Allergies and PMS: weight gain or water retention?

EssePi117

Hello everybody, I'm back 🙂
It's been 3 weeks on 1200 calories and light exercise, I had just one cheat meal on Wednesday. I am weighing and measuring myself once a week first thing in the morning, using an impedentiometric scale although I suspect it's not super accurate.
Anyway, things seemed to be going great, but this morning I found out I gained 1 kg, and according to the scale I gained fat, lost muscle and the water amount is still the same. It was an awful surprise. During this week I observed myself in the mirror and I had the impression that my waist and breast were smaller, but my belly looked... Soggy, I guess? You know, like an empty balloon. I believed that it was because of gravity and weight loss. Today's measurements say that I lost 2 cm on my breast, 2 cm on my waistline, and that I gained 1 cm on my hips.
So, there's that. If I weren't weighing myself I would be content with my measurements, but I am disconcerted by what the scale is saying.

I am not trying to make excuses, but this week I had to take antihistamines on Tuesday and again, yesterday night. Zyrtec makes me feel very dizzy and weak in my legs, in fact this morning I didn't feel like getting up and on the scale at all... Is it possible that the extra weight could be water retention from the drugs? I am also on oral contraceptives and currently I have 4 pills left from this month's blister. Could this be PMS? Still, the scale said that the water is the same, the muscle is going down and the fat is going up.

What do you think? I can't believe I'm already hitting a plateau! Excuse my panic but I have a long history of failures and eating disorders (you can find a detailed account on the 100lbs community) so I am super scared. This time it's even more important for me to lose weight, since I want to start trying for a pregnancy and I want to make sure that both the baby and I can stay healthy.
Thank you and sorry for the long post!

Lietchi

Those scales are very unreliable in estimating your bodyfat and muscle. Just taking a bath could influence the reading. Even under identical circumstances every weigh-in, they can give varying results.

And your weight being up 1 kg is a small increase, easily within the margin of water weight fluctuations. Constipation can also play a role. If you weighed daily (I'm not saying you have to), you would see that weight fluctuates daily, you might just have had unlucky timing for your weekly weigh-in.

Hang in there! The only way to fail for sure is to quit 🙂

AnnPT77

What lietchi said ^^^ endorsed.

Even the allergies themselves can increase water retention (inflammation, plus if it's respiratory as it sounds like, the gunk in your sinuses is largely water, even if it's kinda thick and icky).

The scale isn't making accurate estimates of fat/water/muscle. Even if it's off by only a percent or so, that's multiple pounds. At most, those scales might be good for visualizing a long term trend (many weeks to months), and even then you'd want to ignore weird individual readings that are out of the general pattern). They are absolutely not good for assessing day to day (or few day) changes.

I'd even broaden out the implications of your monthly cycle: Different women have different patterns of hormone-related water weight changes across a cycle, and some don't even have one consistent pattern. When you've been at this for multiple months, you may begin to see what your personal pattern is. Even though it's not the most common pattern, a few women here have said they only see a new low weight once a month!

If a cheat meal has more salt or carbs than your usual - even if a perfectly sensible amount of both - that can increase water retention, too, because our bodies need extra water to metabolize those things.

As a general rule of thumb, multi-pound/kg changes over a small number of days - if there's no change in calorie intake/activity big enough to explain them - is going to be water retention changes or digestive waste in transit on its way to the exit. With a consistent routine of activity/calories-eaten, fat loss is a pretty small number of grams per day. (Muscle mass changes are even slower, in a healthy person - they show up over multiple months at minimum, usually.)

That fat loss plays peek-a-boo on the scale with the faster and larger-magnitude water/weight shifts, but show up in the body weight trends over multiple weeks to months.

As a personal example, I'm trying to ultra-slowly creep down in my maintenance weight range right now.

This past 7 days, I've weighed anything from 129 pounds to 133 pounds - not the high weight at the start and the low one at the end, but those are the low/high points over the 7 days, with other days up and down between those. That's roughly a 2kg swing.

A month ago, in the similar 7-day period, I was meandering still, but with a high weight of 134 pounds and a low of 132.2 (again, not the end points of that week, just the extremes during it).

My conclusion is that in the past month, I've probably lost 1-2 pounds. Since I'm aiming for slow loss, that's perfect for me. That's in pounds, but I think you see my point: Loss on the scale isn't down-down-down, it's up and down day to day, trending down over long periods. (My bodyweight translates to around 59kg, for context - so my loss in a month is somewhere between half a kg and a kg, roughly.)

I'm sure you're going for a faster loss rate than I am now, which is fine with more to lose, so you may see quicker changes in your trend. But I'd expect you to still see that kind of up and down day-to-day pattern (even week to week sometimes), with an overall down-trend over longer times. Because your body size currently is larger, you may see larger magnitude fluctuations than I do. It does vary by individual, but your 1kg is probably a very small percentage of your current bodyweight, right?

Please try not to be anxious. What you're seeing is perfectly normal. If you do the right things with eating and activity, you'll see the good results in trends over a period of weeks.

EssePi117

Wow! Thank you guys for all the support and the thorough explanations! With my period creeping on me, I have to confess that I was becoming more and more anxious. I woke up this morning thinking "Everybody loses weight but I'll never make it". Apparently, it's too early in my journey to get discouraged!
Yes, 1 kg is unfortunately a small percentage in my current weight, and I know I should mind the measurements and general well-being and not one stupid number. And yet, sometimes we are sabotaged by our own expectations.
I am a bit scared to step on the scale again this weekend, because I will be on my period and battling cravings in all their horror... Still, it might be a good way to see how things change during the month. I know I stayed in my deficit. My conscience is clear!

Skyler103

I say weigh yourself and gain some information about how your body works, if you can do it without feeling too anxious. If you can figure out when your body has natural fluctuations, it can be annoying but comforting. In the future if you know it's not something you did to cause it, that can keep you from becoming frustrated and giving up.

EssePi117

Hi everyone!
I'm back to announce that today is my one month mark, and that I lost 4.8 kg in 4 weeks! It's not bad, especially because I do not feel at my best at all, it has been a very tough week because I lost a loved one... I still tried to eat mindfully and take care of myself tho. So, at least one good news.
I looked at myself in the mirror a few days ago and my face was huge. Like, super round! And my breast and belly were swollen, too. I immediately called my doctor, he ruled out the most concerning hypothesis, but he still wants to check my insulin and cortisol levels. We are waiting for the test results now.
I was hoping I would loose more over the first month, because I know that the weight loss will progressively decrease as my body gets used to dieting... But I decided I want to be proud of my 4.8 kg loss and I hope I won't plateau too soon.
So, that's it! How about you?
My journey continues...