The FastDay Forum

Hi, me again! I would really appreciate some advice on how to get rid of excess water. I really seem to retain water likes nobody's business. I've decided to cut out wine (not that I drink that much) and puddings...except for yoghurt. What do you guys do about water retention? Can you recommend any good tablets or things to avoid?

Help I look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!!

Bean

[Tracieknits]

When I'm bloated, I make an effort to drink *more* water. It sounds wrong, but it works. I also try to reduce my salt intake when I'm bloated.

I believe there are some diuretic teas out there, but I've never tried them.

Beano i find my fast days really get rid of the water due to excessive peeing day & night,but
I am soon sausagey fingered and bloated again post fast..i put it down to too many carbs making me retain water...so cutting down carbs will help
I think celery is a diuretic if you like it? X

Eat asparagus and drink dandelion tea....
Nice new avatar @tracieknits

[carieoates]

Ditch the carbs nursey.

Love yr new pic@tracieknits & Bruce! X

There is a lot of sodium in things that don't taste salty, and which you might not think have salt. MSG for example, which is in a lot of processed and Asian foods. For me, a salty Asian meal can pack on 3 lbs over night that take a couple days to disperse.

The water gain from carbs is different from the water gain from salt. With carbs you aren't retaining water. Water is bound to the storage form of carbohydrate in the muscles and in the liver. So the tummy gets larger because your liver gets larger, ditto your muscles.

With sodium, the water volume of your blood stream increases and your fingers get all puffy around rings.

Supplemental potassium can sometimes help balance too much sodium, but don't over do it.

Avoid packaged foods and most restaurant foods. Anything with "hydrolyzed protein", "yeast extract", or "natural flavorings" on the label, as these are legal ways of hiding MSG. Soy sauce and fish sauce are very great offenders, with huge amounts of sodium in tiny portions.

Thanks for those great pieces of advice. I was hoping someone would say "take this tablet once a day and you'll never retain again" dream on buddy!

I eat asparagus but I've never tried Dandelion tea. What on earth does that taste like?

I do rely on ready meals on fast days...but they're from M&S. Surely they're ok!

Thanks...Thats interesting about the difference in carb or sodium water retention @peebles!
I love how i learn valuable titbits on here! X

I don't know what is in M&S prepared meals, but every prepared food I've seen, including the ones made in house at our local market (which taste delicious) are full of salt. Read the label and look for the various items that turn out to be MSG.

Here are some conservative sites that list the suspect ingredients. (There are quite a few more sites that claim everything turns into glutamate, but I would not go overboard here.)P:

http://blog.fooducate.com/nutrition-101/quick-food-facts/the-many-names-of-monosodium-glutamate/

http://www.starch.dk/isi/bio/msg.asp

Try making yourself home made quick meals for a few fasts and avoid eating processed foods on feed days for a week or two and see if it makes a difference. You can make hot meals and freeze them on the week ends for fast day use, or else, just make something very quick and easy to cook, like a salad with home made dressing, and grilled chicken or fish on a bed of steamed vegetables and yogurt with sugar free flavoring for dessert.

Dandelion tea is quite comforting - a little stronger than camomile. Although I know some people find it disgusting - maybe it is an acquired taste.

I agree with @peebles about sodium in disguise. I'm really sensitive to salt of any kind including liquid aminos, coconut aminos, tamari and even sea salt or himalyan salt with herbs. Three days sodium free if you can manage it and you will feel like a new woman. There is plenty of natural salt in veggies. Please step away from M&S ready meals. Vile, vile, vile.

@nursebean Hey nursy welcome back lol
Well as you may remember I'm the queen of water retention and saw very little change in my situated with considerable weightloss last year however lowering my carb intake over a few months has made an enormous and very impressive difference, it hard work but very doable,I've reduced my bread intake now only on occasion at weekend, I've completely given up breakfast cereals, replaced pasta with courgette, only having rice couple of times a month, and halved my potatoes, I don't feel as if I'm missing out because the results are there for me to see daily absolutely amazing results.
Hope some of this is useful to you we're all different but I'm happy to report I've found the "key" to my biggest problem.

hi folks!

So the "key" is to give up rice, pasta and bread and anything sweet? Doesn't leave much...does it?

I don't like camomile tea so I guess I won't like dandelion tea...will I?

I'm sorry to be so dedicorous, its just that I literally look like Budha at the moment. No kidding...plus my stomach is decidedly dodgy at the moment. Hmm wonder what I'm doing wrong. I rarely eat pasta or rice. My sister lives on rice and pasta and is tiny.

Totally sympathise with your frustration, no other suggestions tho.

I bloat easily too, the only time I don't feel so bloated is after a successful fast day. I don't eat rice, pasta, bread and have only a small amount of potato as a usual rule, tho I do have chocolate most days. Almost anything I eat will make my tummy swell (which is why wearing jeans has always been a problem). Even if I only have protein, fat and veggies, and nothing processed, tummy still swells. Luckily not to Buddha size all the time... Tho I often compare the swell to being (at least) 6 months pregnant!!! (This may stem from me being quite overweight in my late teenage years, where my tummy got pretty large. So the skin is very stretched and so pots out quite easily. The only compensation was that I did not get stretch marks when pregnant!!) I am working on strengthening my tummy muscles, which might help.

Apologies for making this about me, sorry I can't be any help.

[carorees]

The water gain from carbs is different from the water gain from salt. With carbs you aren't retaining water. Water is bound to the storage form of carbohydrate in the muscles and in the liver. So the tummy gets larger because your liver gets larger, ditto your muscles. .

According to Drs Phinney and Volek (low carb gurus) eating a high carbohydrate diet also causes water retention due to changes in the kidney which results in salt retention while a low carb diet results in salt elimination. So a high carb diet can also exacerbate the effect of salt in the diet. The mechanism is a little unclear but it seems that insulin exerts effects on the kidney resulting in sodium balance changes so high insulin can also cause water retention.

Here's a good starting point for the scientific background to this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7016790