Water weight or fat? New to working out

Sarah21797
Sarah21797 Posts: 16 Member
edited September 2022 in Fitness and Exercise
I started working out every other day from 10 days ago, cardio and light weights and spinning.

Since I started working out I have been eating the same amount as I have eaten for the last 6 months (2000 calories a day) and have definitely not eaten over this amount. I have gained 3-4lbs since I started working out 10 days ago!!!!

I have done some research and sounded like it could be water retention from being new to exercise but I thought this would have disappeared now and my weight gone back to my pre-working out weight. Do you think this is still water weight even after 10 days?

Ps. I am not trying to lose weight but not looking to gain either. Before anyone asks it’s not the time of the month either lol and no other obvious cause for water retention

Replies

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,410 Member
    Did you experience any soreness from the new workout routine?

    You know. Walking like a duck, pain standing up or bending / squatting down, crawling up the stairs on your hands and knees?

    It’s very common to be sore when starting new exercises. Your body will retain water to direct to sore areas to heal them. Later, you’ll pee it out when the soreness recedes.

    I can easily gain four or five pounds of water weight that hangs around for a week or two if I’m particularly sore following a new or resumed workout.

    Ditto travel, high sodium foods, etc.
  • Sarah21797
    Sarah21797 Posts: 16 Member
    @springlering62 yes I was so sore Sunday- yesterday! Today I am almost back to normal in terms of soreness. Thank you
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,410 Member
    Oh sweetie, you are going to learn so much about your amazing, intuitive body on this journey.

    If you’ve got as much to lose as I had, wait til the day your butt cheeks deflate, before mysteriously reinflating a few days later, in a better shape. That was the event that totally blew my mind.

    Then there was the time the cellulite popped like popcorn overnight, only to completely vanish a day or two later. It was like having the Elephant Man’s thighs for a couple days.

    And if you want some fun, put “woosh” in the community board search engine. That was an eye opener for sure.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,809 Member
    It's only been 10 days, 99% likelihood it's water weight from the exercise, especially since you mention not having changed your calorie intake. Give it more time, might take a few weeks.

    Gaining 3 to 4lbs of fat would mean having eaten 10500 to 14000 calories above maintenance in 10 days, I think you would have noticed 🙂
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,175 Member
    I kind of disagree with Spring, which is unusual - we usual hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

    I think you can have water retention from new/increased exercise even when there's not noticeable soreness. (I agree that it would be unusual to have DOMS but no water retention alongside, the reverse correlation.)

    I tend to drop and resume strength training seasonally. When I resume it after a long hiatus, I expect to gain a couple of pounds of water weight, and I hang onto those pounds as long as I keep progressively training. Usually the actual DOMS is over in a week or so, tops . . . but the water retention continues as long as I keep increasing the exercise challenge.

    I think 3-4 pounds is possible, and I don't think 10 days is for sure enough to see it drop off. I don't know that you'd expect to keep all of it, even if you have a tendency to hang onto it like I do. For sure, it won't just keep increasing and increasing. You may have a new steady state weight a couple/few pounds up for quite a while - hard to say how long - but it'd just be water, so no reason to fret about it.

    If scale weight keeps gradually increasing steadily, though, I'd suspect that the new exercise is leading you to subtly eat a little more, which is easy to have happen if not calorie counting pretty meticulously.
  • jst1986
    jst1986 Posts: 204 Member
    I fairly recently started back at the gym and had exactly the same, I went from losing 2-3lb a week to losing nothing. It took about 3-4 weeks to disappear in full and to kick start.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,597 Member
    edited September 2022
    Everyone’s body is different but I’m similar to @AnnPT77 in that I hold water weight as long as I’m doing weights. When I deload I drop weight after a few days without any change to my eating or carbs. And then a couple of days after I start my new block my weight goes back up. It makes sense, as your muscles do get “pumped” - and that’s water. (I love seeing young lads frantically arm curling and doing press-ups in the gym early Friday evening before they go out 🤣)

    ETA in a funny way, not a pervy way!!

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