Water weight symptoms and Causes
Water weight symptoms can be sudden scale gain, a puffy look to your muscles or no change to the scales over a period of several weeks despite a consistent definite and significant calorie deficit. And this is known as the woosh effect! Whereby fat is burned from the cells but water temporarily fills the space until the body registers that the fat isn’t coming back!
Water retention causes can be for various reasons. And it can be as simple as less is coming in than usual. So, we hold onto more. Other causes can be due to time of the month, stress, illness and high salt meals to name a few. Basically, humans are made up of around 70% water which means it’s key to stay hydrated! Furthermore, when we stay hydrated on a daily basis, we drop unnecessary water weight. Because when your body knows plenty is coming in, it is happy to let those extra precautionary reserves leave the body.
How do Water Retention Causes Relate to Weight Loss?
When water retention occurs it’s as if the scales have evolved into a blooming magical evil sorcerer. Because no matter what we do we lose nothing, except our minds. Worst of all, if you’re holding extra water weight, you may wrongly assume your nutrition plan is to blame. When in fact it is working perfectly but is being masked by water retention! Ultimately, the problem is most don’t stay consistently hydrated. And when dehydration sets in, side effects such as headaches, joint aches, lethargy, dry skin and most critically, bad breath soon follow. Your partner can thank us later!
As well as the scales, we recommend using picture progress (every 4-6 weeks) and measurements too. In addition, tracking strength/fitness progress to watch for performance drops. For example, you could lose weight but start losing strength too! And if you don’t look better visually, it could indicate muscle loss instead of fat loss!
Top Tip
Firstly, it’s very easy to mistake hunger for thirst! Secondly, out of sight out of mind which is why keeping a bottle of water on you throughout the day is a good idea! Attach a hair bobble/elastic band round the bottle and remove one when you have drank 1 liter. As a result, you won’t forget how much you have had.
What actually gets hydrated?
Our muscles, brain, digestive system, eyes, blood and joints – every cell in our body! Talk about anti ageing, who needs magic potions!!! In addition, chronically low fluid intake can potentiate a higher chance of kidney stones too. Here is a super interesting blog on all the wonderful jobs water does for us that we never have to think about!
Recommendations
We advise our Body Reacher’s upon waking to consume their first couple pints of water within 15-20 minutes. The first pint as soon as you wake or before your coffee. Moreover, by hydrating your vessel from the off it is powered up to perform at it’s best for the day! As a result, it prevents you from retaining unnecessary water weight that may make your physique look puffy and bloated! Consequently, leading you to second guessing your fitness journey success.
In Conclusion
Drink the adequate amounts of water that your body needs and reap the health benefits whilst simultaneously staying on track with your goals! To determine the right amount of water intake per day, we simply multiply our body weight in pounds by .7 or .8 if exercising that day. For example a person weighing 180 pound would need around 126 oz (3.5 litres per day) or 144 oz (4 litres per day).
Here’s another blog post on how many calories are in one pound of fat to improve your knowledge and results. Furthermore, this post leans towards scales loss and what other assessment tools are invaluable to give you the clearest picture.
Do you drink enough each day?
Coaches,
Luke & Kate
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