Ricky Singh’s Take on Weight Fluctuations

Personal training allows me the opportunity to teach my clients about the best training methods as well as how to manage their nutrition. Training is fairly simple compared to managing your diet.

It is not uncommon for me to see a client’s weight rise or equally drop by 4 to 6 pounds in a week, a as this is all down to the role Glycogen plays in the weight loss process. Many personal trainers and clients fail to factor in the science when it comes to weight loss.

Glycogen can make rapid and dramatic weight changes, so it’s so easy to get confused when you are calculating your weight loss. My experience is that scale weight cannot not determine whether it’s fat, water or glycogen you are actually losing.

An example of this is that my clients are usually great between Monday – Friday. Their weekday results normally show me that they consume between 70 – 90g carbohydrates daily which is very low. Due to this, it is easy to assume that the stored glycogen in the muscle will allow you to drop 3 – 4 pounds of weight. The drawback here is that this approach is not sustainable as during the weekend my clients find it very hard to sustain less than 90 grams of carbohydrates.

The outcome here is that after the weekend clients return to the gym and they have gained the 4 pounds we lost during the week. Although this is very frustrating, my explanation is that the they never actually lost any weight, it was just the Glycogen depletion and replenishment.

Variables in weight loss

The problem clients face when it comes to weight loss is that it requires a combination of patience, a sustainable balanced diet and exercise at least 2-4 times per week.

There are some variables that must be kept consistent throughout the journey. These include:

• Weigh in at the same time every week.
• Ensure water levels within the body are similar. If you were out drinking at the weekend and not last, your weight will be incorrect as the process of homeostasis will take 2-3 days to occur.
• Make sure you go to the toilet before weigh ins.

Salt and Water

When you increase the amount you eat or if you eat out a lot, you will probably find you consume a lot more Sodium. Excess Sodium tends to cause your body to hold on to excess water to keep your electrolytes in balance, thus increasing your scale weight.

It will also take the digestive system time to process the increased amount of food that has caused the weight gain.

Glycogen and Water

Each gram of Glycogen is stored in the muscle with 4 grams of water. When a client decides to cut carbs drastically, they will store less carbs and hold less water resulting in a drop-in weight, somewhat like the Atkins diet method.

My job as a personal trainer providing services within Glasgow, is to best to explain these fluctuations to clients. As part of our programme we also use the “Inbody Body Composition Analyser”. This gives us vital feedback as to what’s going on inside the body, particularly with Glycogen, Water, Muscle Mass and Fat Mass.

If you would like any more help or information about nutrition when training then please so not hesitate to get in touch. You can also book a FREE consultation by emailing ricky@rickysingh.co.uk or calling 07725988144.