March Q and A thread

nossmf

For example, a couple years ago I dropped 20# in just a few months' time. Simple math says since my legs had 20# less of me to move (assuming they didn't lose strength, then they could still move the same weight as before), my squat and deadlift should go up by the same amount. However, what I saw was my squat and deadlift each went up by about 25#. Take away my body mass change, you're left with an increase of 5#.

If we look at my bench press of the same time frame, it increased by 10#. Since I don't lift any part of myself during a bench press, my weight doesn't directly influence how much I can lift, so my strength legitimately increased by 10#.

So realistically. even though my squat and deadlift each increased by 25# compared to only 10# for my bench press, I gained more strength in my bench. Considering I was really focusing on my bench at the time, this makes sense. (I had been lifting steadily for about 5 years by this point.)

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SideSteel

happimess1 wrote: »

I am having weigh in blues. I started at 346 lbs and i am down 50 lbs in 5 months. i eat around 2500 calories every day and have no problem with adherence on most days. Its only on days that i dont lose the intended 1kg/week that i start feeling low and start bingeing.

I know that weight loss is not linear and fluctuations are normal but i stilll have a lot to lose so i feel like dropping a kg every week shouldnt be a problem. I weigh in once a week every Monday if that helps. Any strategies you can suggest that will help me get over this roadblock? Would weighing in once every 2 weeks work maybe?

Honestly this is a tough one. On one hand you could weigh less often but the truth is, weight goes up and down from day to day and so the fewer data points you have the less accurate the trend may be.

The alternative would be to weigh daily and then take an average of those 7 weigh ins and call that your weekly average. Then, only compare week to week averages and don't even pay attention to day to day stuff.

Congrats on the losses so far, that's really excellent progress!

heybales

And regarding those expected normal fluctuations - when you get to eat more as you are doing, there is a bigger opportunity for the day prior to weigh-in to have bigger differences in sodium eaten - which can effect the next morning.
Doesn't mean you have to eat low sodium, because it's just water weight - but just be aware that if you happen to have a lower than normal sodium day, you'll be down more than if you had a higher sodium day.

Is your weigh-in day the morning after a rest day eating normal sodium levels, not sore from prior workout?
If so - you are at least minimizing expected water changes.

Otherwise weigh every day if you can mentally handle it, and start realizing just how much fluctuation is possible - and you'll probably be able to get good at pinpointing exactly what happened yesterday to effect today.

Then you can look at it as mere data points.
And those data points don't define you, or that cm measurements may still be doing better than kg figures.
You'll jump on the scale wondering what yesterdays BBQ will do to you, see it, and say - "oh well, interesting invalid weigh-in, have to wait until Monday for something meaningful.

StephieWillcox

Not to contradict sidesteel and heybales who are both MUCH more knowledgeable than me, but I suffered from weighing/binging cycles and the only way I stopped it was to weigh once a month, on the 1st, and take measurements then too.

It's still not perfect as you may be sore from a workout or whatever (I sometimes postpone a day or two if I feel really sore), but it was better for my mentality.

I tried daily weighing and while it was better than once a week, it still wasn't great if I didn't see a new low each week it wouldn't work for me - however daily weighing may work for you as you are male and therefore have less water issues from cycle issues to confuse matters

I am considering stopping weighing altogether and only going by measurements, it's too damaging to my mental health to put so much stock in the scale. If you're hitting your macro & calorie targets and doing some activity then you are doing the right thing for your body and things will be moving in the right direction.

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