Fat loss vs Scale weight!

LetsGetFit786

Hi everyone

How do you deal with losing the fat that does not reflect on the scales? How do you program your brain to think differently about the sales especially when everyone loses scale weight especially when you have over 20kg to lose surely the scales should move.

Lietchi

I weigh every morning and enter my weight into a weight trending app (Libra).
That allows me to see a longer term trend beyond the daily fluctuations.
For me, that was a good way to desensitize myself to the fluctuations and really know if I'm losing weight or not and adjust my calorie intake accordingly.

nossmf

Fat has two properties...it takes up space, and it adds weight. The scale looks ONLY at the second half of that equation. But if you lose 1kg fat, gain 1kg water, the scale says you weigh exactly the same...yet you lost 1kg of fat! So while the scale is a useful tool, it's not the ONLY tool.

Equally useful (if not more so) is the tape measure. Fat takes up more space than either muscle or the equivalent weight in water. Meaning that in the above example where the scale says nothing has changed, a tape measure will show that you have decreased size. Don't have a tape measure? Simply ask yourself if your clothes are any looser anywhere. Looser around the waist, across the thighs or upper arms, etc. The drawback to tape measuring is that fat loss probably won't be equal everywhere, so your waist may remain the same while your arms shrink, or vice versa. Consequently you may be advised to take multiple measurements across multiple body parts. Common measurements include neck, waist, hips, thighs, upper arms, and bustline. You can make a homemade tape measure for this purpose with yarn: wrap yarn around your waist, cutting it off about one finger length beyond where the ends meet. Tie a knot at that point. When you measure again a month later, you'll easily identify if it is larger or smaller than the previous knot. If smaller, tie a new knot at the new location. Over time, you'll have a string with a series of knots showing progress over time, tangible proof you can hold in your hand that your waist has gotten smaller. True, you won't have the exact size, but the RELATIVE size will be easy to see. Maybe use different color strings for each body part to keep them separate.

Ultimately, you need to understand that losing fat is some combination of losing kg's and losing cm's. If one measure says you're the same, the other may show you're making progress.

NC_Gardener

This gets me, especially at first, which is where I am again now (new to menopause and it apparently changed my metabolism some)!

This time I'm writing down a "paper" weight loss for how many calories I know I've saved. I know I did that, and it was hard! So I add those up and celebrate that.

Then I have my regular scale weight. It just took back the lb I lost, but I *know* I didn't eat those calories. I can count on my paper weight loss to mean something on days like this.

I know from experience that it really does work out over time. If I go on too long with no scale weight loss, I'll cut some more calories. That can happen. But overall I know I'm eating less than before. So I have to lose weight. It's a trust-the-process kind of thing.