Losing Water Not Weight

[Vasquoy]

It is alleged that when you go on a diet the first 7lbs is always water. how can this be if you increase water consumption at the same time?

And if you've lost 7lbs even if it is water, and it stays off, what's the difference? That's a more rhetorical one...

[Loosehead]

On a normal diet the body stores carbohydrate as glucose liquidised in water, when the body is subjected to dietry restrictions, that glucose is utilised to plug the calorie gap. As it is used the water that contained it is dissipated and expelled. Any water you drink is expelled in the normal way. When all the glucose is used up the body then looks for other sources of energy, muscle or fat, so the weight loss slows dramatically. That's why you always see quick results on a restrictive diet. Ie week 1, 7lbs is very possible but 6lb's of that will be water. So week 2 you lose 1lb and start to get demoralised.

7lb's of water won't stay off because you cannot continue on a starvation regime for long, you have to start eating and when you do the body stores it's "reserves" again.

Dieting does not work, proven time and again, the only way to remove fat is by lifestyle change, by creating a small negative calorie gap regularly. I think most now agree that 2lb a week is the maximum sustainable loss.

[snook]

Actually losing weight (as a measurable number of pounds) is a false goal to reach for. You can lose weight by simply taking your clothes off (as slimmers do when they step on the scales!) or by going to the toilet before the weighing session (another self-deluding trick, I imagine). But that's all irrelevant. If you're overweight, it's not the actual weight that's important, but your health and your state of mind.

It's understandable that we check our weight and judge our progress by how much we've lost (because it's easily checkable), but the reality is that you need to get fitter, leaner, healthier, and more at peace with the way you actually are, regardless of what you weigh.

Eat properly, without unnecessarily punishing yourself with dietary restrictions, and do some regular, natural and enjoyable exercise. The two things combined will help you attain a stable and healthy state, and you'll feel so much better for it.

[Loosehead]

It's also worth pointing out that you do not want to lose weight, you want to lose fat. Time and again on here, and I'm also guilty of this myself, people say I've been goin to the Gym and eating sensibly for a fortnight and I've not lost weight. Perhaps not but I'll bet you've lost fat and put on muscle which is heavier. Body composition is what matters not weight. The BMI that doctors use is clouding the issue here quite a bit, I mean I have'nt been my "correct" weight since I was about 14! As I play rugby I'll use that as an example, most of the England team are classed as "clinically obese" yeah right! the fittest bunch in the country probably but they are heavy cos muscle is heavy!

[Vasquoy]

Ah right - I see. So the "water" that you use up is a necessary step to beginning to use up fat stores.

The only reason I asked is I watched the Lorraine Kelly debacle showing the different type of diets and thought how defeatist the expert dietician was when the subjects had lost weight that "most of it was water anyway" a.k.a. "don't be so smug just because you lost a few pounds, sweetheart!"

I agree with what you say, Loosehead, I am technically obese as well yet I go to the gym three times a week and ride four times and there is no rolls of fat on me but I have a lot of muscle under the layer of fat which every normal female has. My fitness instructor didn't believe my BMI could be what is was until I stood on the scales and proved it - he thought I should have been 5-10 BMI's down the scale!

[snook]

Loosehead, you�re quite right, there does seem to be a lot of confusion around the whole weight loss issue, and yes, the BMI is a very poor indicator of overall fitness or health. Some of the strongest and healthiest people I know are obese going solely on their BMI (me too, which is simply not the case).

The whole idea of �ideal weight� and other indicators is flawed, since they fail to take into account each individual�s body type, lifestyle, etc. Just saying a person is overweight because he or she does not slot into a specified range is nonsense really, and condemns people to an endless cycle of trying to conform.

Thanks largely to advertising, it seems the shape young girls most aspire to today is an almost anaemic skinniness, with potentially dramatic health effects. It falls to parents to point out very clearly that these 'ideals' are false and misleading.

Maybe AB should have a Health and Fitness section so that people can discuss these issues in one place. And maybe there should be a databank of threads that have proved to be informative and interesting, so that people could easily refer to them before posting repetetive questions.

I suppose the downside is that some people might choose not to post a question just because the issue�s been highlighted before, which would be a pity. Also, who would be responsible for organising the databank, and on what basis would threads be chosen? What seems common sense to me, might seem daft or irrelevant to someone else � so who says what goes in, and why?

Vasquoy, I'm glad to see that you're generally happy with your weight and shape. And the operative word in that sentence is 'happy' - if you're happy with the way you are, whether or not it fits in with someone else's 'ideal', that's all that matters.

[Loosehead]

Yes the body will usually avoid using its fat deposits, that's why it's so difficult to lose it. It goes back the the basic survival instinct. Early humans where programmed to eat when food ws available because you never know when the next meal will be. We still have those instincts but with modern food availability, couple that with a general tendency to take very little exercise, little wonder that obesity is an issue.

[snook]

At the risk of annoying folk, I'll put a link in here if you'd like to see an interesting thread on this subject (I've linked to it once or twice already because I keep seeing questions on this subject, and obviously I'm not going to type it all in again).

It's so that stuff like this could be accessed easily that I suggested maybe we should have a databank of valid and informative threads (earlier post, above).

[Vasquoy]

Happy? I'm wonderful!

So when someone says "oh its just water" when you lose a couple of punds, are we safe in replying "actually its 2lbs of glucose solution i've lost"?????