gain on waist measurement just from the swelling.
-Dehydration: I was getting a lot of my hydration along with alcohol - that bloats me too along with the calorie load.
- Would add another one: just the weight of food itself, in my case I definitely was eating more volume of food than usual.
Just one day later 5lbs gone after a light eating day (less food weight in my system, water whoosh).
Following couple of days another 2lbs lost which probably leaves me with the true possible fat gain to lose.
Just an irrelevant bump in the road, neither weight loss or maintenance are a straight line.
10 -
Some bloating and water retention is caused by medications. Perhaps people are unaware of this particular side effect while in the middle of a panic.
combined oral contraceptive pill, or HRT (hormone replacement therapy
NSAIDs
Beta Blockers
Lithium6 -
Went home for a long weekend which meant BBQ, wonderful meals out with family and a vast amount of excellent wine. Apparently put on 7lb. Three days of 3l of water a day plus back to my normal routine and all but half a lb disappeared. Salt, dehydration and more fine booze than usual created the effect.7
-
18+ hr flight/travel from US to Europe. 2 weeks of hiking and food and sleep changes.and elevation changes too. Much more carbs than usual + wine & desserts. 18+ hr trip home.
7 lbs gained, to my highest weight in over a year. Returned to normal food & jet lag. Lost 7 lbs in 7 days. All is normal again.6 -
Laparoscopic gall bladder surgery. 2.5 pound gain the day after. 5 days later, 6.5 pound drop.
Side note: Do not stay in a calorie deficit after surgery. Go to maintenance eating for a month. I was stupid - got fatigued & weak. Don't be stupid.
Started off-season progressive weight training program. Gained 2 "unexplained" pounds. Next Spring, started rowing again, stopped off-season weight training program. Lost 2 "unexplained" pounds.9 -
Not drinking enough water. I didn't drink nearly as much water as I usually do, come Monday morning I look about the same but the scale hates me.3
-
I gained 4 lbs. during weekend before and through the 4th of July. Dropped 3.8 of them in two days afterwards.3
-
Nice post- hope it will be seen. Another issue I see is many simply don't understand that fluctuating water weight is normal and has nothing to do with a person's body fat or weight loss efforts. You can explain the various reasons the body retains more water for a bit and the next question is often, "How do I fix it?" (The answer: You don't. It goes away by itself... until it goes back up for some reason.)4
-
I had a refeed of 3K cals 450C 80P 30F over the weekend. "gained" 4lbs overnight... I remain unconcerned because thermodynamics actually owes me a net .75lb loss that week. Understanding how glyocgen works and how much water is required to store it should be a pinned thing.5
-
I gain water weight almost every weekend, why? because that's when I indulge in higher sodium food and occasionally alcohol, it's also when I do the most walking. Come Tuesday it's gone4
-
"Anyone else have water weight gain examples that can help convince people not to obsess over every pound on the scale?"
Math....4 -
Another reason not to panic: water retention is what you body is supposed to do when it's needed.
Start a new workout? Water retention good.
TOM? Water retention a part of the natural process, thus good.
Hurt yourself? Water retention good.
Bomb your meal with sodium for a day? Water retention irrelevant.
Carry a deficit for some time and scale doesn't move? Water retention annoying.
All it does for those who panic with it is allow feelings to interfere with facts. Don't let the scale number control you.
16 -
Unfortunately the scale number controls my dietician. My current panic .. after three weeks of getting my my exercise up to speed and regular and all food weighed, calories consistently under budget ( under 1200 ) and a nice steady loss, I appear according the the chemists scales which I use once a week to make sure I am on track, report a weight gain of 3 kilos in one week. 24 hours into an ear infection antibiotics would not cause this surely ? So I am guessing the chemist needs his scales recalibrating ..... I take a blood pressure pill along with a diuretic , so that should take care of any excess water yes ? Any insights welcome ...... and will open up my diary so that it can be seen should that help.2
-
Unfortunately the scale number controls my dietician. My current panic .. after three weeks of getting my my exercise up to speed and regular and all food weighed, calories consistently under budget ( under 1200 ) and a nice steady loss, I appear according the the chemists scales which I use once a week to make sure I am on track, report a weight gain of 3 kilos in one week. 24 hours into an ear infection antibiotics would not cause this surely ? So I am guessing the chemist needs his scales recalibrating ..... I take a blood pressure pill along with a diuretic , so that should take care of any excess water yes ? Any insights welcome ...... and will open up my diary so that it can be seen should that help.
Speculating: The infection itself might cause some temporary water weight, via inflammation/immune response. For sure, I wouldn't panic until at least a week after that's all cleared up.6 -
Unfortunately the scale number controls my dietician.
If your dietitian is looking at your scale number as a trend and in context, then carry on with this fine dietitian.
If your dietitian is making diet changes based on a female's once weekly scale number measured at a chemist's... get a new dietitian because she obviously does not understand why and how weight varies in humans.15 -
Unfortunately the scale number controls my dietician.
If your dietitian is looking at your scale number as a trend and in context, then carry on with this fine dietitian.
If your dietitian is making diet changes based on a female's once weekly scale number measured at a chemist's... get a new dietitian because she obviously does not understand why and how weight varies in humans.
Have only seen her once, hoping she is the former not the latter. She has emphasised the need for downward trend , mainly by marker pen as the whole appointment was in Portuguese as she spoke no English - there could be room for translation error. Also think she was a bit taken aback by my use of MFP , think she felt left out of her job somewhat.2 -
Speculating: The infection itself might cause some temporary water weight, via inflammation/immune response. For sure, I wouldn't panic until at least a week after that's all cleared up.
I could understand some change/reaction.... 3 kilos eradicating three weeks hard slog for me seems a bit excessive and incredibly demoralising.
1 -
There was a thread yesterday and the op was wondering why they had gained 5lbs when they weighed themselves right after eating and drinking about 5lbs worth of food and booze.3
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.5K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 392 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 927 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions