Eating well and exercising but not losing weight? It’s probably due to this…

Water retention.

Calorie deficits are notorious for causing you to retain water, especially if you’re doing an aggressive diet. The problem is, a calorie deficit is the only thing that will actually burn the fat you want to lose.

Are we stuck? No. We just need to learn a little more about water retention.

Here are some quick suggestions to purge the bloat from beneath your skin and get water flowing again.

• Check your sodium intake. Sodium is infamous for water retention. Most people on a Western diet are high in sodium. Avoid processed food, canned foods, deli meat and salty snacks.

• Get enough potassium. While sodium can encourage your body to retain water, potassium pumps it out of your cells. The standard American diet is low in potassium. To get more potassium, eat foods like bananas, avocado, beans, dark leafy greens and squash. You should also consider a potassium supplement.

You’ll never regret balancing your sodium and potassium. And your heart will thank you, too!

• Beware of over training. Too much exercise on a calorie deficit is a sure ticket to water retention. The Minnesota Starvation Experiment proved this. Volunteers were fed a 15oo calorie diet and required to do hard labor. They lost body fat as expected. Yet, they retained water for long periods of time. Read more about water retention and this experiment here.

Don’t over exercise to the point where you have greater than a 25% calorie deficit.

• Sleep, rest, reduce stress. Always, a good idea. Proper sleep and normal stress levels keep cortisol from spiking. High cortisol levels and water retention go hand-in-hand.

Most of all, stay the course! Don’t get discouraged. If you are sticking to your plan and not losing weight, chances are high that you are indeed losing body fat. You just need to get the water off.