WATER FLUCTUATIONS & HYDRATION

Ever had a big meal before bed? And thinking that the weight gain on the next day is fat gain? In today’s article, I’ll be explaining to you why this occurs and if it is fat gain or not.

There are several factors that cause your weight to go up and down every day, one of the factors is what we call water fluctuations. This is due to our water intake and also our carbohydrate intake. Firstly, let’s talk about water intake. 60% of our body is water, therefore we obviously need water to survive, however, if we are dehydrated, we will tend to store water in our body to ensure that we can stay alive. You may hear of people saying, “Drink less water to avoid water retention in our body”, this is not true, as we explained above, if we drink less water, our body will need to store whatever it has in order to stay alive. So if you are constantly drinking very less, try drinking anywhere from 2L-3L of water per day and see how your weight goes. One of the interesting things about the human body is that the body has a way to discreet out water when it has enough of water, that’s is making you constantly going to take a piss.

Secondly, we store carbohydrates in the body in a form of glucose. Glucose comes from the Greek word for “sweet.” It’s a type of sugar you get from foods you eat, and your body uses it for energy. So if you have ever had an experience of having a lot of carbohydrate food yesterday, and notice your weight spikes up the next day, this is due to each gram of carbohydrate we will store 3-4 grams of water. So in other words, more carbs mean more water retention. Having too much excess carbohydrate intake in a long run will lead to fat gain because the energy we store in our body is not being utilized.

In conclusion, if you are keeping track of your daily water and macro-nutrition intake, you will know that the sudden weight gain is not fat but rather water fluctuations.