Expert: Joanne - 7/22/2008

Question
hi, i've been struggling with an eating disorder for about 4 years now, and recently i've been having trouble with what i believe is water weight. i don't eat enough to gain real weight, and i've noticed i don't gain weight when i eat, but when i drink water, i gain massive weight (like 10+ lbs in a week or two) because despite drinking water, i only pee out little tiny, concentrated amounts of urine. then, i freak out and throw up to get my weight back down and it's a cycle like that. i currently weigh about 97 pounds, up from 87 three weeks ago (but i went from 87-97 in a matter of days, now i've stabilized there but only because when i go over that, i throw up, then try to rehydrate back to that weight). i'm afraid that if i keep drinking water i will wind up over 100 pounds and i can't deal with that right now. i sort of want to just throw up enough to get back to the 80's and then rehydrate from there. that was my plan when i got to 87 a few weeks back, only when i rehydrated i was supposed to stop purging and i didn't which messed everything up. only thing is, is despite the weight gain, my body measurements have stayed the same and i don't have any symptoms of edema, like i'm not puffy or anything. so i don't know what's going on. if you could help me find out, it would be much appreciated. thank you.

Answer
Caitlin

You need to try and stop this behaviour now!  Your body is retaining water as it obviously needs to!  Throwing up adds to the dehydration and therefore, starts the cycle again.

I would recommend trying to drink as much water as your body needs - roughly 2L per day, and in time, water retention should hopefully not be as much of an issue as your body is hydrated adequately!

Joanne