Vigorous excercise - water retention?

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Rockin2014
Rockin2014 Posts: 196 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone

I put approx. 10lbs back on over the summer (starting in spring). Now I'm desperately trying to get them off again and the scale won't budge.
I'm eating 1200 - 1500 net calories per day and excercising 7 days a week (2 Zumba classes, 3 x strengthtraining + cardio, 2 x cardio only). I average 10k steps each day.
I've read that the body tends to retain water to make up for muscle tear when you start working out vigorously. Do you think that might be the issue?

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  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
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    when did you start these changes?

    my body does hang on to water for a while when i 'shock' it with a big change of routine. but i suspect everyone's body is different about what it considers a shock and how long it takes to re-balance itself and let the fluid go.

    with me it can take a few weeks, but if it goes on past that then i usually feel like i have to accept 'water retention' doesn't cover it.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    At the risk of asking the obvious.....are you measuring / weighing & accurately logging every morsel that crosses your lips? How are you determining the calories expended to arrive at your net calories? How long have you been back at it?

    If you've just started exercising recently it is possible that part of the problem is water retention. Also keep in mind that weight loss isn't linear, on paper a 500 cal daily deficit should equal about 1lb of fat lost each week but it never quite works that way.

    It is quite possible that you're consuming more calories than you think if you're estimating your portions. It's also quite possible that you're overestimating the calories expended on exercise. Most cardio machines & MFP tend to overestimate caloric expenditure and many heart rate monitors incorrectly correlate heart rate to calories burned. It's a bit of trial and error. If you're not losing weight and you're pretty diligent about logging your food try cutting back by 100 cal per day or so for a couple of week to see if the scale starts moving.

    You should also take measurements.

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