Trust the process or trust the scale/tape measure?

curds

Hey Guys,

If you doing your workouts and you eating at a deficit (usually), but the scale is not moving or even increasing and the tape measure is also not showing a difference at what point do you say no something isn't right?

Please I don't want us to go on a tangent about muscle weighing more than fat etc, but I do lift more than I do cardio. So, yes my weight has increased slightly, but I'm hesitant to put this down as an okay "I just added some muscle" because flip even though the scale is not a measure of how healthy you are surely we can't just ignore it completely and the tape measure is practically useless as I haven't dropped a lot of cms in the usual places one measures, but I definitely look a lot "leaner".

Oh ps: don't you just love feeling up your muscles! Its like a new toy so yaaay for not being so flabby anymore!

grimendale

It's a matter of trial and error. If your weight/tape measurements haven't started to go down again after a month, you probably need to reevaluate your calories and exercise. It's possible that your TDEE has changed based on previous weight loss or due to increased activity. Modify your calories by ~100 calories for two weeks and see what happens, then modify again based on the results until you find you new level.

__Di__

Hey Guys,

If you doing your workouts and you eating at a deficit (usually), but the scale is not moving or even increasing and the tape measure is also not showing a difference at what point do you say no something isn't right?

Please I don't want us to go on a tangent about muscle weighing more than fat etc, but I do lift more than I do cardio. So, yes my weight has increased slightly, but I'm hesitant to put this down as an okay "I just added some muscle" because flip even though the scale is not a measure of how healthy you are surely we can't just ignore it completely and the tape measure is practically useless as I haven't dropped a lot of cms in the usual places one measures, but I definitely look a lot "leaner".

Oh ps: don't you just love feeling up your muscles! Its like a new toy so yaaay for not being so flabby anymore!

Unless you log all your food and drink you cannot hope to see if you really are within your calorie limits. Are you logging?

Cait_Sidhe

Open your diary, your profile is private.

If you are not losing you need to re-evaluate your intake. Are you logging everything accurately? Every single little thing? Are you weighing your food or eyeballing portions? If not, there's your problem right there. You're probably eating more than you think you are. If you are certain that you are being absolutely honest with yourself about your intake amd weighing all your food, then it may be that your calories are set too high. Impossible to say though since we don't have this info.

It is very unlikely that you are gaining muscle. Muscles require fuel to grow and you must eat at a surplus to gain muscle. It IS possible that some of the scale weight is from your muscles retaining fluid to repair themselves after strength training.