What You Need To Know About Water Weight

As you go about your weight loss journey, one thing that you must be making sure you fully understand is water weight. Many people aren’t able to fully differentiate between water weight and fat weight, so as they move about their programme, they’re actually misled with the results that they’re seeing.

Let’s take a closer peek into what you must know about water weight so that you can be sure that this isn’t getting you confused as you go about your weight loss programme.

Water Fluctuations & The Female Menstrual Cycle

If you’re a woman, you likely know how this goes. One minute you’re looking leaner than ever and the next, you don’t know what happened. It’s perfectly normal to see your weight fluctuate by up to three to five pounds during this time, so try and recognise that this is in fact what’s going on and not get too worked up over it.

In a few days, the water weight will subside and you’ll be able to get back to your normal body weight and leanness again.

Water Fluctuations Due To Sodium Intake

Another cause of water weight is a high-salt meal. If you sat down to a big plate of nachos with salsa the night before or went out for Chinese food laden with soy sauce, there is a very good chance that you’ll wake up looking much heavier the next morning.

When you consume a high amount of sodium, this will cause the body to hold on to excess water, instantly increasing water retention.

Eat a low-salt diet to avoid this problem from occurring.

Water Fluctuations Due To Carb Intake

The last reason why you may see an increase in water weight is because of a sudden increase to your carb intake. If you were low carb dieting and then all of a sudden went on to consume a high carb meal, you’ll notice your weight shoots upwards.

It’s easy to let yourself think this is fat gain from the carbs, but really it’s just excess water being stored along with your muscle glycogen.

Keep your carbohydrate more constant if you want to avoid this problem.

So there you have the primary points to keep in mind regarding water weight. Don’t get too worked up over  it – it’s not an accurate representation of your progress.