Touring - Post touring water retention

Anyone ever have issues with post tour water retention?

I've been feeling bloated for about a week now and my body seems to FINALLY be ridding itself of a LOT of excess water.

I'm fairly new to touring and just did my first multi day tour last week.

Maybe it's just me?

It's off to the bathroom again for me. =)

If it's any help: where sodium goes, water follows. Start watching your sodium intake, and stop using a salt shaker, ever! You maywant to reconsider this advice in the desert or tropics, I have heard arguments both ways. I started limiting my sodium intake and now after a few weeks I crave salty chips of all sorts, I even had a dream about nacho chips. I am still fat and bloated, however. There is rarely one simple and quick fix to things of this sort. Do you imbibe strong drink?

If by *strong drink* you mean alcohol, no. I don't drink at all.

What kind of distances were you riding each day? This is a common problem among ultra-distance riders ... double centuries and longer rides.

Day 1 - 90 miles
Day 2 - 64.75 miles
Day 3 - 82.75 miles
Day 4 - 65.5 miles
Day 5 - 106.1 miles

What happens, very basically, is this ... when you ride long distances you are generally not as well hydrated as you should be. In your case, it is possible you weren't as well hydrated as you should have been each of those days.

Because you are not well hydrated over an extended period of time, your body goes into preservation mode. Any liquid it gets, it tries to store in your cells. You may notice this change by symptoms such as reduced sweating, and limited, dark urine.

When you finish your ride, you're thirsty, and the natural reaction is to drink lots, and lots, and lots to try to make up for your lack of hydration during the ride. But meanwhile, your body is still in preservation mode, and so for a while, the increased quantity of liquid you are drinking goes into your cells ... and you bloat, and your ankles swell (I've seen my ankles puff up to nearly twice their size).

A few days later, your body realizes that all is back to normal again, and so it releases its store of liquid, and you end up peeing like crazy for a few days.


Ideally, to prevent this from happening, we should be consuming something in the neighborhood of the 8 glasses a day we've heard about since we were kids ... and when we're on a bicycle, the recommendation is about one 750 ml bottle of water and/or sports drink every 1 to 1.5 hours. But it is really hard to keep that up over a long ride, and sometimes over a tour as well.

Hey, thanks for your answer. That's pretty much exactly what I thought was the case. I just kind of wanted to hear it from someone else. :)

I can tell you this, I never stopped sweating the entire trip. I drank somewhere around 10-12 bottles of water a day (more on the day it was over 100 degrees) so I don't know that I was *dehydrated*

Funny you mention the ankles being swollen.
I though I was crazy.

Thanks again