I know I read here once before that when you have sore muscles your body tends to retain water as it heals the muscles. My question is how long does the body tend to retain this water? Does it stick around until the muscles are not sore anymore. Thanks.

Hey! I'm not sure... I'm guessing that it varies for every individual. Drinking water helps to flush out the sore muscles and therefore reduce the water retention.

Jay

Today is better than yesterday or the day before. I can actually walk a little better today. I went walking yesterday and I don't think it was the best idea doing that when I was still so sore. While my thighs don't hurt so much but my shins and ankles do. I think either Thursday or Friday I will do a low impact dvd instead.

I actually have another question about water retention but I didn't want to start a whole new thread. I retain water BIGTIME right before and during my TOM... and I am worried this is going to affect my weigh-in on Friday... any way to lose the water weight? I know about avoiding sodium. I also drink about 2.5 to 3 litres of water a day.

Misschris, I think you're just going to have to accept the fact that when you're pre-menstrual, you're going to weigh in higher. It's just a natural feature of the female body and there's not much you can do about it. The important thing is to accept that this is what's going on and to NOT freak out if the scale shows a gain or no movement.

I agree with Baffled this is just part of being a woman. The good thing is its only temporary so don't let a little gain discourage you.

And please don't do anything drastic or unusual to try to combat the pre-TOM retention. Diuretics, even "naturals" ones, can be quite dangerous.

I really don't know how long sore musles retain water- I workout some body parts every day, so there is usually some part of me that's sore at any given time. It's really not a lot- but after a good leg workout you may be up a pound or just not show a loss if you're in weight loss mode. You're not getting "fatter", so don't worry about it Just stay hydrated.

Mel

By day 5, your TOM water should be gone. I've watched it a couple of times in my diary and it's consistent. And Bob Greene has said the same things in one of his books (between 3 and 5). Don't sweat it. Just either skip the weigh in that week or push it off til day 5.