water stored in fat cells fact or myth??

ninerbuff

Never heard this in biology. How is water forced into a fat cell? What chemical process caused it? Where's an study showing it actually happening or is this hypothesis?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

AnnPT77

ninerbuff wrote: »

Never heard this in biology. How is water forced into a fat cell? What chemical process caused it? Where's an study showing it actually happening or is this hypothesis?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Not advocating whether science or folklore, just offering the most common article on the subject (not definitive) that I've seen linked here:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html

. . . and I've seen that linked, or the idea discussed, multiple times. Many, even.

neanderthin

ninerbuff wrote: »

Never heard this in biology. How is water forced into a fat cell? What chemical process caused it? Where's an study showing it actually happening or is this hypothesis?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I think a lot of this talk is when the body makes triglycerides. I remember reading something about this quite a few years ago and googled this.

three fatty acids to a glycerol backbone in a dehydration reaction forms triacylglycerol. Three water molecules release in the process.

https://psu.pb.unizin.org/biol110/chapter/lipids/#:~:text=Joining three fatty acids to a glycerol backbone,in the triacylglycerol may be similar or dissimilar.

kshama2001

technicalman wrote: »

i've looked this up on actual medical and science websites that discuss it and the Woosh effect doesn't seem to be real. General chat websites seem to believe this as an effect. in my experience, the body retains a few lbs of water and loses water on a regular basis. one example is to weigh your self before bed and then weigh yourself in the morning. you can easily lose two lbs overnight, but you'll gain it back as your day starts and you eat and drink. women have more severe symptoms due to female specific things.

So you are arguing both that whooshes aren't real but that women have them?

MargaretYakoda

AnnPT77 wrote: »

technicalman wrote: »

i've looked this up on actual medical and science websites that discuss it and the Woosh effect doesn't seem to be real. General chat websites seem to believe this as an effect. in my experience, the body retains a few lbs of water and loses water on a regular basis. one example is to weigh your self before bed and then weigh yourself in the morning. you can easily lose two lbs overnight, but you'll gain it back as your day starts and you eat and drink. women have more severe symptoms due to female specific things.

Yes, it's a zombie thread. 🙄 2013, for heaven's sake.

Research assessment wise, here's a question: How big were the studies? How long? Got any cites?

Anecdotally, here, *some* people report whoosh-style loss, some people report never having seen a personal whoosh (I'm one of the latter). If you had my back to a wall, I'd *guess* that it's a minority of people here who've reported having routine whooshes (i.e., more than once or twice kind of thing). If something is happening in a smaller population sub-group, or sometimes but not always, you need a larger study or a longer one to observe it at a statistically significant level.

Your list of possible reasons for water weight shifts is quite incomplete, but I think you realize that (others may not).

Just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right, and fat cells don't hold water then suddenly release it. Let's say the people who observe whoosh phenomena in themselves are misattributing the causes.

Do you dispute their observed phenomena, think they're misrepresenting that their weight held steady for a surprising length of time, then suddenly dropped, didn't rise to the previous high again as long as they kept weight-loss effort compliance? Deceiving themselves? Lying, even?

If they're accurately reporting their observed phenomena, then I think telling other people about their observations on a weight loss site is potentially helpful, to encourage others to keep going through phases of unusual water retention or digestive contents fluctuations or whatever . . . even if they're regrettably misattributing the underlying mechanisms. (It would be better to understand the mechanisms accurately, too, if they're not, of course.)

Also, FWIW, a chunk of your fat weight is lost overnight, through exhalates, though it's usually not enough to show up clearly on the home scale. All of what you lost overnight doesn't come back when you eat/drink, in that sense, if you stay on track. It just takes a while for the very gradual fat loss to stop playing peek-a-boo on the scale with water/waste.

The last few nights I’ve woken up earlier than usual. Out of curiosity I weighed myself. And have weighed the same as the scale said the day before. Then went to bed for a couple more hours, and weighed myself again when I woke up, and have been about three or four ounces lighter each time.

I only used the bathroom before the first weight, so that wasn’t it.

Anyhow. Here to report, it’s weird. But it seems to be a thing.

yirara

I can't offer any articles because I don't have access to scientific papers anymore. There were a couple of papers a few years ago discussing the effect of salt on our bodies and on the amount of fluid taken in and peed out. Just as a side note there were a few lines on glycocorticoid cycles and the ability of our bodies to store more water and to release it in regular intervals. The more salt you ate the more subdued those cycles were I think. Thus there seems to be some natural whoosh'age going on, and depending on how much salt you ate they might show up or not.

Being in a calorie deficit and maybe watching food more I wonder if some people naturally eat less salt and bring out those whooshes, Or that they'd normally not notice them. Being mostly in maintenance for years I know that I whoosh very regularly, regardless of deficit or not.

wunderkindking

I have 'wooshed' most of the year I've been doing weight and the timing of those was really consistent:
a-) I start my period.
b-) I eat either at or above maintenance for a couple of days.
Either one of those will prompt a fast drop in scale weight. In fact for a larger portion of the time I was losing the only real time I saw the scale move was a few days after my period, when I'd drop several pounds in a go and then maintain at the new lower weight (with typical fluctuations).

However at a lower weight I don't really woosh all that dramatically.

And. Nothing says that the water weight I drop is being stored in fat cells. Just that it's SOMEWHERE.

ahoy_m8

I've wondered if the whoosh experience correlates to how lean a person is. It seems like, anecdotally, MFP posters have lost significant weight (>20 lb) before experiencing their first whoosh. Unsure.

My experience is like that of @wunderkindking, and good point about where the water weight comes from.

AnnPT77

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

technicalman wrote: »

i've looked this up on actual medical and science websites that discuss it and the Woosh effect doesn't seem to be real. General chat websites seem to believe this as an effect. in my experience, the body retains a few lbs of water and loses water on a regular basis. one example is to weigh your self before bed and then weigh yourself in the morning. you can easily lose two lbs overnight, but you'll gain it back as your day starts and you eat and drink. women have more severe symptoms due to female specific things.

Yes, it's a zombie thread. 🙄 2013, for heaven's sake.

Research assessment wise, here's a question: How big were the studies? How long? Got any cites?

Anecdotally, here, *some* people report whoosh-style loss, some people report never having seen a personal whoosh (I'm one of the latter). If you had my back to a wall, I'd *guess* that it's a minority of people here who've reported having routine whooshes (i.e., more than once or twice kind of thing). If something is happening in a smaller population sub-group, or sometimes but not always, you need a larger study or a longer one to observe it at a statistically significant level.

Your list of possible reasons for water weight shifts is quite incomplete, but I think you realize that (others may not).

Just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right, and fat cells don't hold water then suddenly release it. Let's say the people who observe whoosh phenomena in themselves are misattributing the causes.

Do you dispute their observed phenomena, think they're misrepresenting that their weight held steady for a surprising length of time, then suddenly dropped, didn't rise to the previous high again as long as they kept weight-loss effort compliance? Deceiving themselves? Lying, even?

If they're accurately reporting their observed phenomena, then I think telling other people about their observations on a weight loss site is potentially helpful, to encourage others to keep going through phases of unusual water retention or digestive contents fluctuations or whatever . . . even if they're regrettably misattributing the underlying mechanisms. (It would be better to understand the mechanisms accurately, too, if they're not, of course.)

Also, FWIW, a chunk of your fat weight is lost overnight, through exhalates, though it's usually not enough to show up clearly on the home scale. All of what you lost overnight doesn't come back when you eat/drink, in that sense, if you stay on track. It just takes a while for the very gradual fat loss to stop playing peek-a-boo on the scale with water/waste.

The last few nights I’ve woken up earlier than usual. Out of curiosity I weighed myself. And have weighed the same as the scale said the day before. Then went to bed for a couple more hours, and weighed myself again when I woke up, and have been about three or four ounces lighter each time.

I only used the bathroom before the first weight, so that wasn’t it.

Anyhow. Here to report, it’s weird. But it seems to be a thing.

Keep in mind that you're also sweating (perhaps imperceptibly) and that exhalates include water. (Part of fat is lost as water, in effect, because water's one of the combustion products. Around 16% is water, 84% is carbon dioxide.)

Most of overnight weight loss is water. Some of that water was drunk, or was eaten in food. Some of it was the product of fat combustion. Relative proportion of those sources of exhaled/sweated-out water will vary with conditions, things like room temperature and humidity, etc.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/12/16/371210831/when-you-burn-off-that-fat-where-does-it-go

Bodies are weird.

wunderkindking

ahoy_m8 wrote: »

I've wondered if the whoosh experience correlates to how lean a person is. It seems like, anecdotally, MFP posters have lost significant weight (>20 lb) before experiencing their first whoosh. Unsure.

My experience is like that of @wunderkindking, and good point about where the water weight comes from.

I think it's hard to tell with the timing/starting weight and it's impact - because most people drop water weight when first starting to lose weight, as part of things. It's part of what makes that first loss bigger than usual. So does it then require longer and a higher weight to 'woosh' (if someone is going to) or is it just a matter of taking longer for the body to get stressed from being at a deficit and hang ON to water via cortisol, or is the timing just funny looking because they start with a woosh fairly rapidly, or -???

Basically echoing Ann - Bodies are weird.