Water weight?

jrmartinezb
jrmartinezb Posts: 147 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I weigh, measure, and do a body fat test every week (bf with handheld BIA analyzer).

I've been usually losing around 0.5 - 1 pound a week with a 700 cal deficit. Today the scale moved slightly upward (100grs), my measurements are about the same (-0.5 inches in the hip, same elsewhere), but the body fat reading says I lost almost 2.5% body fat (from 22.1 to 19.7). If all those things were accurate, that would mean I burned about 3 pounds of fat and built about the same amount of muscle in just a week. How I wish that could be true!

I’m not worried about the apparent lack of progress, but I am curious. What do you think is the best explanation?

A- I didn’t actually have the deficit I aim for. This week I only logged three out of seven days, and I had an office party (I’m certain I was nowhere near my calorie goal that day).

B- It’s water weight. Yesterday I had Japanese for dinner and bk for lunch. According to my diary my sodium was almost 6000mg. Water retention would throw the body fat reading off, so this makes some sense.

C- A combination of A) and B)

D- Something else I am not thinking of.

Replies

  • Firefox7275
    Firefox7275 Posts: 2,040 Member
    Cheapo handheld and stand on bioimpedance gadgets are inaccurate, all you can use them for is a general trend over weeks or months. 100g is well within normal daily fluctuation. Forget this one reading and move on with your life and diet, don't waste your energy asking (mostly) unqualified people on a forum to analyse something they don't understand.
  • drchu
    drchu Posts: 9 Member
    Firefox7275 has a point about reliability in bioimpedance scales. But I suppose opening this kind of stuff in a forum is cool, some opinions may not be from experts but some others may help. A curious mind is an active one and searching for explanations regarding our own bodies and our own health is as natural as human existance, so dont worry, but keep searching for answears and explanations.

    So in my humble opinion:

    A) "Poor" reliability of bioimpedance
    B) Water weight (sodium and water go together)
    C) Normal fluctuations of weight
  • NCchar130
    NCchar130 Posts: 955 Member
    If I were just guessing, I would go with water weight. I weigh in daily and a high sodium day almost always causes the scale to fluctuate upwards.
  • elorawood
    elorawood Posts: 68 Member
    I agree with NC - same thing - the day after a high sodium intake my weight is up.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    ...I’m not worried about the apparent lack of progress, but I am curious. What do you think is the best explanation?

    A- I didn’t actually have the deficit I aim for. This week I only logged three out of seven days, and I had an office party (I’m certain I was nowhere near my calorie goal that day).

    B- It’s water weight. Yesterday I had Japanese for dinner and bk for lunch. According to my diary my sodium was almost 6000mg. Water retention would throw the body fat reading off, so this makes some sense.

    C- A combination of A) and B)

    D- Something else I am not thinking of.
    A combination of B) and E); E) being that BIA devices are inaccurate and while they may have some use for tracking overall/long-term trends, they're of little to no use on a short-term / day-to-day basis.

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