Experts are always saying that when we first start dieting that it’s the water weight that’s lost meaning it’s not fat or muscle. Can you explain what this water weight is exactly and where does it come from?
What would be the approximate normal amount of “water weight” that’s lost in an average male of say 175lbs and 510″ and a woman of 167lbs and 5 6″
Is this “water weight” the weight that can fluctuate within a 24 x hour or 48 hour period?
In: Biology
Drink a kilogram of water. You now weigh one more kilogram than before. It’s not muscle or fat though, and you’ll pee it out by tomorrow.
Its due to our body using water to help store things.
When the body stores energy in the muscles, its in the form of a liquid. You start to diet, and these stores deplete first, but you haven’t lost any body fat at this point, you are just losing the weight of the water used for energy storage.
If you have a lot of sodium, your body will want more water to store that sodium and there is more water weight that you will drop when your sodium level drops.
Water is used mechanically all throughout your body. It’s impossible to really say how much water is “useful” in your body.
But we can say that certain things in your body will cause you to retain extra water. For example, when you eat complex carbs, you will have energy stores in the form of glycogen. In order for your body to effectively store it, it actually needs 3 time as much weight in water as glycogen. So by eating excess calories in carbs, you will actually retain more water. When you change your diet and reduce or remove complex carbs, all of a sudden those glycogen stores get used up, and all the water they were using is now free to be peed out.
Yes, water weight is what fluctuates in a 24-48 hour period. If you got one 16-ounce bottle of water and drank it all right now, you would increase weight by roughly one pound for right now. It doesn’t turn into fat or muscle and stay on your body, but helps your body process foods and hydrates you. When you pee, and even when you exhale you will lose some of that water weight over time. I used to be a personal trainer and I would get someone that would come to me and say, “I lost 5 pounds since yesterday!” and they look basically the exact same as they did yesterday. I had to explain to them for example, if you weigh yourself at night vs when you first wake up from sleep, your weight will be a few pounds different because when you wake up you have exhaled several times in your sleep, contributing to your ‘weight loss’.
In addition to the other answers, another source of lost “water weight” comes from changes in salt intake. If you start eating healthier food, you are probably taking in less salt (mainly sodium) than before. Human bodies are made up of mostly water, and that water needs to stay within a pretty narrow range of saltiness. Our kidneys try to regulate our bodies’ salt levels by controlling how much salt goes into your urine vs. stays in your body, but this isn’t an instant process. So if you eat a bunch of extra salt above your usual intake, you will need to drink more water to keep the overall salt concentration in your body the same. If you eat less salt, your body will get rid of more water via urination for the same reason.
Your body is mostly water, and regular water intake is necessary to live. You lose water in a multitude of ways: urination, sweat, and even exhaling. Hence, we need to replenish it regularly. But during weight loss, you’re likely eating less and exercising more, so you won’t retain as much water.
I’ll give a good personal example of water weight.
Back last summer, I was in an ultimate frisbee league. I found I was getting really dehydrated and low energy during the games, especially when it was pretty hot. I decided to weigh myself right before and immediately after a game, turned out I was losing about 4 pounds of water during the game. Started adding some salt to my water, because that helps with water retention. After that, didn’t get as dehydrated and wound up gaining about .5 pounds every game from the water I was keeping in my system.
It wasn’t like I was genuinely losing 4 pounds of body weight or gaining .5 pounds of weight, it was just a matter of how much water was still in me or not.
Glycogen is stored in muscle tissue. It’s the only storage of carbohydrates that we have. When you go into a calorie deficit, the glycogen makes up the difference. On average, people can store about 600 grams of glycogen.
Each gram of glycogen causes 3-4 g of water to be stored as well. This means that you are holding on to about 1.8-2.4 kg (~4.0-5.3 lbs) of water in addition to the 600 g (1.3 lbs) of glycogen. As you use the glycogen, water is released. This is “water weight”.
In an early episode of *Star Trek: the Next Generation*, an alien lifeform made out of crystal refers to humans as “ugly bags of mostly water”. While its assessment of our looks may a matter of opinion, the part about being mostly water is true. On average, our bodies are about 60% water, though it can vary between 45 and 75%.
Having the right amount of water in our bodies is very important. Many of the chemical reactions and physical processes that power our cells only work properly at specific concentrations. Because of that, the body has evolved several ways to get rid of water: everyone thinks of urination, amd that’s important, but sweating and exhaling also play big roles.
There’s one more thing I need to discuss before we get to water weight: water is heavy. A cubic meter of the stuff weighs about a metric ton (roughly 2200 pounds). Obviously people aren’t *that* heavy, but over half of the weight of our bodies does come just from the water in it.
And now we can talk about water weight: the part of our bodies’ weight that comes from water alone. It’s very easy to gain: all you have to do is drink water, and most of it will be incorporated directly into your body (and you really have no choice in this, because if you stop drinking you die). It is also relatively easy to lose: the water vapor just in your breath causes you to lose about a kilogram a day.
Because of this, some diet and fitness experts say that to at least some extent, water weight doesn’t really count, or at least shouldn’t be considered the same as other forms of weight. It fluctuates too much: you can’t stop gaining it, and you can’t stop losing it. Consequently, small weight gains are losses are likely to come from this, and just as likely to vanish.
Water has weight. If you have lots of water in you you weigh more. Get rid of some water, lose some weight. But it’s just the weight of the water.
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