Shedding the "water weight" ...Should diet be altered?

tectactoe
tectactoe Posts: 73 Member
in Food and Nutrition
The quick facts: my normal caloric intake / macros are about 2400 cals with a 40% carb, 35% protein, 25% fat split (that's what I aim for, anyway lol). 6'2", normally about ~176 lbs. Workouts 4x/week (Mon, Tue, Thurs, Fri), lifting heavy w/ no cardio.

This weekend, the wife & I decided to take a mini-vacation up north to little Germany. Needless to say, the weekend filled with glorious amounts of fried foods, bread, fatty sausages, kraut, potatoes, & LOTS of beer. Also plenty of sugary sweet candies as there were lots of neat fudge & ice cream shops around.

Anyway, I stepped on the scale today to find that I was around 6 or 7 lbs heavier, around 182-183 lbs. I'm aware that *likely* much of this is water weight, especially due to the HEAVY amounts of beer & sodium that were consumed (on top of the general surplus of calories). I still fill bloated this morning at work.

I've heard that one of the best ways to help shed water weight is to... well, drink water. I've been doing that this morning, all through my workout & a bunch now at my desk.

What else can be done to help shed this weight quickly? Any other water shedding tricks?

Also, the big question: Should my diet (the 2400 cal split I listed about) be altered today to compensate for this gorging weekend, or should I just continue back as I normally would?

Replies

  • terbusha
    terbusha Posts: 1,483 Member
    You can have a couple lighter days on the diet. That's fine. Keep chugging the water and try to keep your sodium intake down. The water weight will come off in a few days.

    Allan
  • martyqueen52
    martyqueen52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    Eat at your caloric deficit as normal, and just drink a lot of water. Give it a week and it will return to normal. I do the same thing every Saturday (my re-feed day) and when I go on trips / vacations.

    Remember.... it takes 3500 calories to make a lb of fat. So.... unless you ate that much.... it's water weight.
  • dieselbyte
    dieselbyte Posts: 733 Member
    Altering your diet after only putting on water and food weight can set you up for an unhealthy realtionship with food. You had a free day, enjoy it. Don't let a number on a scale make you feel guilty. Continue to eat as normal, and drink more water. (depending on your lifting and fitness goals, altering your diet can have adverse effects on your performance as well).
  • tectactoe
    tectactoe Posts: 73 Member
    Thanks for the replies everyone.

    I often have a cheat day once every two weeks, occasionally once a week, & it hasn't adversly affected my progress at all. I think this time just happened to be worse since the foods I ate were all loaded with salt, much more sodium that I'd ever consume even on other cheat days. That, plus lots of beer, probably bloated me more than I've ever been bloated, so I'm just not used to this feeling yet.

    I'll go right back to following my normal diet plan & drinking lots of water. Hopefully a few days from now I'll have lost most of the water weight softness :)
  • tectactoe
    tectactoe Posts: 73 Member
    Back down by about 4 lbs today... still have just a little to get rid of, I think, but I'm glad to see it shed off so quickly! Thanks again for the responses.
  • butlersoft
    butlersoft Posts: 219 Member
    I had copious lager at the weekend ..... 6lbs up on Monday morning

    4 of them gone as of this morning as a result of drinking loads of water yesterday and a punishing gym session ;-)
  • tectactoe
    tectactoe Posts: 73 Member
    Haha, yes, I was probably in the restroom at least 10 times yesterday after all the water I drank... But it obviously worked! I even had a beer & cheesecake with dinner last night, then I wake up to ~4 lbs less on the scale. Pretty good feeling :-p

Categories