Afraid to drink water... NOT Rational

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  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    i would suggest therapy.
  • ExistingFish
    ExistingFish Posts: 1,259 Member
    I also suggest seeking counseling. You seem to have an unhealthy relationship with your scale.

    From a practical standpoint, I'd suggest increasing your water consumption earlier in the day. Many people limit their fluid intake before bed to avoid middle-of-the-night urination. There is no hard and fast rule that says you have to drink water before bed.

    Get your fill of water during the morning and afternoon, AFTER you weigh for the day. Just aim for consistency in your weighing. I always weigh first thing in the morning, before eating or drinking, after peeing.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    brittlb07 wrote: »
    This is going to sound crazy but at the end of the night as I approach bedtime I am afraid to drink even water. I am trying to get as low as I can so in the morning I am at an all time low. I should note I use Happy Scale and weigh daily to track trends (this works for me- please don’t suggest I not weigh daily- I’ve lost 25 pounds doing it this way!). I know if sounds rediculous but sometimes the scale jumps close to a pound after a large glass of water. My husband tells me I am crazy and I will eventually pee it out but it totally messes with my stats. And I panic my body is going to retain the water and bloat. I KNOW I am irrational about it but don’t know what to do. I even weigh my water before I drink it so I can subtract it from the scale at bedtime. I almost want to start always drinking a lot at night and just cause my stats to go up for a short time. Then I can compare apples to apples after drinking a large glass of water after my workout but before bed every night.

    Does anyone else ever feel this way??? I wish you just instantly peed out the water lol.

    You need to put the scale away...and no, the trend app isn't working for you because if it was you would be looking at the trend over time and not weighing your water so you can subtract it. IDK why you're weighing in at night either.

    Beyond that, drinking water doesn't cause you to retain water...it has the opposite effect. When you don't hydrate sufficiently you retain water and get bloating.

    Your husband is right...this is crazy.
  • elainemariebenes
    elainemariebenes Posts: 16 Member
    i got into a similar bad habit a couple years ago, i was trying to reach a certain goal by a certain date and i got obsessed with weighing myself...all hours of the day, before food, after food, you name it...and getting frustrated if i didn’t see a number i liked. then started trying to manipulate the scale based on if i used salt on my food the night before.

    i tried putting the scale away altogether and that lead to a regain that i am now working on, so maybe that is not the best solution for everyone. as with most things in life, finding balance is key.
  • chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal Posts: 2,516 Member
    NovusDies wrote: »
    Weight loss can be quite a strain on a person and after an doable eating routine is established most of the weight loss happens between the ears. I have had a few moments myself that have given me pause.

    This is very insightful. The thoughts, feeling, emotions, psychology to become more healty and fit are all perfectly unique, person by person, and I believe that is why plans, or systems, or even simple advice can be ineffective. Coming up with what works well for me, is ultimately something only I can create (probably with good support, education, and advice too)

    Come on folks...in some other thread we should all contribute to a thread "MFP subjects most likely to cause people to get all fired up"

    -Macros
    -frequency of weighing/scales
    -drinking enough water
    -techniques for strength training
    -eating too few calories

    Any of these (and many more) cause strong MFP reactions.

    [are you thinking BUT IT IS REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT AND HERE IS WHY ...]

    My best to you all, and I genuinely wish health and wellbeing to the OP.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    edited August 2019
    elainemariebenes wrote: »
    i got into a similar bad habit a couple years ago, i was trying to reach a certain goal by a certain date and i got obsessed with weighing myself...all hours of the day, before food, after food, you name it...and getting frustrated if i didn’t see a number i liked. then started trying to manipulate the scale based on if i used salt on my food the night before.

    i tried putting the scale away altogether and that lead to a regain that i am now working on, so maybe that is not the best solution for everyone. as with most things in life, finding balance is key.

    I too am a scale lover. By the way, to be clear, I am the person who said much earlier in the thread that she should give her husband the scale for a while and delete the trend app. That said, it isn't like I don't understand frequent scale use. I weight in every morning, which keeps me plugged in in a positive way, and for a while I was weighing multiple times a day. The analytical side of it was intriguing to me some time back -- weight changes before/after dinner, before/after exercise, etc. I would weigh just before bed, then just after waking but before peeing, and then after peeing, and was fascinated by the results. For instance, I discovered that if I drank a lot of water before bed, I would perspire up to 0.6 lbs of it out overnight (before peeing) which would otherwise not happen if I didn't drink water, and then all the rest would come off in the pee. To this day, I still don't understand where that 0.6 pounds of perspiration actually went, since I didn't wake up damp. But anyway ...

    It isn't like I don't understand scale fixation, although now I only weigh once a day.

    But I have never, ever, ever intentionally denied myself water so as to get a better morning readout. I think that is the line in the sand right there, where interest and enthusiasm turns into self-destructive behavior. The OP has crossed into self-destructive behavior and needs to do something about it, whether that means putting away the scale for a while and dumping the trend app so that the constant counting and number hypervigilance recedes, or the harder way - therapy. Something has to change, though.

    Water helps with weight loss and produces better scale readings. The more water, the better the scale readings. Maybe if the OP just internalizes that, it'll stop this bad behavior.

    But mainly, I think the trend app has gotta go. For some people, those apps encourage unhealthy attempts to try to force each new day to a new low weight, and also cause demoralization and frustration when the weight bounces around, as it will inevitably do, sometimes leading to the end of a diet. Those apps can become very counterproductive.

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