Water weight. It's the bane of dieters looking to lose pounds, causing bloating, puffiness and disappointment when stepping on a scale.
While a full 60% of your body is water, sometimes too much water is retained. That can make losing weight frustrating because it may seem like you aren't actually losing weight. Varying water levels can make a person’s weight fluctuate by 2 to 4 pounds in just one day.
The amount of water your body contains is a function of your body's composition, sex and age, but eating can cause you to retain a few extra pounds of water. This extra water is fluid the kidneys would normally purge from the body.
"Most of our weight is water," said Dr. Gabe Neal, a family medicine physician and clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Medicine. "It’s the heaviest thing in our body besides our bones, and it is one of the first to go when you start losing weight."
So the question is, how do you lose water weight? The MIDSS (Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences) has some advice.