Too much water?

Is there such a thing?

I have been upping my water since Monday for 2 reasons:
1 - to flush out the booze bloat I have going on
2 - I have stopped drinking diet lemonade, so water has naturally replaced that.

Here's my issue - the scales are not budging! I weigh daily (don't lecture me, its what I do ok?) and this week I have gone like this

Mon 80.6
Tue 80.1
Wed 79.9
Thu 80.2
Fri 80.3

WTF? I am drinking around 4 litres of water a day - is this too much? Or will it eventually all come out (within the next 3 days....)

Replies

  • healthygreek
    healthygreek Posts: 2,137 Member
    Are you weighing first thing in the morning naked and after using the toilet?
  • mnm424
    mnm424 Posts: 259 Member
    are you urinating more frequently now that you have increased your water intake? if no, then something is wrong...
    also look at your sodium intake..
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    Yes, there is such thing as too much water. Most people don't have to worry about it but if you are pairing excessive amounts of water with low intake of sodium and other electrolytes you could run into problems.

    What are you hoping to come off? Your body can retain water if you are dehydrated which can reflect on the scale but drinking copious amounts of water isn't necessarily going to pay off on the scale.

    4 liters is a lot of water.
  • leishamaree
    leishamaree Posts: 62 Member
    Yep I weigh each morning naked, after the loo.

    I need to get to 74kg to be in my HWR, I am currently 2kg above my lowest from 2 weeks ago.

    I am peeing more, but it's not making a difference on the scale.

    My sodium is within the limits set by MFP...
  • Celuwen
    Celuwen Posts: 80 Member
    I think four litres a day might be a tad much. Perhaps cut back to three litres and see how you get on. I don't know if it would make you gain/hold weight unless you've drastically increased your water intake in the last few weeks.

    Is this the only change you've made in the last two weeks?
  • kariplease
    kariplease Posts: 43
    Drinking water isn't going to make you lose weight alone.
  • lildee0216
    lildee0216 Posts: 16 Member
    I think that you should be patient and continue to drink water and see what the difference is for example. Drink water for 3 weeks and then go back to your old regimen and look at the difference.

    I suffer from bloating because I have an extremely sensitive stomach. Make sure you look at the carbs you eat (certain carbs can make you retain more water than others).

    You should take your body weight and divide it by 2 and that is how many ounces of water you should be drinking in a day to stay well hydrated.
  • Cr01502
    Cr01502 Posts: 3,614 Member
    I really don't think you should be weighing yourself everyday.

    Weighing yourself every day isn't productive or accurate.

    Did you know that your weight can fluctuate up to 5 lbs a day?

    Did you know that the scale can't tell the difference between muscle, fat, water, and glycogen storage?
  • HMVOL7409
    HMVOL7409 Posts: 1,588 Member
    4L might be a lot to some but not everyone. 4L=1 Gallon, I aim to drink that everyday. Are you urinating frequently? What's your sodium intake like? If you're not releasing water then you're holding onto it and a gallon of water will weigh alot in terms of scale weight.
  • crazy4fids
    crazy4fids Posts: 173
    Try cutting your sodium intake in half.
  • nursemickey
    nursemickey Posts: 52 Member
    As someone who works in the medical field (THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE JUST A FYI)..........IF you drink copious amount of water and don't have balanced electrolytes your body WILL react. I had a patient once for whatever reason drink 1000 cc of water in like a short period of time and crashed on me (of course at the end of a shift no less). A liter of water really isn't that much however if you were 5'2 and 100lbs then maybe........
  • leishamaree
    leishamaree Posts: 62 Member
    I think that you should be patient and continue to drink water and see what the difference is for example. Drink water for 3 weeks and then go back to your old regimen and look at the difference.

    I suffer from bloating because I have an extremely sensitive stomach. Make sure you look at the carbs you eat (certain carbs can make you retain more water than others).

    You should take your body weight and divide it by 2 and that is how many ounces of water you should be drinking in a day to stay well hydrated.

    If I go by that method I should only be drinking just under 2 litres a day - might drop it down a bit!
    I really don't think you should be weighing yourself everyday.

    Weighing yourself every day isn't productive or accurate.

    Did you know that your weight can fluctuate up to 5 lbs a day?

    Did you know that the scale can't tell the difference between muscle, fat, water, and glycogen storage?

    Yes I know all that, my weight has been up by 4 1/2lbs for over a week now. I weigh myself every day to see how different exercises/foods/routines make my body react. Something of an experiment.

    I have been losing weight for 2 years, and have lost nearly 64lb - it's not my first rodeo....
    I think four litres a day might be a tad much. Perhaps cut back to three litres and see how you get on. I don't know if it would make you gain/hold weight unless you've drastically increased your water intake in the last few weeks.

    Is this the only change you've made in the last two weeks?

    Yeah it is the oly change, but it has been a drastic uptake in the amount of water I drink. Think I might have gone a little crazy....
  • AlongCame_Molly
    AlongCame_Molly Posts: 2,835 Member
    I really don't think you should be weighing yourself everyday.

    Weighing yourself every day isn't productive or accurate.

    Did you know that your weight can fluctuate up to 5 lbs a day?

    Did you know that the scale can't tell the difference between muscle, fat, water, and glycogen storage?


    Shhhhhh! Didn't you hear her say "it's what she does"?

    She already knows it's a bad idea from the sound of it, and there's no use arguing with theses kinds of people once they get their minds made up.

    Glen Beck wrote a book in 2010 titled after such behavior... What was it called again??
  • Willowana
    Willowana Posts: 493 Member
    Wow, I'm seeing a mix of good advice and bad.

    If you are drinking a ton of water, do not decrease sodium in half. Water is a diuretic and can cause hypovolemic hyponatremia (which can kill you):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia

    Eight glasses a day? Myth busted. Some need more, some need less:
    http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

    Of course, water has weight. Weigh yourself after you use the restroom right when you wake up. Water will not make you gain or lose any significant amount of fat. Calorie intake does that. Water has no calories.

    --Measure your food with a digital food scale. No tasting things or licking the spoon. Meauring cups are very inaccurate.

    --Log EVERYTHING! Supplements, gum, medicines...etc.

    --If you haven't figured out your TDEE, do it. You can't be sure you are eating at the right kind of deficit unless you know what your current maintenance calories are.
  • Celuwen
    Celuwen Posts: 80 Member
    Yeah it is the oly change, but it has been a drastic uptake in the amount of water I drink. Think I might have gone a little crazy....

    When I upped my water consumption, I noticed an increase in weight. It took a few months for my body to become used to the extra fluid and settle down and the increase was around a litre. I do think you should be wary of increasing your water intake very drastically all at once, especially if you're lowering your salt, or have very little salt overall.
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    Is there such a thing?

    I have been upping my water since Monday for 2 reasons:
    1 - to flush out the booze bloat I have going on
    2 - I have stopped drinking diet lemonade, so water has naturally replaced that.

    Here's my issue - the scales are not budging! I weigh daily (don't lecture me, its what I do ok?) and this week I have gone like this

    Mon 80.6
    Tue 80.1
    Wed 79.9
    Thu 80.2
    Fri 80.3

    WTF? I am drinking around 4 litres of water a day - is this too much? Or will it eventually all come out (within the next 3 days....)

    Your body excretes excess water very quickly.

    We, as a species, have a need for water and we, over the 5 million years since we left trees and started chasing food on the ground, have developed an excellent mechanism for getting enough water. It's called "thirst".

    Water can be valuable in the dieting process. When people change their diet, especially if they increase their protein, they sometimes experience constipation. By drinking more water, they may be able to reduce the level of constipation. In addition, water, if ingested before a meal, tends to make people eat less since they already have "something" in their stomach. For me, that's just trading one addiction for another but, heh, if it works, do it.

    Other than that, there is no medical need to ingest more water than your thirst mechanism tells you to. And I say that as someone who has spent time in the US Army in desert environments, who spent their youth in a tropical climate, and who runs year round in Souther California (once described as "a desert with irrigation")

    But, as we know, "the plural of anecdote is not data" so all the personal stories are…personal stories.

    In this case, a very talented doctor has weighed in on water consumption. Well, two, Docs.

    Here's a link to the only medically researched article I have ever seen here on MFP:

    http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2002/aug/080802.html
    http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/283/5/R993.full

    From the first para:
    "Despite the seemingly ubiquitous admonition to “drink at least eight 8-oz glasses of water a day” (with an accompanying reminder that beverages containing caffeine and alcohol do not count), rigorous proof for this counsel appears to be lacking."

    This article has 100 footnotes to other medical sources and was written by an MD on the staff at Dartmouth who happens to have written a book on how the kidneys function.

    While I'm sure that there's a lot of great advice here on MFP, I'll stick with Dr. V and his research assistant.

    The other Doc is Dr. Tim Noakes whom I've only learned about in the past few months. In addition to being the inventor of the energy gel (1971) and an experienced marathon and ultramarathon runner, Dr. Noakes has been involved in sports medicine research for decades. His book "The Lore of Running" is a treasure trove of information and, in the last few days, I've been reading parts of his book that deal with water as well as heat regulation during endurance exercise.

    Dr. Noakes recently published a book on the dangers of over drinking during endurance events. Here's a magazine article that discusses the book:

    http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/tim-noakes-on-the-serious-problem-of-overhydration-in-endurance-sports.html


    Again, I have no qualms with people drinking water. It can be helpful in weight loss but, as with any other substance, it's not the poison, it's the dosage.

    So drink to thirst and don't eat yellow snow.

    If you're not losing weight, my suggestion would be to "eat less, exercise more". My standard challenge to people who are in maintenance (if you're neither losing nor gaining weight you no longer have a calorie deficit you're and you're considered "in maintenance") is to go to my diary of early 2011 and eat the calorie levels that I ate while burning the calories that I burned. Do that for a month and see how things work out (I lost 95 pounds in 7 months in the 2011).

    Losing weight is simple but not necessarily easy. We marshall up a staggering number of justifications for why we're not losing but time and time and time again it comes down to burning more calories than you eat*. Do that and the weight will come off.


    *My fiancée has run on of the 44 Lindora clinics here in SoCal and she tells me that the folks who start the program but don't lose weight are the ones who are not compliant on the program.
  • fufi04
    fufi04 Posts: 471 Member
    Wow, I'm seeing a mix of good advice and bad.

    If you are drinking a ton of water, do not decrease sodium in half. Water is a diuretic and can cause hypovolemic hyponatremia (which can kill you):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia

    Eight glasses a day? Myth busted. Some need more, some need less:
    http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

    Of course, water has weight. Weigh yourself after you use the restroom right when you wake up. Water will not make you gain or lose any significant amount of fat. Calorie intake does that. Water has no calories.

    --Measure your food with a digital food scale. No tasting things or licking the spoon. Meauring cups are very inaccurate.

    --Log EVERYTHING! Supplements, gum, medicines...etc.

    --If you haven't figured out your TDEE, do it. You can't be sure you are eating at the right kind of deficit unless you know what your current maintenance calories are.

    pretty much this....and also don't drink more than a liter per hour
  • goldenguymsw
    goldenguymsw Posts: 191 Member
    Simply put...sedentary female 9 cups per day...active female...10-16 while adding sodium and electrolytes to avoid hyponatremia.....sedentary male 13 cups per day...active male 14-24 cups while adding sodium and electrolytes to avoid hyponatremia. This is from latest research from National Academy of Sports Medicine... I can tell you mist people including athletes are NOT properly hydrated. I can tell you from personal experience...it makes a huge difference when you are. I can also tell you it IS possible to drink too much...so you need to make sure you are in the range mentioned earlier. Hope this helps.
  • Code7526
    Code7526 Posts: 52
    Water intoxication is science theory much more than science fact, because it happens so rarely. Your body has to loose a lot of its sodium and then you drink a lot of water at once for you to get water intoxication according to the theory. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    I was badly dehydrated once with a friend in the wilderness. When we got back to where we left a big container of water, We each drank about 3 litres of water at once, nothing happened to us. If someone is dehydrated and they want to drink water, let them drink water, if on the very slim chance they get water intoxication, they can be treated later in hospital for it.