3 Must-Know Causes of Water Retention + How to Get Rid of Bloating (FAST)

Want some help building your best body ever? Here are 5 ways I can assist whenever you’re ready, including free fitness plans, coaching, books, and more: https://www.mikematthews.co/yt -- How many calories you should eat: https://legionathletics.com/how-many-... Signs of overtraining: https://legionathletics.com/signs-of-... I'm Mike Matthews, from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics and in this video, we are going to talk water retention. Specifically, the most common causes of water retention, or at least excessive water retention and what can you do about it. If you're wondering why you should care about water retention, it's simply because the more water that you're holding in, specifically more subcutaneous water that you're holding, the more water that you're holding under your skin the fatter and puffer you look, regardless of your body fat percentage, cause this has nothing to do with body fat. Water retention can mess with you when you're cutting because you can be in a situation where you're losing fat steadily but because of excess water retention, you don't see that on the scale. And you may not even see it, really, in the mirror as much as you would expect to. Again, because of that subcutaneous water making you look fatter. So, let's get right to it. Common causes of excessive water retention #1: Cortisol This is a hormone that your body produces in response to stress and low blood sugar levels. It's produced by the adrenals and almost every cell in your body has receptors for cortisol, so that means that it can affect your body in many different ways. Why might your cortisol levels remain too high for too long? Well, in most cases, it is either due to chronic stress, too much stress too much of the time results in chronically elevated cortisol levels. Too little sleep is another very common cause. Common causes of excessive water retention #2: Sodium and Potassium Imbalances Sodium is a mineral, of course, and it is well absorbed by the cells, and it brings water in. When you eat a very high sodium meal, sometimes you'll find that you look extra bloated the next day. It's because you are holding more water than usual and it takes a little bit of time for your body to correct that. Potassium is a mineral that has the opposite effect on the body, at least in the cells. Whereas sodium draws water in, potassium pumps it out. This is why research shows that restricting potassium can increase fluid retention. Common causes of excessive water retention #3: Dehydration If you're not giving your body enough water through the beverages that you're drinking or the food that you're eating, it's going to do things to hold on to the water that it is getting. It accomplishes this in a few different ways, including releasing hormones which increase water retention through various physiological mechanisms. The three most common causes I've seen of chronically elevated cortisol levels are one, eating too little. Eating too few calories. Being too aggressive on their cuts, usually. Maintaining a very large calorie deficit. Two, doing too much exercise, which usually goes hand in hand. Usually, you have people that are borderline starving themselves and doing a lot of exercises and doing a lot of cardio, in particular. Research shows that if you do too much cardio, and especially if you combine it with an aggressive calorie deficit, that can jack up your cortisol levels. Three, not sleeping enough. When you combine all three of those things, which again, many people do, the results can be pretty disastrous. If you want to make my day, and if you want to know when my new videos go live, click the big, red subscribe button over there somewhere. It's free, of course. And then click the bell next to it and YouTube will notify you when the next video goes live. Thanks for watching. --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/