Water and Weight Loss
Ever get discouraged when you step on the scale and find that you've gained three or four pounds overnight? Both men and women experience fluctuations in body weight that can't just be explained by overeating. It takes 3500 extra calories to gain a pound of body fat, so it's pretty hard to gain that much fat weight in one day! Yet these weight fluctuations are often so disappointing that it leads to giving up and going back to old habits that caused the real weight gain in the first place. Here are some strategies that can you can put into practice when water retention and temporary weight gain get in the way of your progress.
For women, it happens every month - things are going great, you're making real progress with your weight loss efforts and then those 7-10 days come right before menstruation and things start to unravel! Most women report symptoms of PMS: feeling especially tired, headaches, back pain, weight gain and water retention. Others have food cravings and routinely overeat during this time. Put those symptoms together with mood changes, increased tension, depression and reduced concentration and it's easy to see why every month women face a real challenge to their weight loss efforts.
While men don't have the same monthly swings in hormonal levels that lead to weight gain as women, men experience water retention and weight fluctuations as well. Sometimes this can happen after a change in routine - like coming home from a trip that causes you to miss a few days of exercise and to eat more meals in restaurants than usual.
Whether temporary weight gain is due to predictable monthly shifts in hormones or a just a change in your normal routine, don't let it get you down and avoid letting this get you into a pattern of negative thinking and acting. The reality is that weight gain happens and weight loss doesn't follow a perfectly straight path. Make sure that you're following a weight loss program that helps you minimize the effects of temporary water retention and weight gain. To help reduce weight fluctuations, here's some things we incorporate in our weight loss program: >Reduce Weight Fluctuations
