My weight has been going up alarmingly rapidly over the past two weeks and I was at a loss as to why. I have been watching what I eat a lot more, I’ve cut back on the amount of sugar, processed foods and alcohol, I’ve increased my running and I’ve started doing some workouts to help with my running.

I weigh myself every Monday morning.

A couple of Monday’s ago I weighed 180lbs.

Last Monday I weighed in at 184lbs. I thought it might be the battery dying in the scales.

Tuesday I put in a new battery and found I now weighed 185lbs.

Wednesday saw me tip the scales at 186lbs.

Thursday I was 187lbs.

What the hell was going on? How had I put on 7lbs in over a week (and rising)?

I was making my after-run recovery shake when I randomly read the back of the whey protein pack. Now, this isn’t my normal brand of whey protein, I had run out and the store didn’t have any more in stock, so I purchased a small pack from the reduced section until they got my normal brand back in stock.

On the back of the packaging, it said that it contained creatine.

For those of you who don’t know what creatine is, it is a substance that bodybuilders take that makes your muscles look bigger. This is basically done by retaining water, so the 7+lbs I had put on in just over a week was water retention.

I know what this stuff does and that is why I don’t use it, I was rather surprised that it was not mentioned on the front of the packaging, the only mention of it was in the tiny writing of the ingredients on the back.

Needless to say, I threw the rest of it away and went to a different store to buy my normal brand. It will take a couple of weeks to get the weight back down.

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay