I gained 12 pounds???? Help!!

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  • Sarellynn
    Sarellynn Posts: 59 Member
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    Maybe it would help to put a link to your previous thread so new readers would understand about your issues with getting enough fluids. Otherwise people are going to be offering advice without knowing your situation.

    It's not surprising that you've gained weight - water is heavy, and 1 gallon weighs 8 pounds. Your body previously needed water. Now it is getting what it needs, and it's going to take time - maybe several weeks - for it to adjust to the new equilibrium. It might be a good idea not to weigh yourself during this time as it won't give you any meaningful information about how much fat you have gained or lost. Don't worry, you are not gaining fat while eating 1300 calories a day. When everything settles down, you will probably weigh a little more than when you started, because your body will be healthy and properly hydrated, but you will not have gained any fat, and your weight loss will start trending downwards on the scale then.

    Normally water weight can vary by several pounds during the course of one day. I gain and lose about six or seven pounds of water a day. That is normal and nothing to do with fat loss and calories. Don't let it upset you, your diet is still working the way it should.

    How are your headaches and other symptoms of being dehydrated? Do you feel any better?

    I cant because someone had my thread deleted for a reason I still dont understand. I havent had a headache this week yet. So I shouldnt worry about my weight until after Im hydrated 100%? How will I know when I am?
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
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    Sarrellynn, to explain more about dehydration: Water is used throughout your body. About three quarters of it is inside the cells of your body. Half of what is left surrounds the cells in your body, and about 10% of the total water inside your body is in your blood. The rest is helping you with digestion, etc. The right amount of water is needed to balance all of the processes that let you live. If you don't get enough water, your body uses what it has for the most important processes. It tells your kidneys to stop producing urine. It pulls water from cells that are not absolutely critical for life and makes it goes to where it is most needed. When you start drinking more water, your body sends it to all the parts that were having to make due with less water than they need. It takes a while for the hormone that tells your kidneys to start making more urine once you are getting enough water. So part of that scale weight gain is because you are replacing water that your body needs to live, and part of it may be that your kidneys have not yet gotten the "all clear" message yet. There are other processes inside the body besides dehydration that cause the body to hold on to water, too. Some foods require a lot of water to digest properly. Some hormones (cortisol, for one, which is related to stress, and can be activated by illness, lack of sleep, emotional worries; hormones related to menstrual cycle are some others) can tell the body to hold on to water, too. Hope this helps you understand some of the responses you got.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    edited October 2017
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    basic easy way to understand or at least I hope so. when you are dehydrated your body will hold on to any water you take in until your body gets enough to hydrate you. so your weight will go up. its water retention. when your body is properly hydrated then your weight will eventually reflect that on the scale by going down. so some of the water you take in will be used for vital organs and what not,the rest you will pee out and you should see a difference in the color of your urine.

    also weighing with clothes on and later in the day for most will show on the scale as weight going up because you added mass(clothes,shoes and food in your body as well as water retention). if you can weigh first thing in the morning after you use the bathroom in your underwear or naked to get a more accurate number.
  • NorthernLights1985
    NorthernLights1985 Posts: 16 Member
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    How old are you?
  • Sarellynn
    Sarellynn Posts: 59 Member
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    I put on twelve pounds in twelve days of eating restaurant food on the road. I've lost 11 of those pounds in the 11 days I've been back home. In my case, it's sodium. Eating salty meals on the road caused me to retain 12 extra pounds of water which I promptly shed when I got home.

    We all do this. The weight on the scale is only a snapshot of how much one weighs. It goes up and down depending on what you are wearing, what time of day it is, what you last ate, how much water you've drunk, whether your bowel is full, etc. It changes from scale to scale. Some scales vary depending on how you lean on them. Some vary because the floor underneath is springy.

    For women, hormones make a big difference. Lots of women put on several pounds of water weight and then lose it each month. Exercise or injury both result in increased water retention while tissues heal.

    This is all completely normal and unavavoidable. You can minimize variations by weighing on the same scale at the same time of day but your weight will still go up and down. If you chart your weight using the MFP report function, you'll see that over time it looks like an uneven ball bouncing slowly and eratically down uneven steps. This is normal.

    Thank you! Its good to know that it happens to a lot of people! At least its not a fat gain.
  • Sarellynn
    Sarellynn Posts: 59 Member
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    Sarellynn wrote: »
    Maybe it would help to put a link to your previous thread so new readers would understand about your issues with getting enough fluids. Otherwise people are going to be offering advice without knowing your situation.

    It's not surprising that you've gained weight - water is heavy, and 1 gallon weighs 8 pounds. Your body previously needed water. Now it is getting what it needs, and it's going to take time - maybe several weeks - for it to adjust to the new equilibrium. It might be a good idea not to weigh yourself during this time as it won't give you any meaningful information about how much fat you have gained or lost. Don't worry, you are not gaining fat while eating 1300 calories a day. When everything settles down, you will probably weigh a little more than when you started, because your body will be healthy and properly hydrated, but you will not have gained any fat, and your weight loss will start trending downwards on the scale then.

    Normally water weight can vary by several pounds during the course of one day. I gain and lose about six or seven pounds of water a day. That is normal and nothing to do with fat loss and calories. Don't let it upset you, your diet is still working the way it should.

    How are your headaches and other symptoms of being dehydrated? Do you feel any better?

    I cant because someone had my thread deleted for a reason I still dont understand. I havent had a headache this week yet. So I shouldnt worry about my weight until after Im hydrated 100%? How will I know when I am?

    I can't think of a simple way to know when your body has adjusted to the new normal, but I would give it at least two weeks, maybe as much as a month. You have been restricting fluids for years, so it may take a little time.

    I'm happy to hear your headaches are better! Hopefully they will stay gone now that you're drinking more.

    To explain why you being dehydrated means you are gaining weight now - picture a sponge. A dry sponge weighs less than a wet sponge. Your body was like a dry sponge, now it's like a wet sponge. But the sponge itself is still the same, it's just holding more water.

    You mentioned having heard that drinking water flushes fluid out, which is true - but only after a certain point. Picture the wet sponge having something heavy on the surface of it, like mud. To wash the mud away you run water over it. Eventually you will have a clean wet sponge, which weighs less because the mud is gone.

    But if you start with a dry sponge with mud on it, and run water over it, first the sponge will fill up with water before the mud starts to wash away, and when you finish, you will have a clean wet sponge - which is heavier than the dirty dry sponge because the water is heavier than the mud was.

    Does that make sense?

    Thats probably the best explanation ive read , thank you very much. So if I keep hydrating, I might gain weight, but it wont be fat, and then I can start looking at my weight?
  • sgtx81
    sgtx81 Posts: 466 Member
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    Sarellynn wrote: »
    Sarellynn wrote: »
    Sarellynn wrote: »
    12lbs in a week sounds very odd! What was your diet like this past week? How much did you eat? Are your scales possibly broken?

    I used a scale at my moms house. It works as far as I know.. :/ I know I didn't eat amazingly but I stayed within my calorie limits (always under the goal, avg of around 1300 calories) and even started drinking water daily. I used to never drink anything really (I was and still am highly dehydrated) and just started so I assumed itd flush extra weight off?

    You're still dehydrated, that's why

    But why would that make me gain weight?? Am I drinking too much water?

    No, your body is retaining water because you're still not drinking enough.

    But I feel like Ive been drinking a ton ): I already had 20 oz today

    I've already had 133.8 oz today since about 3 hours ago and I will probably end up drinking at least 80oz more.

    If you lose weight it shouldn't get replaced with water, under normal circumstances. I lost 50 pounds, give or take, from August to the end of September and another 20+ pounds this month and I've been drinking water like a camel.

    If water replaced fat I'd be sloshing around like a water balloon right now.