water weight: where does it accumulate and why?

yirara

Maybe a funny question, but where does water weight accumulate? Does it follow gravity and mainly accumulate in the legs? Muscles you use in everyday life? Areas you don't move that much (thinking of hmm.. pelvis maybe? chest?), everywhere or is it something individual?

Question is based on two things: when my scale goes up due to water retention I don't really notice/measure one particular spot that feels more bloated (though water retention is rather low with me), and I just lost about 9lbs from being sick, which mainly shows across my pelvis of all the places I never managed to loose inches, and my back, which was already very lean.

If you have some scientifically acknowledged links links to share please do

vismal

Water weight can accumulate all over the body. Most people can retain quite a bit of water (at least a gallon) before it becomes noticeable.

yirara

Thanks a lot. Interesting.

DanaDark

Water is used for various purposes throughout the body.

When exercising, large areas of the body become damaged. Water and blood are the main transport methods for supplying those areas with repairs.

Sodium will cause water retention through biochemical means. Inside and outside of a cell must maintain the same dilution of sodium. If you increase your sodium intake, the body can either shed water from your cells (hello death) or retain extra water to dilute the over abundance of sodium outside the cells.

Potassium will aid in removing excess sodium from the body by allowing the kidneys to more rapidly process it, allowing you you to simply pee it out.

Intense exercise will cause you to sweat, which will result in water loss... but this should be masked completely as you should be keeping yourself hydrated by drinking plenty of water during and after exercise.

Increasing or decreasing the physical amount of food and/or the types of foods you eat will also cause excess water retention or loss. The intestines use a series of "flushes" with water to process food. So more food you have, the more water it will require to continue processing. The less food you have, the less water required.

Muscles in your body have quick energy stores separate from your fat energy stores. This energy is used for quick activity and is used first before any other energy source such as body fat. This energy is stored with the help of water. Low carbohydrate diets deplete your body's stores of energy in muscle, which results in shedding of the water weight used for storage. This explains the sudden rapid initial weight loss cited by low carb people.

This is just a small list of water's involvement in human biology. Entire volumes can be written on the topic with levels of detail to make even the staunches of biologists blush.

Water. It is important.

WalkingAlong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_water

See the part on compartmentalization. Most of it's in cells, so not really affected much by gravity. And where your levels vary a lot is probably going to be different from others.

365andstillalive

It really depends on you as a person and if you work out a lot, what areas of the body you've been working.
I find that I mostly carry water weight through my stomach/pelvis area, which makes sense as that's a traditional place for most women to see bloating. But, if I've been doing intenser than normal leg/arm workouts, I sometimes notice some water weight/swelling being held there, especially in joints like my knees and ankles.
Really, water weight isn't something to worry about. It's natural; your body needs water and will do what it needs to in order to make sure that you're hydrated enough, which sometimes means holding onto more water or releasing a ton of water when you're well hydrated.