Water Retention

Carolyn Burris from Laguna Beach, California is a real person, with real before and after pictures. Here is the story of how she lost almost 20 pounds of water retention in just two months.

“I began the Waterfall Diet program in earnest beginning of August, 2009.  It is towards the end of September now and I have literally peed out almost 20 pounds worth of water retention. I lost 10 pounds in the first 3 weeks. I hope to drop another 5-10 pounds. I am fairly sure all my excess weight was water retention as I have always been a decent eater. Now I am a healthy eater.  I eat plenty of foods and don’t get hungry.”

“I also joined a gym and a trainer helps with exercise. It has been 15 years since I have been in the gym. I love it but I know it is the Waterfall Diet that is making the difference.”

“When a gym trainer weighed me in before I started the Waterfall Diet, I was just short of 173 pounds. Today I weighed myself at 154. I have lost almost 4 inches of water retention from my belly. I couldn’t be happier. So many pieces of information in your book have fit for me. I feel for so many who try to lose weight and struggle and work out so darn hard. This way was easy and only took 2 months. Thank you so much Linda.”

16 lbs of Water Retention
Testimonial from Alison in Ozark, Missouri

“Happy to report have now lost 16 lbs!…in 25 days! I only started the diet on 30th August. I’m again referencing your original book about the Waterfall diet with recipes and such, and this time around, have become more adventurous with food preparation. Have downloaded your low carb and additional recipe suggestions.”

23 lbs of Water Retention
Testimonial from Lucy in New Jersey

“Well, I bought the book on the Waterfall Diet and so far I have lost 23 pounds because I started out at 188 and now I am 165. I am still losing slowly but before it was impossible for me to lose weight.”

“I am very happy that I found this diet. It is not really starving yourself but eating foods that are right for you. Yesterday I was at the doctor’s office for a blood test which I have to take every three months. I found out that my blood pressure was 112/72, the nurse told me that reading is excellent, my normal reading use to be 120/80.  I am so happy now I know the causes of water retention for me and why I was unable to lose weight.”

More Comments

“Thanks to your book I now understand what my problem is – water retention! After 60 tests I still couldnt get to the bottom of why my legs felt separate from the rest of my body (my upper half is quite sinewy!).”

“Dear Linda I have recently downloaded your 2 books, the Waterfall Diet and Treat Yourself with Nutritional Therapy. I’m very excited to have found the first one as I have had water retention most of my life and there hasn’t been one doctor who has pinpointed it like you did. I started the diet this past Monday and already feel better. Thank you very much for this positive information.”

“I’ve signed up for your newsletter. Looking 4ward to more info to learn from. Linda’s writing is so inspirational and practical!”

“Loved the book!”

“Your Nutritional Health Bible is one of my bibles”.

“I have had this weight problem for the last 3 years. The facts mentioned in your book about water retention exactly fits my problems. Hence I was confident that my weight issues was due to water retention. In one year I had put on 15 kgs.  I tried all sorts of exercise  diet programmes  but nothing changed my weight. In the first one week after I started the waterfall diet I lost about 5 kgs. ”

“I love you Linda. My feet were swollen for 10 years before I read your book. Thank you so much. God bless you.”

“I never thought foods can make a difference to powerful and stubborn hormones, but this book has changed my perception on food nutrition for ever. Your diet does help to lose water retention weight and I would recommend your book like no other!!!! I put on water retention after my miscarriage and until now could not lose it. MILLION THANK YOUs Linda and wishing you all the best. Hope xxx”

“Linda, I just want to thank you for helping me to lose weight. I have religiously been working out since last October with barely any results in weight loss. I began at 170lbs. After drinking Acai Berry juice, I loss 7 but once again I plateaud. Leaving the 160s had been the hardest thing I ever did. When my doctor told me the amount of water I could be retaining could be caused by HRT, I googled how I could get rid of it. The Waterfall Diet came up. I ordered the book I think two weeks later and the pounds have shed like crazy. I feel healthier and don’t have to take my blood pressure pills everyday. My 30th High School Reunion is this weekend and I’m looking fabulous at 141 pounds. Thanks so much! PS I have sent a letter to Oprah requesting that she put you on her show.”

Download Low-Carb Dieting and the Waterfall Diet (E-guide). Includes full instructions for the Waterfall Diet.
Linda’s Flat Stomach Secrets. (Her latest book.) Includes help with both water retention, bloating and belly fat.

This site is about Linda Lazarides’ diet that can help you lose up to 14 pounds in a week by shedding hidden water retention.

If you have great difficulty in reaching a normal weight, and if your doctor cannot find any medical explanation, the chances are that your fluid balance mechanisms have gone wrong and you have a weight management problem due to not excreting enough water. Your body usually consists of 50-60 per cent water, but if you have water retention,  your body weight may be 65 per cent water or even more. Water weight is heavier than fat, so the good news is that if you can lose it you may be able to shed several pounds quite quickly.

Water retention can be very hard for a doctor to diagnose. Almost all your body’s tissues have plenty of capacity to hold a little more water without looking abnormal. For example, excess fluid could be making your tummy look rather large. When you pinch it, you can feel its normal covering of fat. You may easily believe that your tummy’s size is due to this fat. But if  you lose the water retention in your tummy it may subside and flatten, so that you can see you have no more fat there than on the rest of your body. Of course, a tummy with slack, poorly toned muscles due to lack of exercise can also look big. Good muscle tone is very important for maintaining a good figure.

A genuine breakthrough

Until recently, there was no medical treatment for water retention, except diuretics, which have only a temporary effect on water weight and can worsen some types of water retention. Linda Lazarides’ Waterfall Diet is a new treatment to help you lose water weight. It tackles seven different causes of water retention and makes your kidneys (if they are healthy) permanently release the excess water weight.

Some people believe that you cannot get rid of water retention permanently – that it comes back as soon as you go off your diet. For instance some who have followed a low-carb diet for a long time lose water weight quite quickly. Sadly, they find all this water weight returns as soon as they reach their target weight and start to eat a few carbs again.

The Waterfall Diet is different. It is a plan of action in three stages. Phase I aims to get rid of water retention and water weight as quickly as possible. Phase II consists of a test which you carry out yourself to find your safe foods. These are foods which do not make you gain water weight. Phase III is a long-term eating plan which is as close to normal as possible. It emphasises the foods which help to keep water retention away, and avoids any foods which in your particular case seem to aggravate it. In short, the Waterfall Diet puts you back in control of your weight.

How much water weight can I expect to lose?

About one third of people lose 10 lbs of water weight in a week on this diet. Very occasionally people have lost 20 lbs in two weeks.  If you are careful this water weight will not come back again. Even if you only lose 2 lbs, you will find that other diets work better once you have lost this water weight, as excess water cools down the metabolism and slows down fat burning.

The instructions for the Waterfall Diet can be found in the book with the same name. Or if you’re in a hurry to get started, they are also in Linda Lazarides’ E-guide: Low-Carb Dieting and the Waterfall Diet.

Linda Lazarides is a popular and well-respected British health practitioner who has helped many people. A private consultation with her costs $80, but the E-guide will give you very similar advice and costs only $12.

Help For Swollen Legs, PMS, High Blood Pressure

Water retention can cause many health problems, including swollen legs, arthritis and high blood pressure. If you have premenstrual swelling or bloating, this is also due to water retention. Pre-eclampsia of pregnancy, idiopathic edema and chronic venous insufficiency are also water retention-related problems.

Most people use the Waterfall Diet to lose water weight, but in fact this diet can help to relieve any health problem which is mainly due to water retention. The following are case reports from people who have followed the diet.

Audrey: A Case of Swollen Legs and Varicose Veins
Audrey was in her sixties, and had suffered from swollen legs since being in a minor car accident five years previously. Lately she had also developed varicose veins on one leg. The swelling problem got very bad in hot weather, and Audrey had to sit with her feet up as much as possible. Her doctor said she had chronic venous insufficiency and could only suggest wearing support stockings, or removing the varicose veins as a last resort. The skin on Audrey’s legs was very discoloured, and the varicose veins were unsightly, sore and painful. Her daughter had read about the Waterfall Diet, and bought her a copy of the book to see if the diet could help.

Audrey was very enthusiastic about trying a diet. She bought the recommended foods and carried out the tests, and within only two weeks her legs were already smaller, and her ankles were beginning to regain their shape. When she pressed her thumb into her leg, it no longer made a deep dent. The varicose veins were also beginning to look less prominent, and were much less tender. Audrey was very pleased with the results.

Marianne: A case of Premenstrual Bloating
Like many women, Marianne, aged 35, always looked forward to getting her period. It meant she could drop almost a whole dress size, since her tummy got so bloated for a week before her period. Marianne did her best to eat a healthy, low-fat diet, with plenty of fruit and vegetables. She saw the Waterfall Diet book on a bookshelf and didn’t really believe it could help her, but curiosity got the better of her and she decided to give it a try.

It was two months before Marianne really noticed a difference. In fact it was only after her period started that she realised she had not had any premenstrual bloating. An added bonus was that for the first time in many years, Marianne did not get any cramps either once her period started.

Exercise can also help water retention caused by PMS. See Harvard Health Publication.

Jonathan: A Case of High Blood Pressure
Jonathan was in his fifties and had just been diagnosed with high blood pressure. His doctor wanted to prescribe diuretic medicines. She said that reducing the amount of water in his body would help to keep down his blood pressure.

Jonathan wanted to avoid taking pharmaceutical medicines if at all possible so he did some research on the internet and found information about the Waterfall Diet. He reasoned that if water retention was causing his high blood pressure, then it would be healthier to follow a diet to get rid of it, rather than take prescription drugs which would never actually cure the problem.

Jonathan asked his wife if she could get the recommended foods and also help him to test for his safe foods, which is an important part of the Waterfall Diet Plan. So far everything has been going very well, and his doctor says he can continue without medication for the time being.

Karyll: A Case of Osteoarthritis
Karyll, aged 46, was walking up some stone steps when she wrenched her knee. It swelled up quite badly, and the swelling never really went down again. Karyll’s knee became permanently swollen, tight and painful. Three months later, her doctor diagnosed osteoarthritis and suggested giving her an injection of steroids into her knee.

Karyll succumbed to the injection, and it seemed to help for a while. But the problem did not go away completely, and also seemed to spread to the other knee. Karyll lived in a house with stairs and found herself having to take painkillers just to be able to go up and down the stairs in her house.

One day she was in a second-hand bookstore, and the Waterfall Diet book seemed to stand out. She said “My eye just kept getting drawn to it and in the end I had to open the book to take a look. Then I found a case report in it which was almost exactly the same problem I had. The woman had swollen knees, and was told she had arthritis, but when she went on the Waterfall Diet she discovered it was only water retention.”

Karyll found the diet hard at first, but persevered as the pain and swelling in her knees started to go down after only four days. She remains on the Waterfall Diet and is delighted that she no longer has to take painkillers in order to climb the stairs in her house.

The Waterfall Diet book is available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. The instructions can also be found in the E-guide Low-Carb Dieting and the Waterfall Diet.

Some well-known causes of water retention include heart or kidney problems. These are due to a reduced ability of the heart or kidneys to do their job, and can cause severe swelling of the legs and ankles.

Weak circulation in the leg veins is probably the most common cause of water retention in legs and ankles. This occurs in pregnancy and causes swellings like those shown in the video. In older people this problem may also result in varicose veins.

A blockage or congestion of the lymphatic system can cause a type of water retention known as lymphoedema (lymphedema), which is common after some types of surgery, for instance. People who spend a lot of time immobile, e.g. those in hospital beds, wheelchairs, or on long-haul flights, even “couch potatoes” can develop water retention because without regular movement, it is difficult for your lymphatic system to drain excess fluid out of your tissues.

Premenstrual water retention is also common, and is caused by the hormonal changes of the menstrual cycle.

Salt

One of the main causes of water retention is eating too much salty food. The main component of salt is sodium, which the body dilutes with water if too much of it is present. Salt makes you thirsty, and your body will hold on to this water. Reducing the amount of salt in your diet will help you to release a little water retention but not usually more than about 2 lbs in weight. Even a relatively salty diet, although it can be harmful in many ways, will not normally cause gross water retention.

Lesser-known Causes

Hormones and Medicines

High levels of certain hormones can also make your body hold on to water. These include insulin, which is needed to process sugar; cortisone, which is produced when you are under stress; and the female hormones oestrogen (estrogen) and progesterone. The water-retaining effect is caused by the effects which these hormones have on sodium levels in your body, and on the hormones which govern how your kidneys work. Certain prescribed medicines such as the contraceptive pill and some painkillers can affect levels of these hormones.

Water retention which is caused by hormones can be spread around the body but often affects your tummy most of all. Women can also get water retention in the breasts, which causes breast tenderness and swelling.

Wastes and Toxins

Cellulite, which mostly affects women’s thighs, is a form of fat complexed with retained water. Sometimes it holds so much water that it is swollen and painful to the touch. Metabolic wastes and toxins such as pesticides which the body cannot easily release tend to be stored in this fat. It is thought the causes of the water retention in cellulite are either irritation and swelling due to these toxins, or results from the body’s attempt to dilute them.

Low-Calorie Diets

If you have water retention you are very likely to be overweight. But overweight people tend to go on a low-calorie diet. A low-calorie diet will unfortunately not get rid of water retention – it can actually make it worse, especially if you eat less than 1,200 Calories a day for months or years. This is because you may not have enough protein in your blood to draw excess water out of your tissues. This type of water retention can cause generalised puffiness but if severe can give you a swollen tummy.

Histamine

Histamine causes water retention leading to bloating and tummy swelling. If you have ever been stung by an insect or developed an itchy red lump after a mosquito bite, you will be familiar with the effects of histamine. Histamine widens the joins between the cells which line your smallest blood vessels, known as your capillaries. This makes them leak both water and protein into your “tissue spaces” – the area surrounding the cells of tissues such as flesh, organs and intestines. If the protein cannot be removed from your tissue spaces, it will stay there, attracting water.

Poor digestion and taking antibiotics can cause changes in your intestines which lead to a lot of histamine being produced in this area. Sometimes eating yoghurt and probiotics can help to reduce this problem, but if it has been going on for some time these measures may not be effective on their own.

Drinking less fluid will not cure water retention. One of the causes of water retention is dehydration due to not drinking enough water.

Many types of water retention can respond to dietary measures. The Waterfall Diet has been designed by British nutritionist Linda Lazarides to help release excess water weight as quickly as possible. It can also help to treat health problems associated with water retention, such as swollen legs, arthritis, high blood pressure and PMS. (More information.)

Medical Treatments for Water Retention

The drugs which doctors use to treat water retention are known as diuretics. There are several varieties, none of which is a cure for water retention, as they have to be taken every day.

Loop diuretics and Thiazine diuretics
These have names like bumetanide, frusemide, hydrochlorothiazide and metolazone. They encourage your kidneys to excrete sodium. As the sodium is excreted, it takes water along with it. These drugs can also cause large losses of potassium – a vital mineral which you need to replace by drinking plenty of fruit or vegetable juice..

Potassium-sparing diuretics
These have names like spironolactone and triamerine. They work in a similar way to the other diuretics, but do not cause such large losses of potassium.

Side effects of diuretics
Most pharmaceutical medicines change one aspect of our metabolism while at the same time unbalancing others. Diuretics increase your excretion of valuable minerals like potassium and magnesium. Some can cause gout. These medicines are important for treating severe water retention (oedema or edema) caused by a malfunctioning heart or kidneys. But if used in other types of water retention, such as those due to leaky blood vessels or histamine (see Causes of Water Retention), diuretics could aggravate your water retention; your body will hold on to fluid to avoid becoming dehydrated. In these situations, diuretics, whether of the pharmaceutical or herbal variety, are counter-productive. The best solution is to address the causes of your water retention with the Waterfall Diet.

Herbal Diuretics

These include herbs like dandelion leaf and boldo. They are much less powerful than pharmaceutical medicines but can still cause mineral losses. The Waterfall Diet book recommends several herbal medicines, such as red clover. But these are not diuretics, and do not stimulate your kidneys to release water. They help the Waterfall Diet to prevent problems such as swollen legs.

Water rich with oxygen and vitamins passes from your smallest blood vessels (your capillaries) into the surrounding tissues, where it nourishes your cells. But if something goes wrong with the pressure in your capillaries, or if they get too “leaky”, then too much fluid accumulates in the tissue spaces between the cells, and cannot get back into the blood. The tissue spaces can easily expand and allow more and more fluid to accumulate.

Water retention is a common problem. It can cause overweight, puffiness, bloating, breast tenderness and painful, swollen knees. Swollen legs and ankles are common, especially in older women and in pregnancy. Water retention raises the blood pressure, and in pregnancy this puts both mother and baby at risk.

It is sometimes hard to tell whether you have water retention. Your body can hold a lot of hidden excess water, which just makes you look overweight.

There are two basic types of water retention. With Type 1 there is too much water in the blood and in the tissues. With Type 2, there is too much water in the tissues and sometimes not enough in the blood. Type 1 water retention can be treated with diuretic medicines or herbs, but Type 2 can be made worse by these treatments, and is best treated with a diet.

Wikipedia article on water retention

The Waterfall Diet aims to remove up to seven different causes of hidden water retention. It can help you safely lose excess water weight and can also combat problems such as swollen legs, feet, ankles, fingers or tummy, idiopathic edema, high blood pressure and premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

The diet is not the same for everyone. The foods you need to eat depend on what is causing your water retention. There are two types of water retention and at least seven separate causes. The Waterfall Diet is a plan of action that helps you find out what is causing your water retention so that you can eliminate it. It also tests your reaction to different foods and helps you identify which foods are safe for you to eat.

Click here to learn about using the diet to lose water weight

Click here to learn about combating other problems relating to water retention, including high blood pressure, swollen legs and arthritis.

The Waterfall Diet was developed by British naturopathic nutritionist Linda Lazarides and is also the title of her book.

Swollen legs and ankles are caused by water retention. When your circulation has problems working against the effects of gravity, your blood collects in the lower part of your body. The extra pressure on your blood vessels makes them leak fluid into the tissues of your legs and ankles. This causes swelling, and your skin can become very discoloured;  in severe cases your skin may even weep fluid. Large veins on the surface can become swollen and painful – a condition known as varicose veins.

The technical name for this condition is “chronic venous insufficiency” (CVI) but not all swollen legs are caused by CVI. Get your legs checked by a doctor just in case you have a heart or kidney problem, which can also cause water retention in legs and ankles. Swollen legs are also common in pregnancy and are caused by the pressure of the baby on the veins in the pelvis.

Another condition which can cause swollen legs (as well as swelling in other parts of the body) is idiopathic cyclic edema (ICE). ICE occurs mostly in young women after sitting or standing for a long time. Idiopathic simply means “of unknown cause”.

Diuretic Medicines

The best treatment for swollen legs  due to a heart or kidney problem is diuretic medicines. These will normally be prescribed by your doctor. If your heart and kidneys have a clean bill of health, then be very wary of taking diuretics. With both CVI and ICE, the fluid that leaks from blood vessels into the tissues carries protein with it. This protein sits in the tissues, drawing water out of your blood. If you take diuretics, you will also urinate more, leaving your blood dehydrated. Your body will adapt by producing hormones which slow down urination,  and this aggravates water retention and makes the swelling worse.

“I haven’t seen my legs this small in a long time”

Exercise is important to prevent swollen legs, and your doctor has probably already recommended wearing support or compression stockings. But what is not so widely known is that CVI and ICE can often respond very well to eating the right foods. There are many foods which can help to strengthen the blood vessels in the legs and start to break down the proteins which have leaked into your tissues. Avoiding certain foods can also reduce levels of histamine in your body. Histamine tends to increase the “leakiness” of blood vessels and to aggravate water retention.

Based on these principles, British naturopathic nutritionist Linda Lazarides has designed a diet specifically to release water retention. Known as the “Waterfall Diet” it involves following a plan which takes 2-3 months and has had many good reports. The instructions for the Waterfall Diet can be found in the book of the same name, available from Amazon.com or from Amazon.co.uk.

Ok, so you’ve been searching the internet for help with water retention and have found this crazy-sounding claim that you could lose 10 lbs of water weight in a week.

Of course you’re sceptical. Why wouldn’t you be? Everyone else keeps saying that water weight doesn’t stay off, that you can’t lose weight that quickly, that it’s not healthy and so on.

So what are my credentials? Well, first of all, I’ve written several books on dieting, and they’ve been published by major UK publishing houses, including HarperCollins and LittleBrown. After I submitted the manuscript for my Nutritional Health Bible in 1997, the editor at HarperCollins said “Linda, no-one knows more about this stuff than you do…” I can’t think of any better compliment than that. In 1999 my third book the Waterfall Diet became an instant best-seller in the UK.

I trained as a naturopathic nutritionist, and this has been my profession for 19 years. I very quickly developed my own methods and my results were so impressive that I was hired by the British National Health Service to work in a GP (family doctor) practice in London in 1991. All the doctor’s cases of overweight, IBS, fatigue, arthritis,  skin problems, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and recurrent headaches, were referred to me.

Then in 1997 I founded the British Association for Nutritional Therapy and Applied Nutrition. My first book Principles of Nutritional Therapy, inspired hundreds of people to train as nutritional therapists. There was so much demand that in the late 1990′s, with my assistance, the University of Westminster in London set up a new degree course for people to study this important subject.

For me it’s a matter of personal pride not to churn out the same stuff as other writers. Yes, I could have written a whole book repeating what everyone else says: “Water retention comes from eating too much salt. Here’s a salt-free diet for you, and by the way don’t forget to drink water and ask your doctor for some diuretics.” You’ve already read all that stuff, and you know it’s not enough. You’ve also read other tips and snippets, but have probably ended up more confused than ever.

I’d rather help people than just make money. It’s very, very easy to make money by telling people what they already know. In fact if you’ve already heard it somewhere else you’re more likely to trust it. Does that ring a bell?

The Story of the Waterfall Diet
The diet comes from research which I painstakingly extracted from medical journals – research carried out by scientists all over the world. Some of it was buried in obscure publications and needed someone to join up all the dots and turn it into a practical formula.

It took me a year to compile all this information and create a diet formula that I thought would work. Then another year to test the diet on people. Then another year to write and publish a book about how and why the diet works.

It’s not hard to lose water weight temporarily – the challenge is to stop it coming back. That is what the Waterfall Diet is all about.

You’re welcome to go on being sceptical, but one thing I will say. If you’re determined to lose your water retention, you won’t find so much information to help you anywhere else. Please feel free to check out the reviews for the Waterfall Diet book on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. And don’t forget there’s also an E-guide available to download.

I’d love to get your feedback in the Comment box.
Wishing you the very best of health
Linda

People often ask me if I can recommend a natural diuretic for their water retention. There’s a short answer and a long answer to this question.

The short answer is yes, there are herbal diuretics such as dandelion leaf and boldo. Alcohol, tea and coffee are also diuretics.  But why would you want to use them?

If you’re assuming that a diuretic is a cure for water retention, you are definitely on the wrong track. A diuretic is a substance which interferes with the natural hormonal control of your kidneys. In other words, a diuretic makes your kidneys behave abnormally. As a result of this abnormal behaviour, you may appear to lose some water because you urinate more. But in fact this water is coming from your blood, not from the places where you are retaining water.

The only time you should ever take diuretics is if your doctor diagnoses a heart, liver or kidney disease where there is too much water in your blood. All other types of water retention involve excess water in your tissues, not in your blood. Diuretics are the wrong treatment for this type of water retention. In fact they can be quite harmful and could make your problem worse by dehydrating your blood. More information.

You need to find out what is causing your water retention. Once you know what is causing it you can put the problem right and your water retention will stay away without diuretics.

Causes of water retention

If you suffer from a bloated, swollen tummy, you are probably wondering what causes it. If your tummy is both tight and swollen, this is known as bloating. But not all bloating is caused by water retention. Water retention in the stomach (abdomen) can cause either a tight, bloated feeling, or a puffy, ‘squashy’ feeling. The Waterfall Diet can help with both types of problem.

Bloating due to water retention

Water retention in the tummy has two main causes. Women often become bloated before their period, due to water retention caused by hormonal changes. This type of water retention can make your tummy feel either ‘tight’ or ‘squashy’. It has several potential causes.

If you are not eating enough of the right foods such as oats and leafy green vegetables, you may be lacking in nutrients such as B vitamins and magnesium, which are very important for keeping your hormones balanced.

If you have been on a very low-calorie diet, or if you have anorexia nervosa, you can develop bloating and water retention through not eating enough food. This bloating can expand your stomach (and sometimes other parts of your body such as your face) even while the rest of you remains relatively thin. It happens when your food intake is so low that there is not enough protein in your blood to draw fluid out of your tissues. So the fluid is retained in your tissues and makes them expand.

You have probably seen pictures of African children with very bloated tummies. This bloating is water retention caused by starvation. These children are retaining fluid because they are not getting enough protein-rich food.

I have had clients whose tummies were swollen for the same reason. Not because they couldn’t get enough food, but because they had been eating less than 1,000 Calories a day for months or years in order to avoid gaining weight. This type of bloating tends to make your tummy feel quite tight rather than ‘squashy’.

Bloating is not always due to water retention

Bloating also has other causes such as irritation in your intestines. If you get a lot of flatulence (tummy gas) even when you haven’t eaten beans, then your bloating may be due to bad digestion rather than to water retention. When food is not digested properly, it causes irritation, swelling and bloating in the lower part of the intestines. Bacteria seize and ferment the undigested food, and  produce gas (flatulence), which increases the bloating sensation.

If you suffer from a combination of gas and bloating, then the best book for you is Linda’s Flat Stomach Secrets. This e-book explains more about the causes of bloating and includes a deep cleansing routine to get rid of the causes of bloating and improve the digestion.

The main cause of this type of bad digestion is irritation to the lining of the intestines, which is why doctors tend to refer to bloating as ‘irritable bowel syndrome’. There isn’t really any effective medical treatment for it. To get rid of this bloating you have to stop eating the foods which are hard to digest, and control the bacteria which are contributing to the irritation. The diet, tea remedies and herbs recommended in Linda’s Flat Stomach Secrets are especially designed to help this type of bloating.

To find out more about the causes of water retention and how to get rid of it, read Linda Lazarides’ book The Waterfall Diet.
Or if you’re in a hurry, download her E-book Low Carb Dieting and the Waterfall Diet, which also gives full instructions for the diet.

Water retention can be caused by heart, kidney or liver disease. If you have severe or persistent symptoms, always get them checked by a doctor.

• Low-carb diets help you lose body fat

• The Waterfall Diet helps you lose hidden water weight

Now for the first time in this condensed 36-page E-guide, Linda Lazarides explains how to lose more weight by combining both types of dieting.

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Includes full instructions for the Waterfall Diet including foods to eat and avoid, and six sample recipes. $12.00 Instant Download.

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Diuretic foods sound like a good idea if you’re trying to lose water retention or water weight. After all, no-one wants to take pills if they can help it.

But before you decide that diuretic foods are the best way to lose water retention, please be aware that they are not a cure. At best diuretics of any kind offer temporary relief. At worst they can be addictive and in the long term can end up making your water retention much worse.

You are probably cautious about them, which is why you are searching for information on diuretic foods rather than water pills (also known as diuretic drugs). But the fact is that anything which acts as a diuretic has the same effect on your body. It interferes with the natural hormones that keep your kidneys working in a healthy, balanced way.

The most powerful diuretic foods are actually drinks: tea, coffee and alcohol. All these items force your kidneys to go on excreting water even if you are becoming dehydrated. This is one of the most harmful things for your body. Dehydration in its early stages is not always noticeable. It may make you thirsty, but if you then consume more diuretic foods (drinks) you will simply stay dehydrated.

Diuretic Foods and Dehydration

If your body is constantly dehydrated, it can affect your ability to think straight, and in particular it affects your joints and your spine. Your bones need cartilage to stop them rubbing together. Cartilage is 90 per cent water. Dehydration makes cartilage shrink, and is likely to be one of the reasons why arthritis (swollen, painful joints) is such a common disease and also why backache is so common.

One of the worst effects of dehydration is to teach your body to hold on to water in your body’s tissues – preventing it from getting to the blood where your kidneys will grab and excrete it. Your tissues are where water retention collects and produces swellings, e.g. in your face, hands, feet, legs, ankles or tummy. Your body holds on to water here, to prevent these parts of your body from getting dehydrated. The more diuretic foods you consume, the worse this problem will get over time.

Diuretic Foods: The Solution To Water Retention?

Eating the right kinds of foods is often an effective solution for water retention. But these are not diuretic foods. They do not make your kidneys work harder. Some foods like dark blue and purple berries are great because they help to start healing some of the causes of water retention. But it is the overall balance of your diet, and sometimes the foods you don’t eat, which really makes a difference to a water retention problem.

Please do explore some of the other articles on this site, which tell you more about water retention causes, and about a book called the Waterfall Diet, which contains a self-test and plenty of other helpful information.

Water retention is often a sign that you need to pay some attention to what you are eating. It could turn out to be a blessing, because if you change your diet now, rather than just try to rely on diuretic foods, you may be able to prevent worse health problems from arising in the future.

Water retention does not occur in the stomach itself, which is a sac in which food collects and is mixed with acid to begin digestion. However water retention can occur lower down, in the abdomen or belly, where it is sometimes described as ‘bloating’. Mild bloating is very common and usually due to digestive problems or premenstrual syndrome. The Waterfall Diet is a good treatment for these causes.

On the other hand severe abdominal water retention can be due to underlying disease.

1. Liver problems

Liver damage such as caused by alcohol abuse can lead to blood pressure problems in your abdomen, which forces water out of your blood vessels and into your abdominal cavity – the space around your abdominal organs.

2. Heart problems

Heart failure (a chronic condition where the heart gradually loses its pumping force) can also cause abdominal water retention. Because the kidneys are not stimulated to work properly, people with heart failure tend to collect severe water retention all over their body, especially in the legs and ankles.

3. Severe protein deficiency

Children in developing countries who do not get enough to eat often suffer from severe water retention in the abdomen. This is caused by not getting enough protein and is visible as a large swelling. People in the west who eat very low calorie diets for a long time and do not pay proper attention to getting anough protein may suffer from a mild version of this problem.

These three conditions can cause large amounts of water to collect in your abdomen and in severe cases you can actually feel it swishing around. If this is your problem you must get medical treatment immediately. If you have liver damage due to alcohol abuse it is essential that you stop drinking straight away.

If you consult a practitioner it may be confusing if you say you have water retention in the stomach. You should always show the practitioner where the water retention is occurring.

Water retention in men is often more straightforward than it is in women since men do not have a monthly menstrual cycle.

In men, the causes of water retention can still be hormonal, but the hormone in question is more likely to be insulin. As we age our insulin can lose its effectiveness, so the body tries to compensate by producing more insulin. This happens in both men and women. High insulin levels interfere with the body’s sodium control, resulting in water retention.

This water retention is not always visible. It can just look like you’ve put on a bit of weight, but this weight is water as well as fat.

Men and oestrogen (estrogen)

High levels of the hormone oestrogen can also cause water retention. Just as testosterone is found in both men and women, so is oestrogen, although it plays a more important role in women’s bodies.

Oestrogen can be produced by body fat, so overweight men are more likely to have higher oestrogen levels. Many of today’s pollutants such as PCBs also have an oestrogenic effect, and men can be affected by this too.

Other causes of water retention in men

It may surprise you to know this, but you can suffer from both dehydration and water retention at the same time.

Dehydration is a common cause of water retention. When it is dehydrated the body learns to hold on to water in order to prevent damage to its vital tissues. Men are more at risk of dehydration than women because they are more likely to do manual work which increases sweating, or very active sports such as football. Men also tend to drink more alcohol, which has an extremely dehydrating effect.

Other drinks which cause dehydration are tea and coffee. Like alcohol all these drinks stimulate the kidneys to remove more water from the blood.

Most people need to drink much more water than is their custom. The minimum for men is two litres a day – more if you are physically active.

I have been retaining water and gaining weight because of it on and off for the last two years. My main problem, is not only the swelling and weight gain, but also my shortness of breath. I can barely walk 20 feet without nearly gasping for breath. I have been to Pulmonologist, Cardiologist, and both say everything looks OK in their prospective categories. What could be causing this severe shortness of breath that seems to have come along with the water/fluid retention.

Answer

When the tissues of your body are waterlogged with water retention, it is much harder to absorb oxygen. This makes your body want to breath faster, to get more oxygen that way instead.

The Waterfall Diet works best for water retention of unknown cause, which seems to be the case with you. The paperback version is more informative, and is available from Amazon websites (see panel opposite).

I have old blood clots in both lower legs. Scans have showed that my body has performed by passes around them. That I’ll never get rid of them. I’m on blood thinner and water pills since Sept 2009. I’ve lost 35 lbs through dieting, I drink lots of water, use very little salt and am very active with volunteering for 20 yrs now. Exercise some, can walk on treadmill slowly, bounce on rebounder and on feet while volunteering – but sit at the computer a lot every day. I have a semi stiff knee that was broken in car accident 55 yrs ago.  I never get rid of the water retention in legs and they are always swollen. Dr said I’d just have to live with it. I’ll be 79yrs in Sept and healthy otherwise and don’t take any other meds. Don’t take pain pills either – don’t need them.  I hope this diet wll help me.

Answer

The exercise you are getting sounds good – exercise is important to help the leg veins. Drinking water is good too. If you have been given water pills for water retention in relation to heart, kidneys or high blood pressure then they may be useful, otherwise they could be doing more harm than good (see this post on water retention and diuretics).

The first part of the Waterfall Diet is a test that you perform on yourself to see if any specific foods are contributing to your water retention. It also recommends many foods that can help to strengthen the veins in your legs. In the legs the blood has to travel upwards, fighting against gravity. When the leg veins are weak, blood may collect in the lower legs and ankles, and water tends to leak out of them, causing swelling.

The

Most of us have been brought up to believe that a health problem should be treated with a tablet. This is fine if you have a disease caused by bacteria, since antibiotic tablets will make it go away quite quickly. If you have a headache, an aspirin tablet can also provide a quick cure.

But the truth is that most of today’s problems are not temporary conditions like infections or headaches. They are chronic or long-term problems like water retention, chronic fatigue, PMS or eczema. There are tablets available for these conditions, but they are not cures. They only provide temporary relief.

Meanwhile, the metabolic imbalance in your body which is causing the chronic condition, is still there in the background, and usually gets worse in time.

I don’t know anyone who is happy with the results of taking water retention tablets unless they have been prescribed them for a heart or kidney condition. In fact I get messages all the time from desperate people who have been buying water retention tablets and finding that the more they take the worse their water retention gets, so the more pills they have to take to get the temporary relief.

Please don’t become one of these people. If you have checked with your doctor and he has given the all-clear to your heart and kidneys, then your water retention is simply being caused by a metabolic imbalance. Metabolic imbalances are very common these days, and are caused by eating and drinking too many of the wrong things and not enough of the right ones.

The Waterfall Diet book or E-guide (see column on right) provides the information you need to get rid of your metabolic imbalance and permanently relieve your water retention problem. It tells you what to eat and drink, what to avoid or ration, and includes a self-test so that you can check whether there are any foods that are particularly bad for you.

Reader # 1

I am 63 years old and suffer from what I believe is lymphoedema. My legs and stomach are very swollen with water retention.  One leg was stripped of varicose veins 30 years ago. The past two years I have been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, high blood pressure, thyroid abnormality, severe arthritis, vitamin D deficiency, severe swelling of my legs and stomach (255 pounds when three years ago I was 178 pounds). I am taking five medications and a low dosage asprin daily but my swelling persists. I walk two miles daily and do light weights or swim four times per week for 45 minutes. Your column is interesting and I need help.

Reader # 2

Can anything be done to improve on hereditary lymphodema? Is there any tests that can confirm this?  What exactly is the cause?  It started in puberty but now my ankles and legs are really big.  I am 30 and not over weight.

Answer

Exercise is very important to help prevent the congestion of the lymphatic system which causes lymphoedema type water retention. I cannot say that the Waterfall Diet will be the answer to what looks on the surface to be a complex medical case, but it sometimes is, so it’s well worth you reading the paperback edition to get the information. It has a section on lymphoedema and if you decide to give the diet a go (on an experimental basis) it could help your water retention and improve your general health.

Hereditary lymphoedema is quite rare. Parts of the lymphatic system become blocked, so massage is important, among other things. We have to remember also that a genetic disorder does not mean a condition cannot be improved with diet and nutrition. Some abnormal genes simply cause the body to require more of certain nutrients than other people. Problems relating to deficiencies of  those nutrients can then arise but can go away if you make healthy changes to your diet or (in some cases) take the right nutritional supplements.

It is not just genes which are hereditary. Eating habits are too, so if the family diet is lacking in some way, the resulting health problems can seem to be inherited.

I have been prescribed so many drugs that cause water retention and yet no potassium loss and I still lose it because I sweat so much when I exercise.  Therefore, next time exercise time comes around I’m so burnt out and hurting I can’t do any more usually for a week.  Then I’m given cymbalta which is causing more weight gain.  I at least got the doctor to reduce the dosage to the smallest and lost about five pounds in two to three days.  He said the drug wasn’t causing it, but after he finally looked down at my chart he saw I had gained ten pounds in less than two weeks. Will the Waterfall Diet counteract this side effect of the blood pressure drugs and cholesterol drugs and cymbalta?

Answer

The Waterfall Diet might be too much for you to cope with at the moment if you have been prescribed cymbalta. What I would suggest is that you get yourself on a really healthy eating regime: lots of fresh fruit and vegetables every day, fish and lean white meat, olive oil and try to avoid sugary foods and drinks and deep-fried food. Hopefully this will give you more energy and help to reduce your blood pressure so that your doctor may be able to reduce your medication. Once you have got to this stage you may want to read the waterfall diet book but it is a good idea for you to get used to healthy eating habits first.

I’ve been very stressed and my body feels bloated and sore all over. I am retaining a lot of water. Can this be caused by stress?

Answer

In the short term the direct cause of your bloating and water retention is probably not stress. That means if you have only been under stress recently then there is probably some other cause.

But if you have been under stress for several months, then yes, this can cause hormonal changes in your body which can increase the size of your waistline and also makes you more prone to water retention.

Stress makes you release a hormone called cortisol. If you are constantly producing too much cortisol due to stress, you will be likely to put weight on mostly around your middle. Some people with stress-related weight gain have a very large middle and quite thin arms and legs.

If you have only been under stress recently, then you may be eating a worse diet than usual, and your digestion may be bad. Bad digestion tends to cause bloating and gas.

If you are consuming a lot of soft drinks and convenience foods, these can be high in sodium, which could account for the water retention.

You can find more information about all this in my book Linda’s Flat Stomach Secrets available from Amazon.