What Does it Really Mean to Lose Water Weight And is it a Bad Thing?

Many reviews on diet plans often have people saying that “You’re only losing water weight” and that often “implies” that it’s a bad thing but what does it really mean?

Well there is a substance in the body called “glycogen”. What this does is it holds carbs and when a person begins dieting, these are released and within them, there is also liquid there which means when glycogen is released, the liquid is too and that usually carries a lot of weight with it when you add up all the glycogen that gets used up, that can carry a lot of pounds of…water.

In my weight loss experiences, this can also be when you just start drinking more and this leads to you using the bathroom more often. So if you drink a gallon a day which weights over 8 pounds, you can essentially be gaining that much and losing that much everyday which would lead someone to believe that you’re not actually losing any weight, but I have a good argument for why you are and it’s not just a matter of how much you drink and excretion.

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Specifically, liquid weight arguments come when people do these things:

  • They diet in a less or restrictive way by cutting calories and eating “healthy”. Again, we know that this releases the glycogen.
  • They do cleanses which often encourage eating very little food or often times nothing as a way to detox the body. Having done cleanses which are more difficult, I have lost more than 10 pounds in a matter of a few days and then gained it all back over about a month but that wasn’t because of water weight, it was because I just went back to eating poorly.
  • They exercise which also releases the same glycogen. But ask people who are skeptics of water weight loss if exercise is good and 100% of them will probably say yes. But if the same glycogen is released, then why is eating less calories bad (sometimes) and exercise isn’t?

Here is a weight loss experiment I have started:

I have recently begun drinking at least a gallon everyday. Now drinking a lot and losing water weight is really not the same thing because we’re talking about consuming liquid vs liquid that is stored in the body and yes they are linked in that drinking more leads to more storage accumulating in glycogen.

Here are 5 reasons drinking more is good for weight loss:

  • If you consume a lot of salt, it can lead to hypertension and other conditions which hurt the health of your body. While eating a lot of salt does lead to more drinking due to retention, because salt can hurt your health, it is important to get rid of it and you can do that by just drinking more water. I personally love salt and the older I get, the worse it’ll get if I don’t balance it out in my body so when I drink more, it flushes it out and by doing so, I am able to improve my body’s health. A healthier body leads to less problems.
  • Drinking more improves metabolism. With a cleaner body, there is more improvement to the functions in your system, including metabolism.
  • Water is clean and there are no ingredients to hurt your health. It is a filter for the body. A more filtered body is a healthier body!
  • I once spoke with Steve Maxwell who recommended I do a liquid cleanse for 7 days because I once had lyme disease. Steve is one of the leading health fitness coaches in the world. If he recommends drinking more, then obviously it’s healthy. Now I do not advise that anyone who has never cleansed do this because it’s far too extreme. Just drink less of the other things with sugar and other ingredients and supplement it with clean liquid.
  • No one discredits that drinking more water is good for you!

Now if you start drinking more, YES you will start losing the liquid that is in glycogen, but it won’t change the fact that you are still cleaning out your body from the inside and that is always going to be a good thing.

And I also want to talk about skin health here too: I find that my skin sometimes has acne, blackhats and sometimes I feel a lot more tired than I should. I have linked this to my love of salt and believe it’s because I consume so much of that it puts too much extra pressure on my body.

This is why I decided to drink more and even though I am only on day 2 of drinking a gallon everyday, I have found that I feel much more fresh and there has already been an improvement in my acne in that the ones which were red have become more pinkish.

I am also starting to see less breakouts and more energy. Anytime something like fatigue, breakouts, weight gain happens, it means not only am I not eating right, but I am also not cleaning my body out correctly.

So rather than doing another cleanse (which works), I have found that water is the best way to cleanse the body.

If you are still eating the same way you were before which led to you having weight problems, then drinking more liquid will provide a slight improvement in the weight loss area, but it will provide a great improvement in other areas of health because it will help cleanse the body of excess toxins and ingredients the bad dieting led to and with less of that, you are already going to have some kind of improvement.

If you cut calories and drink more however, you will lose a lot more weight in the process. At the very least, adding more liquid to your diet is not going to add to the problem so it’s worth adding.

So forget glycogen of the “myth” that goes along with water weight. It is still a healthy thing to consume and anything healthy is always a benefit, including weight loss.

Currently, I am weighing in somewhere between 173-176 pounds daily. I will be doing my gallon experiment for a month and will update you all.

4 thoughts on “What Does it Really Mean to Lose Water Weight And is it a Bad Thing?”

  1. I agree with you that drinking more water is important. One day I tried an experiment. I drank a lot of water in the afternoon and after work went to exercise on machines that measure and record your workout each day. I was able to exercise harder that day than ever before. The next day that I went to exercise I didn’t drink that much water and I wasn’t able to reach the same level.

    Also, in reference to the salt, I have found that unprocessed salt (as in Real Salt) isn’t supposed to affect the blood pressure, but instead provides needed nutrients. One summer I was told that I need to cut out salt and I ended up being so drained of energy that I had to start eating it again.

    I do find it hard to drink as much water as I need to drink because I just simply forget about it unless I am thirsty. And some people say that only drinking when you are thirsty is the best way to go. So, who do you listen to? My other problem is that I like tea and healthy coffee and tend to make those my first choice for liquids. Good or not good?

    Thanks for your article, it is thought provoking.

    Reply
  2. Hello there!

    Drinking water is good for your body no matter how you turn it. If you are doing fitness as well, it’s twice as important, not to mention the skin health.

    When I was doing fitness I would drink about 3 liters of water per day, and even that was probably not enough. Don’t listen to people that are saying no to drink water if you want to lose weight. What would you say is a recommended quantity per day for a grown up man ?

    Reply
    • 1/2 gallon is good Dejan and if you live somewhere where it’s hot and you sweat a lot or you exercise, then drink a little bit more.

      Reply

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