How long does it take YOU to drop the water weight?

mehreen_xo

Had a day eating at maintenance yesterday rather than at a deficit and surprise surprise I'm up a pound in the scale this morning, it's soo frustrating when you've done so well the rest of the time hoping i get rid of it soon - how long does it take you to lose say a pound of water weight? Thank you!

KevHex

My personal view is that water weight should be far down the list of things you think about day to day as you try and lose weight. Why bother?

MysticGoalie

Keep making the best choices (food / exercise). The body composition changes will come.

Chadxx

Only a pound? That is less than normal day to day fluctuations. It isn't worth worrying about in the slightest. The coffee I am standing here drinking weighs 2 pounds.

sijomial

Try not to allow totally normal fluctuations to become frustrating. They will happen when you are finished losing weight too remember.
Look for the trend, put individual data points in the correct context.

Current personal experience after a 10 day vacation....
Came back 10lbs heavier - even more factors than usual affecting that mostly water weight gain. Some was definitely fat gain though.
Next day 5lb of that gone. Weight still dropping nicely, clearly mostly water at first.

Silentpadna

mehreen_xo wrote: »

Had a day eating at maintenance yesterday rather than at a deficit and surprise surprise I'm up a pound in the scale this morning, it's soo frustrating when you've done so well the rest of the time hoping i get rid of it soon - how long does it take you to lose say a pound of water weight? Thank you!

Since water weight serves specific functions and most times is a good thing, I don't care one bit how long it takes to "lose" it. Yes, it can frustrate me in the moment when I want to see a number on a scale. But, relative to fat loss, it is irrelevant. The frustration is irrational. The decision to remember that it is not relevant to fat loss is rational.

Furthermore, the way the body retains water is not always predictable. To me it's pointless to try to track it.

You mention that eating at maintenance drove up your water weight. Well, I should point out that even when you eat at a deficit, your body can and will do the same thing. Almost every day. It always has and always will. And it retain or remove water when you don't expect it. We tend to focus on it and learn about it when we are attentive to the scale. It happens whether we are watching it or not.

So don't sweat it.

rybo

Stop tying your happiness to a number

JeromeBarry1

I had a fine day of keeping my calories down and gained 1.2 lb. Woe is me, I guess.

animatorswearbras

It's impossible to say because it's always in flux, sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down and can be due to sodium, exercise, sunburn, hormones, time of day, BM's the list goes on you just have to look at the trends over a month. There is no answer to this question, apart from it will eventually go down and probably go up again xxx

rileysowner

Gaining one pound from eating at maintenance could simply be food in your digestive tract. Honestly, if you are going to be upset about a normal fluctuation that likely has nothing to do with fat gain, stop weighing so often.

MysticGoalie

Depending on which foods eaten & how much, it can take from 24h up to 72h to be fully digested.

http://www.healthline.com/health/how-long-does-it-take-to-digest-food#overview1

* Credit to author of the article.

Enjoy all Nourishment

__TMac__

Usually two or three days.

Machka9

Water weight ... caused by things like ...

-- excessive exercise
-- flights
-- TOM
-- surgery
-- heat
-- sunburn
-- excessively salty food

... usually disappears in 2-3 days.

MommyMeggo

3-4 days

Tried30UserNames

It depends on the water weight. I wouldn't probably attribute just 1 lb to water weight so I wouldn't even notice if I were losing it or not. I'd just think it was normal daily fluctuation. But 10 lbs or so from a long flight...I'd lose about 8 lbs in the 24 hrs after returning home and the other 2 the next day. From eating something I'm intolerant to like nuts or pepper, it will probably take me 2-5 days to lose it. From exercise, I'll lose it in about 2 days assuming I do no more exercise during that time. From excessive humidity, it'll be gone as soon as the humidity is gone which could be the next day or it could be a couple months depending on what part of the world I'm in. From salt? I don't really retain water from salt.

JaydedMiss

I go to toronto last few weekends and gained 8-10 pounds i drink alot of water the next day and its normally gone overnight ...so like 36 hours for overeating huge, FOr my TOM its up for a week and a half i normally got my whoosh right as it started

lorrpb

You can lose fat despite water weight fluctuations. Something like 60% of your body is water. You're not gonna get rid of it. Ever.

SCoil123

I fluctuate up to 4lb in a normal day depending on the time regardless of activity or food intake. 1lb is a pretty normal fluctuation to see and shouldn't be stressed over at all.

That said I gained 9lb during our last heat wave with swelling and a few poor diet choices. It's been 3 days since I balanced my macros again and the temp dropped. Today I am back in my normal range

cwolfman13

mehreen_xo wrote: »

Had a day eating at maintenance yesterday rather than at a deficit and surprise surprise I'm up a pound in the scale this morning, it's soo frustrating when you've done so well the rest of the time hoping i get rid of it soon - how long does it take you to lose say a pound of water weight? Thank you!

one pound is well within the realm of natural body weight fluctuations regardless of whether you ate at maintenance or otherwise...your body is comprised of 50-65% water and it will always vary regardless of what you are or aren't doing...you will always have varying levels of waste in your system, etc.

Stop obsessing about some number on the scale and making that the be all and end all of things...if you don't understand natural weight fluctuations, I'd suggest not weighing in daily. Also, maintenance is going to be a *kitten* if you think body weight is a static figure.

kokonani

Yep, 1 lb is nothing, but I truly understand the emotional effects it has on a person when u try so hard to lose those few pounds. Water weight takes 3-4 days for me to lose. But the increase doesn't necessarily come from you eating at maintenance.

cwolfman13

On Wednesday I was up 2.8 Lbs from Tuesday...I'm down 2 Lbs today from yesterday...as a general trend over the last several weeks I've been losing about 1 Lb per week on average...

Chillax....