When should the scale move?
itsjustdawn
Posts: 1,073 Member
Hey all. I just started on Monday... I am curious as to when I should start seeing the number move on the scale? I have actually gone up a little since Sunday. My diary is open. I have kept my carbs at 5% or less I believe. I am severely lacking in fiber/veggies this week. I will add more next week for sure.
And yes, I know I shouldn't rely solely on the scale... but seeing that number go down would definitely put me in better spirits.
And yes, I know I shouldn't rely solely on the scale... but seeing that number go down would definitely put me in better spirits.
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It was two months before my scales showed any loss eating low carb but I lost a lot of fat before the scales dropped even one pound. Even now I can go two months without losing a pound but still I am getting thinner. At 64 I 'assume' my body less all of the sugar/carbs in general is doing something behind the scenes to fix the mess I made of it eating process food and drink for all of those years.0
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Ways to measure health without a scale: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/new-health-scale/
That being said....
1) Are your clothes starting to fit differently?
2) Are you having more energy?
3) Is your body happier?
#3 is because I saw on your profile that you were in a car wreck that messed things up pretty well. Are you doing crazy things like eating gelatin & bone broth? They can help with joints & nerves.
Are you drinking enough water and eating enough calories & fat?0 -
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octobubbles wrote: »
Which is why we get along so well.
I just looked at your yesterday, Dawn. What sticks out to me is that you're eating a LOT of dairy, and for some people, that can keep them from losing weight. Also, every single day seems to be exactly the same. Are you stressing over what you're eating?0 -
octobubbles wrote: »
I read that, but I am not working out, so fat isn't being replaced with anything.0 -
Ways to measure health without a scale: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/new-health-scale/
That being said....
1) Are your clothes starting to fit differently?
2) Are you having more energy?
3) Is your body happier?
#3 is because I saw on your profile that you were in a car wreck that messed things up pretty well. Are you doing crazy things like eating gelatin & bone broth? They can help with joints & nerves.
Are you drinking enough water and eating enough calories & fat?
1) No, but it's only day 4.
2) Never. Even when I used to work out a lot I never had energy. But I am drinking coffee again... I could still pass out at any time I am sure.
3) No... I am in pain 24/7... I don't think changing WHAT I eat is going to fix permanent damage. Losing weight will reduce the pressure on my spine though.
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octobubbles wrote: »
Which is why we get along so well.
I just looked at your yesterday, Dawn. What sticks out to me is that you're eating a LOT of dairy, and for some people, that can keep them from losing weight. Also, every single day seems to be exactly the same. Are you stressing over what you're eating?
No clue what else to eat. I don't cook. I have to have food for work though. Cheese is easy to snack on. Butter gets my fat up. Heavy whipping cream makes my coffee awesome and gets my fat up.
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I lost right away, but I was also 267 pounds. Nite that I'm 155 pounds I'll go weeks without losing then her a whoosh of 5 to 10 pounds gone. Sometimes especially during certain hormonal times I'll gain a few pounds. The scale isn't as important as how you feel and inches coke off before scale movement. I'll drop a clothing size before the scale begins to move
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itsjustdawn wrote: »Ways to measure health without a scale: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/new-health-scale/
That being said....
1) Are your clothes starting to fit differently?
2) Are you having more energy?
3) Is your body happier?
#3 is because I saw on your profile that you were in a car wreck that messed things up pretty well. Are you doing crazy things like eating gelatin & bone broth? They can help with joints & nerves.
Are you drinking enough water and eating enough calories & fat?
1) No, but it's only day 4.
2) Never. Even when I used to work out a lot I never had energy. But I am drinking coffee again... I could still pass out at any time I am sure.
3) No... I am in pain 24/7... I don't think changing WHAT I eat is going to fix permanent damage. Losing weight will reduce the pressure on my spine though.
It's only day 4. That's your answer right there. You haven't even gone a week yet, just keep that in mind whenever you're feeling discouraged.
You'd be surprised how what you consume will affect your body. My husband has been looking down the barrel of $10,000+ worth of dental work, including pulling more teeth, a root canal or two, and multiple fillings. I've recently started getting him taking Green Pasture's fermented cod liver and high vitamin butter oil, and as soon as he started taking it, he started getting feeling back in a tooth that the dentist said was dead and my husband said hasn't had feeling in forever. After about a week, he was finding that food wasn't getting stuck as bad in one of the teeth that has a deep cavity. I started taking Hyaluronic Acid for my degenerative disc disease -- a chronic condition that the doctors will only shrug their shoulders at and offer a numbing agent until you destroy your discs to the point that you need surgery to put metal rods or prosthetic discs into your spine -- and within two weeks, I went from being in pain 24/7 to not being in pain pretty much at all.
Don't underestimate the power of nutrients and the body to heal. You just have to give it the right building blocks and some time.
If you're eating a more nutrient dense diet than you have been, and/or if you've removed dietary sources of further damage or inflammation, then your body is currently in the process of healing. You may not see a change on the scale for some time, but that doesn't mean things aren't changing. What you might find, instead, is that your pain starts going away. You might be able to move in ways you haven't been able to for a long time. You might start finding you have more energy than you did a few weeks prior. And so on.
However, it all takes time. The earliest I saw non-scale changes after changing my diet was between 1 and 2 weeks. I realized, all of a sudden, that I no longer had heartburn. A week or so later, I suddenly realized that I no longer needed ibuprofen like I had. A few months later, I realized that my skin was more clear. It was actually about 2 years before I stumbled on the way of eating that actually prompted my body to shed weight, though I wouldn't be surprised if I wouldn't have lost weight immediately if I'd gone directly to that way of eating, because my body needed time to heal the other issues first.0 -
itsjustdawn wrote: »No clue what else to eat. I don't cook. I have to have food for work though. Cheese is easy to snack on. Butter gets my fat up. Heavy whipping cream makes my coffee awesome and gets my fat up.
These might help with the variety: http://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes/comments/2utb1z/request_please_help_with_quickneasygrabngo_keto/
http://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes/comments/1h438h/help_heat_wave_need_some_nocook_no_oven_keto/
Things I can think of off the top of my head:
Tuna or chicken salad - drain the can & mix with mayo
Rotisserie chicken
Pre-made salads (check the dressing, ditch the croutons)
Pre-cooked burger patties (topped with pre-cooked bacon, cheese, avocado, mayo, etc. - lettuce wrapping is optional) - I can buy them frozen, normally in the butcher department somewhere
Avocado/Guacamole
Pork rinds
Nuts0 -
Keep at it, you're doing a great job! I took a quick peek at your diary and it could be the dairy, but you're also eating alot of processed meats. If you look at the ingredients you'll probably notice sugar as an added ingredient. I don't know much about the calorie thing, but if you're not exersicing, 2000 might be too many calories? I'm only 5'1, but my calorie budget is 1300 for days I don't exersice. That's based on the calculator thingy. For myself and my husband, if we eat too many calories, we don't lose, no matter how low our carbs are. Your carbs might even be too low. Try adding some veggies for natural carbs as well as fibre? Tracking is good and can help you tweak things once you get to know what works for you! Good luck!0
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I did not have a scale when I first started, so I have no idea when the weight started coming off (and, honestly, I'm glad I didn't even have the opportunity to obsess about the numbers on the Liar McLiarPants scale), but I do know that in the first 4 days I didn't have any magically disappearing love handles or anything. I would give it at least a couple weeks before assuming you are doing something wrong.
I recently cut back on my dairy because I thought maybe that was causing me to stall, but then I remembered that I routinely ate at least 3 oz of cheese every single day even at the beginning and lost weight... my point being that, yeah, MAYBE you are eating too much dairy, but maybe not. The extent to which dairy intake affects weight loss seems to be very individualized, as is just about everything in this weight loss business. If you like what you are eating now and you feel good, then I would not make adjustments until you have been at it a bit longer. That's just me. Of course, like I JUST said, this is a very individualized process, so what works for one of us will not work for all of us.
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Aww no magically disappearing love handles?! :-(
That would be cool though.
As for calories - my BMR is 1600, so I need to be eating at least 1600 anyway. I am more focused on keeping my fat up and protein/carbs down.
I know I am obsessing way too early in this game. I just want to see the number go down a little bit... just a little. EVERYDAY.0 -
itsjustdawn wrote: »Aww no magically disappearing love handles?! :-(
That would be cool though.
As for calories - my BMR is 1600, so I need to be eating at least 1600 anyway. I am more focused on keeping my fat up and protein/carbs down.
I know I am obsessing way too early in this game. I just want to see the number go down a little bit... just a little. EVERYDAY.
It won't go down every day. Most likely it will take a leap down, then a small gain, then more losses. Sometimes you'll get them all at once, sometimes you'll have to wait weeks for some little steps down. Then you might hit the floodgates, or your body might hold in some water to help it flush the system. There is no magic to this.
You have to play around and see what works for you!! I agree - your number sounds normal to me and your focus sounds okay, but protein doesn't have to be kept down. Carbs should be a limit, protein range should have a minimum but a flexible maximum, and fats should fill in the rest. Make sure you are eating enough protein to maintain your current muscles/lean body mass. That is your minimum...
And if you're eating enough fats, you don't need fiber. Fiber is only needed to help process carbs...0 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »itsjustdawn wrote: »Ways to measure health without a scale: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/new-health-scale/
That being said....
1) Are your clothes starting to fit differently?
2) Are you having more energy?
3) Is your body happier?
#3 is because I saw on your profile that you were in a car wreck that messed things up pretty well. Are you doing crazy things like eating gelatin & bone broth? They can help with joints & nerves.
Are you drinking enough water and eating enough calories & fat?
1) No, but it's only day 4.
2) Never. Even when I used to work out a lot I never had energy. But I am drinking coffee again... I could still pass out at any time I am sure.
3) No... I am in pain 24/7... I don't think changing WHAT I eat is going to fix permanent damage. Losing weight will reduce the pressure on my spine though.
It's only day 4. That's your answer right there. You haven't even gone a week yet, just keep that in mind whenever you're feeling discouraged.
You'd be surprised how what you consume will affect your body. My husband has been looking down the barrel of $10,000+ worth of dental work, including pulling more teeth, a root canal or two, and multiple fillings. I've recently started getting him taking Green Pasture's fermented cod liver and high vitamin butter oil, and as soon as he started taking it, he started getting feeling back in a tooth that the dentist said was dead and my husband said hasn't had feeling in forever. After about a week, he was finding that food wasn't getting stuck as bad in one of the teeth that has a deep cavity. I started taking Hyaluronic Acid for my degenerative disc disease -- a chronic condition that the doctors will only shrug their shoulders at and offer a numbing agent until you destroy your discs to the point that you need surgery to put metal rods or prosthetic discs into your spine -- and within two weeks, I went from being in pain 24/7 to not being in pain pretty much at all.
Don't underestimate the power of nutrients and the body to heal. You just have to give it the right building blocks and some time.
If you're eating a more nutrient dense diet than you have been, and/or if you've removed dietary sources of further damage or inflammation, then your body is currently in the process of healing. You may not see a change on the scale for some time, but that doesn't mean things aren't changing. What you might find, instead, is that your pain starts going away. You might be able to move in ways you haven't been able to for a long time. You might start finding you have more energy than you did a few weeks prior. And so on.
However, it all takes time. The earliest I saw non-scale changes after changing my diet was between 1 and 2 weeks. I realized, all of a sudden, that I no longer had heartburn. A week or so later, I suddenly realized that I no longer needed ibuprofen like I had. A few months later, I realized that my skin was more clear. It was actually about 2 years before I stumbled on the way of eating that actually prompted my body to shed weight, though I wouldn't be surprised if I wouldn't have lost weight immediately if I'd gone directly to that way of eating, because my body needed time to heal the other issues first.
I used to get migraines at least 2-3x/month; since doing this way of eating I've had one migraine (in almost 9 weeks)! And that was after a weekend of majorly over exerting myself and a HUGE weather change (like 50 degree temp drop overnight!) all at the same time.
Dragonwolf- I would love to know more about the Hyalauronic Acid. I've had a herniated disc in my neck for probably 5 years, and I have arthritis in my neck too (and I'm only 30!).0 -
I used to get migraines at least 2-3x/month; since doing this way of eating I've had one migraine (in almost 9 weeks)! And that was after a weekend of majorly over exerting myself and a HUGE weather change (like 50 degree temp drop overnight!) all at the same time.
Dragonwolf- I would love to know more about the Hyalauronic Acid. I've had a herniated disc in my neck for probably 5 years, and I have arthritis in my neck too (and I'm only 30!).
I have 3 herniated discs in my neck and a bulging disc in my low back...
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Dragonwolf- I would love to know more about the Hyalauronic Acid. I've had a herniated disc in my neck for probably 5 years, and I have arthritis in my neck too (and I'm only 30!).
This is the one I use - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000S97MOU
Hyaluronic Acid is what makes our joints and eyes squishy and what lubricates a number of the transportation structures in our bodies. The supplement has shown promise for "wear and tear" and trauma-like issues -- things like osteoarthritis, joint damage, and degenerative disc disease.
Most of the testimonials I've seen show noticeable results in about a week, with almost complete pain reduction in 2-4 weeks. My own experience was consistent with these reports, though it likely depends on the extent of the damage (Lierre Keith, author of The Vegetarian Myth, for example, had little success with it for her own degenerated discs, because they're too far gone, but it helped the dry skin caused by her Hashimoto's). Basically, it can rehydrate any tissue that's there, but it can't rebuild what's not there (though it can aid the healing process).
A word of caution, though -- I did find some things that suggest it may backfire if you have rheumatoid arthritis. So if your arthritis is rheumatoid, you might want to look into that aspect a little deeper, and if you decide to try it and your pain increases, then stop the supplement. (It makes sense, if you think about it -- RA is inflamed joints, and HA adds volume to those joints. Bigger joint + inflammation = more pain. The good news, though, is that LCHF should itself help the inflammation behind the RA, which can allow the HA to work on any wear and tear issues.)0 -
Well, I've had the test for RA and it came back negative (but so has almost every other test they've done), so hopefully it's not that kind... But I guess if I started it and it got worse maybe that would be a clue for the drs who don't take me seriously! For the most part since going LCHF my inflammation is much better, at this point my joints pretty much only hurt when there's a big weather change or a storm coming.0
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itsjustdawn wrote: »Hey all. I just started on Monday... I am curious as to when I should start seeing the number move on the scale? I have actually gone up a little since Sunday. My diary is open. I have kept my carbs at 5% or less I believe. I am severely lacking in fiber/veggies this week. I will add more next week for sure.
And yes, I know I shouldn't rely solely on the scale... but seeing that number go down would definitely put me in better spirits.
Hard as it might be, stay away from the scale. I weigh myself about once every ten days, but I probably should wait longer. Seeing the daily bounces can be quite disheartening.
Concentrate instead on how you feel. Think of this WOE for health, not weight loss. People who think LCHF is for weight loss have the mistaken impression that they can quit it once they lose the weight. (Look at all the Atkins dieters who only followed the first part of the diet, but did not want to do the work on the maintenance level. They gained back the weight once they returned to their old eating habits!)
Patience, patience, patience. You did not gain the weight overnight. It will take time to lose it.
*Oh, and it is possible to not eat any veggies on this WOE, so you might not need to worry about adding more. Some folks eat only meat and fat.
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My car wreck was 18 years ago so I understand the 24/7 pain. I have to tell you, this woe has changed it. After years of medication that almost killed me, physical therapy, depression...this woe seems to be "fixing" somethings. The pain isn't as bad, I have more energy, and when I get tired or sore the recovery time is drastically reduced! I have always been skeptical about people healing themselves with their woe and never thought it would happen for me. I started this woe to lose weight, but now it has become secondary to the improvements in my health. This is my experience so far, and I won't be changing it back either! Best to you!0
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Hard as it might be, stay away from the scale.
I agree! Your diet can make wonderful changes in all other aspects of your life, and your mood will be ruined all day because of Mr. Liar McLiarpants.
I just read an article about a woman who gained 20 lbs over six months of zero-carb eating, and then it all dropped off. She says her body was healing from years of abuse before dropping the excess weight. Hang in there and focus on NSVs0 -
itsjustdawn wrote: »Aww no magically disappearing love handles?! :-(
That would be cool though.
As for calories - my BMR is 1600, so I need to be eating at least 1600 anyway. I am more focused on keeping my fat up and protein/carbs down.
I know I am obsessing way too early in this game. I just want to see the number go down a little bit... just a little. EVERYDAY.
Eventually it will feel like they are magically disappearing love handles I've been low carb since March 18 the beginning was confusing and pretty rough, had days I felt good and days I felt awful. I gradually went lower and lower in carbs and most everyday I feel fantastic.
I had a neck injury about ten years ago that made it near impossible for me to even go for a walk because it would go into spasm, I also have si joint dysfunction, where my si joint in low back locks up and I can't stand up straight or lay down without pain. I went to a wonderful chiro for years which helped but never fixed it.
The past two days I have moved 32, 20 lb bags of mulch, and hiked through the woods and did 87 pushups. This morning I don't even have an ache.
Before low carb I would've had difficulty walking today.
I also had what I thought was the beginning of arthritis with pain in my wrists, elbows, knees and ankles in the beginning of the year, that joint pain is completely gone now.
I have lost twenty lbs, but the pain went away a few weeks in where I had only lost five lbs, so I'm positive it's the change in eating habits.
You can check out my diary for different ideas on what to eat. I've been trying to incorporate new things to keep it interesting for me.0 -
I also have an SI joint injury that led to a herniated disk which later led to pinched nerves in my neck. All these things have felt uncharacteristically improved since I started this WOE in February.0
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Dawn- I didn't used to cook either. I'm single, and ate mostly takeout/ delivery before. After the first week, week and a half, I started craving things I never liked before, like steak and steamed broccoli. I'm still only about a month in, but I'm starting to cook a lot more now. Just give it some time and let your body adjust.0
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Thanks you guys! I am still hanging in there. I even brought my own food to Disney yesterday just to ensure I'd stay on track. I just have to find other things I can eat on the go... I'll check diaries :-)0
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I started Tuesday morning ..I lost 2 lbs...On Friday... Saturday is going to be my cheat day If I need it to be,,LOL...I don't have a lot of weight to lose but I just needed to get away from the sweets..They were controlling me..I did this LC years ago ..I've learned to eat alot of stuff that I never liked
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I've lost just over 27kg since the 4th of January and my scales do NOT show a loss every day. I lost 1.5kg last week (Sunday to Sunday) but some days I was up 200g, down 400g, no change, up 100g etc. I was 87.6kg for 3 daya in a row and this morning I was 87.85kg. But that is 100% normal and I know not to worry now.
I've had weeks where I gained 800g overnight but a week later that was all gone and I had a decent loss.
The smallest lost I have had in a week from one Sunday to another (official weigh in day for me) was 800g. Still not bad really!
Even with my weight being the same for 3 days and up on the 4th day, I've lost a cm from my waist in that 4 days :-)0 -
I love the comments, but I simply have no idea what your European numbers equate to lol0
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One inch equals 2.5 cm ( centimetres). 800 g = 0.8 kg = 1.76 pounds.0
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