2 pounds water weight

[Jillo]

I know salt causes water retension, but I can't give up everything....quit smoking, hardly drink, hardly eat and still can't loose a dam thing! I have been focusing on calories in verses calories out. I have been working my butt off trying to loose. I feel like I am loosing some but of course I don't believe it because of the scale shows me increasing. Please don't tell me to forget the scale because I just have to see it! For the last week or two I have had 12000-15000 steps every day...and burned any where from 1500 - 2200 calories according to my fitbit. Worked in the yard many hours this past weekend you would think I would of sweat off the salt I ate. I know I'm retaining because when I get out of bed my feet feel heavy and numb a little. I guess I'm just venting so I don't do something bad like just say to hell with it and stop trying. It's amazing how much damage I can do with one day of frustration. I'm going to give it a few days of consuming more water (which I will admit is not as much as normal the last few days) maybe use my sauna to sweat some off and drink apple cider vinegar. Thanks for letting me vent my two pound increase over  night. The couple things I had that were salty were some pretzels, popcorn, pickles. I read that sugar can cause edema also...anyone find this is true for them?

[OldButActive]

The road is tough but give yourself a day or two and stay on it.  One of the problems with losing weight is that as you increase your excecise and activity you also increase your muscle mass.  And since muscle is heavier than fat, you may not only not lose weigh but actually "gain weight".  That is why people tell you to not be a slave to your scale.  If you have a scale that measures your fat-muscle ratio then that can be a better measure of your improvements than your weight.  Also keep drinking your water -- but you may want to add a pinch of Celtic salt, Himalayan salt, or lemon.  This will add some electrolytes so that the water does it's work rather than just flushing electrolytes from your body.  By staying hydrated you help your kidneys do their job and flush free fats from your body before they become a part of your body.  You may also want to add some muscle building activities to your workouts such as stair climbing and weight lifting to help in building that muscle mass.  More muscle = more caloric burn.

[Jillo]

thanks for talking me down...lol...I do certain activities to build muscle as well..right now suffering from tennis elbow so that hard on the one arm...need to give it a rest. I golf twice a week and walk both courses. I always joke that I might be fat but I'm a firm fat...haha...I will keep working at it. I have a question...when I set this up I said I wanted to loose 2 pounds a week which is the extreme but I figured I could work off that. Each morning the fit bit tells me how many calories I have for the day. I know I need to have 1000 calorie deficit but for some reason the math don't seem right. Some days it give me 1200 to eat and other days its 900...and it don't seem to coinside with lets say I over ate the day before. Is there week start and week end where the numbers start over?

[OldButActive]

I would not be too concerned about what it posts for caloric intake.  Those are just estimates based on a huge math model that isn't exactly accurate.  use it as more of a rule of thumb: I need to eat less today....I can eat a little more today.  Also there has been a lot on the affect of water retention when (ironically) you don't drink enough water.  By increasing water intake you will reduce that by flushing excess salts from your body.  Eating out will increase sodium drastically and you'll see a big weight jump the next day or two.  

So drink your water, do your excercise, and don't worry the small things like your scale.  Stick to what you are doing (which is a hell of a lot better than me) and you WILL see a difference.  That old 'I did not lose weight but I feel skinnier' concept is your body telling you that you are doing something right.  Last week my average step cound came out to a miserable 4K with 6K as my best day.  I'd love to get to the point of doing 15-20K per day!!!!  But I also know that the software shows me a huge pattern: I become a slug on the weekends unless I go do something.

[KathyJ805]

Jillo, I feel exactly the same way.  It is frustrating.  Even thought I KNOW that it's water and water weight can fluctuate.  I still like to see some effort to my hard work in the form of the scale decreasing.  I have been diligently sticking to my workouts/food/ water/etc and to see the scale go up I want to toss it all and walk away. I even sought a nutritionist to tell me what I am doing wrong, and she told me I am doing everything right and to just keep doing what I am doing.  Sadly, this process is slow and for me I need to see results!

Hang in there and **ahem** THE WATER WEIGHT!

[slysam]

You cannot eliminate all the factors that effect water weight. In my opinon, the best you can do is learn how your body responds to different factors, so you expect water weight when it comes. You may also find that you can avoid some unnecessary fluid retention with certain behaviors--like staying within healthy limits on sodium. But a two pound fluid gain really isn't a big deal. The body retains fluid for a reason, I think it is usually best to allow the natural process to function. Amonth things that effect water weight gain: travel in airplanes (I've gained 10 pounds on international flights and my shoes become too small), hormone cycles (for females especially from ovulation until and during the period), sodium consumption, dehydration, eating more carbs than usual (often the intitial weight lost during low carb diets is water weight), vigorous workout, sweating/use of saunas, drinking, illness, inflamation, etc. It could be your muscles recovering from your yard work.

The sugar thing you mention... Quite possibly. I guess you can retain fluid from carbs in general since something like 3 times the weight (?) in water can bind to the carb molecule. I don't know that this is a bad thing though. Also if you deplete the stroed sugars in your muscles from work/exercise the body uses carbs you consumed to replenish. I think this is actually a good thing though, but it does result in a small amount of water weight (though ideally this retained fluid is the norm since it is related to supply your muscles with energy to work. But when dieting we can deplete that so we can see ups and downs on the scale).  If you are consuming more sugar than you should, that may be something to look at though. 

I won't tell you to forget the scale. I often weigh myself every day (that I think of it) and have no issue doing that. It can be quite informative. But if you weigh often, you have to stop responding emotionally to it. You won't see a real fat loss day-to-day because it is a slower process, you will see ups and downs depending on where you are in the digstion process of meals in the past day, slowly changing bodyfat and fluid retention or release. If you pay attention and make notes, you may notice your patterns and therefore know which weights to log. I will also suggst taking and tracking measurements though because the scale can sometimes hide fat loss.

[Jillo]

Hi Oldbutactive...I did try to drink a lot more water today because I know the last few days I did not get enough. As far as calorie intake, I enter all my foods so it should be pretty acurrate. It also shows just how much I put things in my mouth...but part of that is from growing up with low blood sugar issues and now diabetic. I learned to eat small but often so I think that makes it hard because you consume to much. 

[OldButActive]

Yes, my biggest issue is when I have my morning and afternoon snacks.  I should have a single handful of nuts, but tend to eat a bit more than I should.  Love nuts!  An interesting side note: I started work on MyFitnessPal which integrates with fitbit.  They posted my caloric requirements almost 500 calories below what I get here.  On Fitbit I can eat 1715 calories no matter what I do and get a green light.  On MyFitnessPal I can only eat 1200 calories and have to earn additional calories through excercise.  So while I'm congratulated here, I'm in the red there.  (and I'm told what I will weigh in 5 weeks if I ate like this every single day)

Why don't you complement what you are doing here by signing up for MyFitnessPal and see how that measures up!!  You may find you need to really do a little more excercise than you are (though I doubt it).  Now I have to go drink 5 glasses of water since I'm way below my day measure.

...oh yes...I should add that the two websites synch with each other.  What you put in there comes here and vice versa.

[notperfect]

Hi, I did not read all of the replies to your question so perhaps all what I am about to say has been addresse but two things concerned me when reading your post.  First if you really are eating fewer calories than you are losing then please please please go to a doctor if you have not done so already.  Please get a fasting blood glucose as well as Thyroid levels checked.  Secondly the "heavy and a little bit numb" int he feet first thing int he morning concerns me.  Again I say please report that to a doctor.  

Best of luck to you in losing weight, I know its difficult or I wouldn't be here myself