What can I do about water retention after dry fasting? I dry fasted for 60h and lost a little over 4kg. I did about 2h of exercise on both days and burned about 2500 calories each. Yesterday I broke my fast. I fried 4 eggs in olive oil and ate a can of tuna (also in olive oil). Then I ate 125g of raspberries and another 125g of blackberries, followed by 50g of cherries.
I drank 3 litres of water with mineral salts and once I drank a glass with about 9g of salt.
I also drank 750ml of hibiscus tea because I read that it reduces aldosterones.
However, I woke up today with 1.9kg more. I took body measurements, I lost about 1cm each on my chest, waist and stomach and legs. But I gained 2cm on each of my calves.
I did 1 hour of exercise yesterday and burned about 500 calories.
Why do I still have so much water retention despite all this? Is it because of the salt I took?
Do you have any tips on how I can prevent this in the future?
Hard to say for sure, kind of depends on your health status.
In some ways, I’d say water “retention” is not necessarily a bad thing. Because whenever we’re fasting, we actually pee out a lot more salt / sodium than normal, so we can get a little low on our salt levels. In other words, it may be good to “retain” some of the salt afterwards.
However, if you’re having significant swelling in your lower legs, because of congestive heart failure, kidney failure, or something else like that, then you may need to keep a closer eye on your salt intake and carbohydrate intake.