Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
You started intermittent fasting a couple of days ago. Like anyone, you’ve had side effects such as grumpiness and trouble sleeping, at least at first. One side effect that’s persisted is that you need to pee more often, like a lot more often. Does this have anything to do with your intermittent fast? Could fasting really make you pee a lot?
Fasting might increase your rate of urination because you have to up your normal intake of water. Instead of drinking eight servings of water, each eight ounces (1.84 liters) a day, you should increase consumption to 2.2 to 3 liters daily.
Keep reading to learn more about why you may pee more when fasting as well as how to deal with the frequent urination. You’re not going to want to miss it.
How Many Times a Day Is Normal to Urinate?
Although going to the bathroom can be a nuisance, as you have to stop what you’re doing and get up, it’s also an indicator of good or poor health. On an average day, you should pee six to seven times. Some people have to urinate even more frequently, such as up to 10 times over 24 hours. Others can urinate seldom, about four times a day.
If you’re not urinating at least four times every day, then it’s worth scheduling an appointment with your primary care physician. An underlying health condition may be at play. Likewise, if you pee more than 10 times a day, you could have an overactive bladder or another condition causing it.
Besides just the frequency of your urination, symptoms that could accompany your condition include a strong odor when you urinate, painful urination, leaks if you don’t go to the bathroom quickly enough, fever, having a hard time urinating, changes to urine color, bloody urine, and/or back pain.
Does Fasting Make You Have to Pee More?
It could also be that fasting is making you pee more.
Each day, you have to hydrate your body to maintain health. You do this by drinking fluids but also by eating food. When you restrict or omit food consumption as part of an intermittent fast, you could lose up to 20 percent of your daily hydration. You must make that up somewhere, so that means drinking more water.
Also, with some types of intermittent fasts, such as a water fast, you’re consuming nothing but fluids. This will naturally result in an increased amount of water drunk.
On top of all that, drinking water throughout the day can create a sensation of fullness in your stomach that mimics the satiety of a good meal. This might make you want to drink more than you usually do.
The recommended amount of water to consume in a non-fasted state is eight servings of water, each eight ounces. That’s 1.84 liters of water a day. When fasting, women should aim to increase water intake to 2.2 liters and men to 3 liters every day. That’s about nine glasses of water for women and 10 or 11 glasses for men.
You can see now why you have to pee so much on your fast!
So yes, while you may be running to the bathroom more often, know that you’re prioritizing your hydration and thus your health, so peeing that much isn’t such a bad thing.
What Else Can Increase Your Rate of Urination?
However, if you notice that you’re urinating even if you’re not fasting and you’ve reduced how much water you drink, then it doesn’t hurt to examine other reasons that may have led to the change. Again, we recommend an appointment with your doctor to rule out the following causes.
Medical Conditions
A laundry list of medical conditions could make you have to pee more than 10 times a day. These include:
- Pelvic floor weakness, as the pelvic muscles cannot hold your urine in
- Enlarged prostate, which can prevent urine flow
- Sickle cell anemia, as the kidneys have fewer red blood cells, which could cause urine concentration to go up
- Changes in calcium levels, such as hypocalcemia or hypercalcemia, as these conditions impact the kidneys too
- Diabetes, especially if it’s undiagnosed or not treated
- Interstitial cystitis, also known as painful bladder syndrome, which inflames the bladder
- Overactive bladder, which we touched on before
- Urinary tract infections or UTIs, which might make urinating painful
Body Temperature
In cold temperatures, blood travels more often to vital organs to keep them warm. Since you filter more blood on a cold day than you do on a warmer one, you may find that you have to hit the bathroom more frequently as well.
Medication Use
Taking some medications might send you to the potty often. These include Aldactone (spironolactone), Zytanix (metolazone), Lasix (furosemide), Diuril (chlorothiazide), and Bumex (bumetanide). These meds are all diuretics that will increase urination.
Age
As you age, your bladder’s elasticity begins to degrade, reducing the amount of urine the bladder can reliably hold. This will cause you to pee more.
Pregnancy
Between your growing baby putting pressure on your bladder and changes in hormones, it’s normal to have to pee more often when you’re pregnant.
Beverages Consumed
Besides diuretics being in the medications you take, if your beverage has caffeine, then it acts as a diuretic as well. You may notice increased urine output especially after drinking tea, hot chocolate, energy drinks, sodas, and coffee.
How to Deal with More Frequent Urination
It’s kind of embarrassing to have to pee so much, but if your increased urination is caused by fasting and not the above health reasons, then you have nothing to be ashamed of. Tell those around you that you work and live with that you’re fasting and you may have to run to the bathroom more often.
If you have an important work event coming up, such as a big client meeting or a conference call, we’d suggest going light on the beverages in the hour or two leading up to the meeting. Also, make sure you urinate right before the meeting begins.
Conclusion
Frequent urination is one of the less talked about side effects of intermittent fasting, as you’re consuming several more glasses of water a day. Like most other fasting side effects, once you adjust to having to run to the bathroom more often, you’ll soon realize it’s not such a big deal, especially once you begin losing weight and reaping other fasting benefits.