7 Reasons Why You are Having Rapid Weight Fluctuations

When you are working towards a fitness goal, especially on weight loss, you may hop on to your weight machine daily and check that number on the scale. You may find that the weight you observed in the morning might be quite different from the weight you have observed in the night.

Weight fluctuations could happen for multiple reasons which range from having a big meal in dinner which could lead to weight gain for a short period of time to sweating out for weight loss. At times, it is more and at times, it is lesser than before. Let’s take a look at its most common reasons:

# It’s The Weight of Your Food and Water!

After checking your weight by the end of the day, you could be asking yourself, why did I gain 5 pounds in a day? The answer mostly is because of the food and liquids you have consumed during your day. If that’s the case, your weight in the morning before your first meal could be significantly different from your weight after dinner.

# Depends on Your Calorie Burning!

Your body weight depends on the number of calories you consume in a day compared to the number of calories you burn in a day. If you consume more calories than you are burning, you tend to gain more weight. Conversely, If you are burning more calories than you are consuming, you tend to lose weight. It often observed that people tend to gain a lot more weight by Sunday, after a weekend of eating out and taking part in fatty indulgences.

# You May Be Retaining More Water!

Water retention is one of the significant causes of weight fluctuations.
So, what causes water fluctuation?

- High Sodium Intake

When you indulge in food, usually packaged food that is high in salts, you end up retaining water in your gut. Excess salt in your body leads to water retention.

- High Carb Intake

We love our carbs – bread, white rice, spaghetti, pasta, or white potatoes. A large intake of carbohydrates also results in water retention. For every gram of carbohydrates, your body retains 3 grams of water. The body converts carbohydrates received from food into glycogen molecules to provide energy for the cells. These excess glycogen molecules convert into fat, and the body retains water to store this fat around the muscles, liver, and fat cells.

- Dehydration

That’s right! It may not make sense on a surface level. But, the deeper reason is when you don’t consume enough water, your body conserves the available water to prevent dehydration.

# Because of Your Workouts

When you work out, you can lose water weight in the form of sweat. An average person may lose 700 – 1300 ml of fluid for an hour of exercise, mainly if that person is doing a high-intensity cardiovascular workout.

This temporary weight fluctuation will be corrected as the body gets replenished with more fluids post-workout. Weight training and strength training can cause weight fluctuation as the body regulates water output to repair micro-tears in the muscle tissues, which results in muscle building and therefore, higher muscle mass.

# Your Medication Could Be The Cause!

Your medication for health conditions like diabetes, depression, blood pressure, migraines, or seizures could cause you to gain weight. Such medicines may result in water retention or metabolic changes or may increase your appetite.

Diabetic medicine like insulin and sulfonylureas, Antipsychotic medicine like haloperidol and lithium, Antidepressant medicine like amitriptyline and paroxetine, and blood pressure medicine like propranolol and beta-blockers could cause you to gain weight.

# Your Alcohol Consumption!

Alcohol is diuretic in nature. Therefore it causes you to urinate more than usual as you consume fluids, and it causes a fluid imbalance in your body. Your body also takes a longer time to process alcohol, and this slows down your digestion.

A combination of these factors results in greater water retention, and may not be counting these extra calories in alcohol. Therefore, consuming high levels of alcohol regularly could spike your weight in a short span of time.

# Some more factors

Urine and stools could play a minor role in your daily weight fluctuations. Research shows that an average person’s faecal remains could weigh from 125 – 180 grams per day.

Menstrual cycles in women could impact their eating patterns as they may have more cravings before or during their cycle. Extra fats and carbs consumed before your menstrual cycle will result in water retention and could undo a week’s efforts if you are working on weight loss.