Can someone explain'water weight'?

This explains it

http://www.justinowings.com/understanding-bodyweight-and-glycogen-de/

Thanks for that pointer. Really enjoyed that article.

The effect of salt is overrated, though, compared to the effect of carbs. For the vast majority of people, easing up on sugar and white flour will make sodium a non-issue.

Tell that to someone I know who thinks she has a salt deficiency. She's large but I wouldn't call her mostly 'fat'...she's more...puffy and looks like she's been submerged underwater for a long time. Definitely the effects of salt. We had her over for soup one day and knew about her salt obsession so we mad our soup nastily salty, and she continued to poor in a film vial of salt in the soup that she just happened to have in her purse...

Euw, that makes me feel I'll, I hardly add salt to anything.

The thing that confuses me about the sodium thing is when people blame lack of weight loss on a high sodium diet. I can understand a sudden increase in sodium having a temporary water gain, but why would a consistently high sodium cause a pause in weight loss. The fat should still go, so are people try to say that people just retain more and more water. Surely if that were the case they would look like the ghostbusters marshmallow man as they continued to retain more an more water.

It seems to me that an increase in sodium can cause an increase in water weight, but a steady consumption should not, so I get puzzled when people look at other peoples diaries and say you are eating too much sodium, and that's why you aren't losing.

I'm a little sensitive to salt and can easily gain 5lbs from just one or two high sodium restaurant meals. Conversely it can take me up to two weeks from me to have a similar gain from daily eating of lots of high carb/sugar foods. In my case and many people I know the difference is in orders of magnitude. More importantly you're going to employ the same methods for depleting the glycogen stores as you will to shed fat. That's why the standard of care for Drs is to get on a patients case about sodium and then generally about loosing weight (instead of switching to a low carb diet) when there are problems.

Admittedly the picture looks different for people who are just starting a restricted or healthy diet coming from one that is terrible. For them depleting the glycogen stores is a big source of the initial big loss of water weight. But I don't have any illusions about the weight I gained over the holidays.

This explains it

http://www.justinowings.com/understanding-bodyweight-and-glycogen-de/

Thanks for that pointer. Really enjoyed that article.

The effect of salt is overrated, though, compared to the effect of carbs. For the vast majority of people, easing up on sugar and white flour will make sodium a non-issue.

Tell that to someone I know who thinks she has a salt deficiency. She's large but I wouldn't call her mostly 'fat'...she's more...puffy and looks like she's been submerged underwater for a long time. Definitely the effects of salt. We had her over for soup one day and knew about her salt obsession so we mad our soup nastily salty, and she continued to poor in a film vial of salt in the soup that she just happened to have in her purse...

Euw, that makes me feel I'll, I hardly add salt to anything.

The thing that confuses me about the sodium thing is when people blame lack of weight loss on a high sodium diet. I can understand a sudden increase in sodium having a temporary water gain, but why would a consistently high sodium cause a pause in weight loss. The fat should still go, so are people try to say that people just retain more and more water. Surely if that were the case they would look like the ghostbusters marshmallow man as they continued to retain more an more water.

It seems to me that an increase in sodium can cause an increase in water weight, but a steady consumption should not, so I get puzzled when people look at other peoples diaries and say you are eating too much sodium, and that's why you aren't losing.

I kid you not, I have referenced her looking like the marshmallow man...Not being mean to her but talking about her health to my mom and how we should do something about it and how it can't be good for her heart...she has definitely retained more and more water...and she's spent the weekend...it's not like she eats a whole lot when she's here but I can't say for sure what it's like at home...She use to babysit me when she was young, and she was as slim as I was. The only thing I've seen that has changed food intake wise is the salt.

Low albumin levels can cause this look. Without sufficient albumin fluid leaks out of the vasculature system into subcutaneous tissues.

Euw, that makes me feel I'll, I hardly add salt to anything.

The thing that confuses me about the sodium thing is when people blame lack of weight loss on a high sodium diet. I can understand a sudden increase in sodium having a temporary water gain, but why would a consistently high sodium cause a pause in weight loss. The fat should still go, so are people try to say that people just retain more and more water. Surely if that were the case they would look like the ghostbusters marshmallow man as they continued to retain more an more water.

It seems to me that an increase in sodium can cause an increase in water weight, but a steady consumption should not, so I get puzzled when people look at other peoples diaries and say you are eating too much sodium, and that's why you aren't losing.

Most of these people are coping out. If their sodium intake is basically stable they simply can't be loosing fat and simultaneously retaining increasing amounts of water keeping their weight the same or higher. There isn't normally a cumulative, compounding effect of sodium.

That's what I meant - but you explained it better.