Water Weight

Teelynn14
Teelynn14 Posts: 13 Member
edited December 20 in Getting Started
According to my scale I lost 6.2lbs last week. I know it is all water weight since I went from high carb/sugar/salt diet to eating healthier foods. How long can this go on in the beginning? Will I be a higher pounds weight next week?

The only thing not driving me into a deep depression is the fact it seems my body held a lot of the water in my hips. I put on a pair of pants I have not worn for well over a year and they fit LOL

Replies

  • JaimeJaimeM
    JaimeJaimeM Posts: 63 Member
    Your answer depends on so many other factors - your starting weight/body fat percentage, your age, your gender. How/what/when you're eating and working out.

    6.2 pounds lost in a week is commendable no matter where you're starting. Generally as you move more back to your body's "healthy weight", you'll see the rate of weight loss taper off.
  • Teelynn14
    Teelynn14 Posts: 13 Member
    JaimeJaimeM wrote: »
    Your answer depends on so many other factors - your starting weight/body fat percentage, your age, your gender. How/what/when you're eating and working out.

    6.2 pounds lost in a week is commendable no matter where you're starting. Generally as you move more back to your body's "healthy weight", you'll see the rate of weight loss taper off.

    Jaime,

    I am 48 years old (in 2 weeks) 5'9" SW 185.2 CW 178.8. Not sure what my body fat is but according to an online calculator it's 28%. My hips last week were 49 and yesterday were 46.5 Waist 40" yesterday 39"

  • Teelynn14
    Teelynn14 Posts: 13 Member
    Pinuplove I think I might wait 2 weeks before weighing myself again. Might help my mental state lol
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    If you are in a calorie deficit, it wasn't all water weight. You're right... reducing carbs & salt cause cause most people to drop a fair amount of water initially. As the other poster said, that will taper off. In the meantime, if you are in a deficit, the fat loss will continue, but it may not be evident on the scale as your water weight levels out.

    Why would this drive you into a depression? You've had a completely normal/successful start to weight loss. In fact, depending on your stats, it may even be too aggressive. Weight loss progress is not measured in day-to-day numbers, or even week-to-week, but as a trend over a long period of time. You'll need to adjust your viewpoint. Many find that an app like HappyScale helps iron out the scale "noise".
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    edited April 2019
    Teelynn14 wrote: »
    Pinuplove I think I might wait 2 weeks before weighing myself again. Might help my mental state lol

    How often you want to weigh is an individual thing. If you tend to obsess, you might want to stay off the scale, but for many others, weighing daily helps them get a feel for their body's natural fluctuations and they become more comfortable with them. A person, and particularly a pre-menopausal woman, can get a "high" scale reading on any given day due to factors completely unrelated to their fat loss.
  • Nebrfan2005
    Nebrfan2005 Posts: 3 Member
    This is good information for me too. I lost 4 lbs my first week, mostly water. But, I have also started exercising about 30-mins a day on a Stationary Bike & Treadmill.
  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
    Everyone is different and trying to guess future weight outcomes is an exercise in frustration because weight loss progress is messy and unpredictable.

    When I started I experienced an initial higher than expected drop for the first 2-3 weeks. Then on the 4th week I did indeed encounter a 'bounce back' before I recommended losing at a more expected rate. But as I said everyone is different, everyone's experience will be different, everyone's results will be different and everyone's progress will be different.
  • jafinnearty
    jafinnearty Posts: 59 Member
    I dropped several pounds of water weight very quickly when I first started, too. But, they stayed off as long as I was vigilant about what I was eating. So, hopefully yours will, too.

    I have noticed that there are *two* times a month where I gain water weight back, even if I'm not gaining actual weight. One is at the beginning of my menstrual cycle (sorry, fellas!), and the other is at the beginning of my fertile time, also known as the Luteal phase (again...sorry, fellas!). However, I have also noticed that the water weight *always* drops off at the end of each of those times of the month.

    I did some research, and found that although it is incredibly common for women to gain the water weight during their menstrual cycle, it is not *as* common during the Luteal phase. So, I've started tracking my cycle along with my weight measurements, as well as how much on average of water weight I seem to gain. It helps keep the sanity when I see those numbers jump up overnight!

    If you are *not* a woman...I have no idea how water weight will affect you once you get those first pounds off. Good luck either way!
  • 1BlueAurora
    1BlueAurora Posts: 439 Member
    I found myself pretty joyful when I went down a pants size, or the measuring tape showed my waist and hips were getting smaller. The scale can be upsetting, since your results vary every day when your water retention or big salty meals figure in. So if the numbers bug you, don't weigh yourself that often. I loaded the Happy Scale app on my phone. I would weigh every day, but Happy Scale evens out a graph and showed that I was on a slow downward trend and I didn't get depressed by the numbers.
  • whmscll
    whmscll Posts: 2,255 Member
    Your weight on the scale will fluctuate up and down (sometimes by a LOT) during your weight loss journey. This is normal! When you eat carbs your body retains water to aid in digesting them. This is one reason so many people like to eat low carb. I would suggest that you not rely only on scale weight; also take progress photos once a month, and in addition to seeing how your clothes fit (which is a great indicator, btw) also take measurements once a month. All of this will help keep your mindset positive, even when the scale seems to be going in the wrong direction (which is almost always temporary).
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