July 2, 2021

Water retention and weight loss: can you lose fat but not weight?

Wassereinlagerungen und Gewichtsverlust: Kann man Fett aber kein Gewicht verlieren?

If you want to know how water retention can prevent weight loss and even make you look fatter (and what you can do about it), then you should read this article.

There are many ways in which you can mess up a well-planned diet. For example, you can:

Accidentally eating more calories than you should.
You can exercise too little.
You can overestimate the amount of energy you burn each day.
You can overdo it with excessive cheat meals.

These mistakes are common and easy to fix. You go through your checklist, recognize what you're doing wrong and quickly get back on track.

What's not quite so trivial are those unexplained fat loss plateaus.

You know...your macronutrients are right on target...you exercise plenty...you calculate your energy consumption accurately...and you refrain from unnecessary and excessive binge eating...and yet you don't see any progress in the mirror or on the scales.

If you are stuck on such a plateau, then you should not do what most people do in such a situation: exercise more and eat less. This will only make things worse.

The culprit in this situation is probably water retention and if you don't know how to deal with it properly, it can lead to a lot of trouble and frustration.

This article will help you to deal with this problem properly. By the end of the article, you will know the causes of water retention, why so many people who want to lose weight struggle with it and ways to get everything back to normal and continue losing weight.

But let's start at the beginning.

When a weight loss plateau is not a fat loss plateau

In a perfect world, you would lose weight in a steady and orderly fashion. We would stick to our exercise and diet plan and wake up a little lighter and leaner every day.

The weeks would fly by and before we knew it, we'd be the owners of a perfect six-pack.

Well, at least that's what we would dream of. However, when we wake up, we have to accept that weight loss in the real world is quite capricious and unpredictable.

You may lose a pound or two every week for a few weeks, but then for no apparent reason see no change at all for a few weeks, as if your body has suddenly forgotten how to lose fat.

And then - just before you're desperate enough to engage in gluten-free or Paleo voodoo (or real voodoo) - you lose four pounds overnight.

What the heck is going on here?

How is it that you stick to a calorie deficit and nothing changes for weeks and then, just as mysteriously, there's a dramatic shift in weight in the right direction?

Well, the answer is simple.

The fat loss you achieve by following your diet correctly can be masked both on the scales and in the mirror by extra water that your body is retaining. Many people have heard this before, but they don't realize how significant these effects can be. It is not uncommon to lose 3 to 4 pounds of fat over the course of 3 to 4 weeks without even realizing it due to increased water retention.

Fat loss only becomes visible when the excess water is excreted from the body, creating the illusion of extreme fat loss in a short period of time.

But why does your body store more water when you diet? And what can you do about it?

Let's find out.

What a World War II starvation experiment can tell us about water retention.

During World War II, Dr. Ancel Keys conducted a groundbreaking scientific study during which 36 men intentionally subjected themselves to an extreme starvation diet of 1,500 kcal per day with hours of hard work over a period of 6 months.

This study became known as the "Minnesota Starvation Experiment" and the purpose of this research was to learn more about the physiological and psychological effects of starvation and to devise a program to help starving POWs return to normal nutrition and metabolic health.

One of the many interesting findings of this study was that weight loss occurred in an almost linear fashion during the first few weeks. The men lost about 2 pounds per week, week after week. After a while, however, the weight loss became erratic and erratic.

Body weight stagnated for several weeks, followed by major spurts of weight loss (3 pounds and more) virtually overnight.

As it is physically impossible to lose several pounds overnight, the question arises as to how such a thing is possible.

The scientists investigated the phenomenon a little more closely and found the answer: water retention.

The test subjects lost fat continuously, although their weight did not change because their bodies retained more water.

This only became apparent when the excess water was excreted again, creating the illusion of rapid weight loss.

Bodybuilders know this phenomenon only too well.

I would like to repeat something important at this point:

The calorie deficit continually reduced body fat levels, but the reduction in body weight was often more than offset by increased water retention.

The reason I want to draw attention to this phenomenon is that many "gurus" like to claim that this experiment proves that calorie-based dieting doesn't work because the subjects didn't lose weight despite being in a calorie deficit. This is, of course, complete nonsense.

You may now be wondering what causes these spurts of weight loss.

Sometimes this happens more or less by chance, but scientists have found that a reliable trigger is a dramatic increase in calorie intake.

For example, during the experiment, a 2,300 kcal meal was served to celebrate the halfway point of the study and the scientists noted that many of the men woke up several times during the following night to go to the bathroom and were several pounds lighter the next morning than the day before.

If you've ever dieted to achieve an extremely low body fat percentage (7% body fat or less for men and 16% or less for women), then you may have experienced something similar after a refeed.

But why is this the case? What is happening on a physiological level?

The answer has to do with the hormone cortisol, which your body produces in response to stress.

Scientific research shows that a prolonged calorie deficit dramatically increases cortisol levels (1). This has a number of undesirable effects on the body, including increased water retention (2).

And this is exactly what happened during the Minnesota Starving Experiment. The combination of very little food and a lot of physical labor increased cortisol levels, which led to increased water retention.

(This is also the reason that people who put themselves through extreme starvation diets and exercise a lot tend to struggle the most with water retention).

Scientists have found that the "feast" that led to precipitous weight loss during the experiment dramatically lowered the subjects' cortisol levels, which explains the heavy water retention.

This is also the reason why a refeed day often produces a surge in weight loss. And this is also the reason why weight loss often continues after a phase of "reverse dieting".

How to lose water weight

If you've followed the article carefully up to this point, you may have already extrapolated a few tips to reduce water retention.

Don't overdo it with the calorie deficit
Don't overdo it with hours and hours of cardio training per week
Eat larger amounts of food occasionally

And as it turns out, these are indeed effective strategies for reducing water retention because they lower cortisol levels.

Let's take a closer look at these strategies - and some other ways to reduce water retention.

Don't be too aggressive with your calorie deficit

If you want to lose fat fast but not muscle, then your calorie deficit needs to be large - but not too large.

There are a number of reasons not to overdo it, one of which is that too large a calorie deficit can lead to increased water retention.

To avoid this, your calorie deficit should be between 20 and 25%.

Don't overdo it with the training

Yes, this is a weight loss article telling you to eat more and exercise less, because if you are trying to lose weight but retain a lot of water, you can benefit from both.

During a diet phase, I recommend no more than 3 to 5 hours of training with weights and 1 to 2 hours of cardio per week.

This is enough to burn large amounts of calories while maintaining your muscle mass and minimizing water retention.

And don't forget your off-loading weeks.

Plan cheat days/cheat meals

A large increase in calorie intake can stimulate a large reduction in water weight, which is one of the reasons I recommend regular cheat meals while dieting.

You may need to adjust your sodium and potassium intake

So far we haven't talked about how sodium and potassium intake can affect fluid levels in the body.

Sodium is a mineral that brings water into the cells, which is why consuming large amounts of sodium can lead to severe water retention (3, 4).

You've probably experienced this yourself the morning after eating a large salty meal at a restaurant the night before.

For this reason, water retention decreases when you reduce your sodium intake.

Potassium is another mineral that has the opposite effect on cellular fluid levels. While sodium transports water into the cells, potassium transports water out of the cells.

This is the reason why scientific research shows that restricting potassium intake can increase water retention (5).

Most people's diets are high in sodium and quite low in potassium. If you want to check how you are doing, you can use a nutrient calculator. Don't forget how much extra salt you use (one teaspoon of salt provides about 2.3 grams of salt).

Most likely your sodium intake is above the official recommendation of 2.3 grams per day (although this is 1.5 grams for people with high blood pressure, people with chronic kidney problems and people over 51).

And your potassium intake is probably below the recommendation of 4.7 grams per day. If this is the case, you're not alone - inadequate potassium intake is the most common nutrient deficiency in the Western world.

This mineral imbalance contributes to water retention, but it's far worse than that.

A Harvard University study found that people with the highest sodium to potassium ratio were twice as likely to die from a heart attack and 50% more likely to die from all causes compared to people with the lowest ratio (6).

The bottom line is that people whose diets are very high in sodium and very low in potassium are playing with fire.

(I should note, however, that people who sweat regularly may need more sodium to compensate for losses through sweat. Here, 3.5 to 4 grams per day may be appropriate).

Here are a few good rules of thumb to keep your sodium intake under control:

Watch the sodium/salt content of prepared foods and canned foods, as they are often packed with sodium and preservatives.
Avoid canned sausages for the same reasons.
Reduce your consumption of salt and salty spices. Use salt sparingly and use a potassium-based salt substitute.
Pay attention to sauces and salad dressings, as these are also often very high in salt.
Cheese can also be a problem. 100 grams of hard cheese can provide 300mg of sodium.

The best way to increase your potassium intake is to include potassium-rich foods in your diet. These include, among others:

Beans
Green leafy vegetables
bananas
potatoes
yoghurt
Salmon
avocados
mushrooms

And if you're worried about having to plan everything in your diet in the future, rest assured - you don't have to monitor your potassium and sodium intake forever.

Instead, start by reviewing what works and what doesn't and then just use your common sense approach to maintain good habits.

This means that your sodium and potassium intake will fluctuate somewhat, and occasionally there may be greater fluctuations. But as long as your intake is stable and in the right range most of the time, you'll be fine.

Take time to relax

You can reduce your cortisol levels by allowing yourself some time to relax each day. This includes, among other things:

Listening to music (7)
Drinking tea (8)
Taking a nap (9)
Treat yourself to a massage (10)

Make sure you get enough sleep

Quality sleep is something that is becoming increasingly rare these days thanks to long working hours, TV, video games and other distractions that keep us up late at night.

Another reason to get enough sleep is that too little sleep and rest increases cortisol levels (11), which, as you now know, exacerbates water retention.

To prevent this, you should try to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep.

Drink more water

Doctors recommend a fluid intake in the range of 3 to 4 liters of water per day and even if we already consume part of this through food, we still need to drink several liters of water per day.

The bottom line on water retention and weight loss

If you're watching your calorie intake, following a sensible exercise program, swallowing diet pills and powders and still mysteriously not losing weight...

...then you're probably dealing with water retention.

Don't try to fight fire with fire by further reducing your calorie intake and increasing exercise.

Instead, try following the advice in this article and the scales and mirror will be your best friends again in no time.

References:

Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/water-retention-and-weight-loss/

By Michael Matthews

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