Feedback to calm my nerves, please :)

amhamlin

I'm so nervous right now.... I've been participating in a bootcamp workout program for a few months. I lost 8 inches last month. I've done bootcamp and eating the same this month as last but added more exercise and have not seen much of a change on the scale. Tonight I measure. I hope.. I pray I've lost some more inches. I've been doing boot camp at least 2 times a week and hot yoga on Wednesdays. I've also been hiking and doing some Yoga Fit in the morning. Isn't strange that the scale hasn't gone down?? How can I lose inches but never any weight?? UGH!

Fueled

Your fat is probably just turning to muscle which weighs more. Trust the inches, don't worry about the scale.

sweetheart03622

You're toning your muscles, which means they tighten up and get smaller. Ultimately, that's what really matters. I'm the exact same size as one of my good friends, but she weighs 22lbs less than me. Weight doesn't matter, look in the mirror, that matters!!

Larius

Chill. :glasses:

Inches beats pounds, kilograms, or stones any day of the week. Inches is losing fat. Muscle is lean and dense and looks sexy.

doobabe

Chilax- Im toning and not losing an ounce too.... I hate the scales filthy stinkin guts- we dont see eye to eye!

BUT- toning up is waaaaaayyyy better than a number on the scale anyway!

robpett2001

Everybody's right -- the scale doesn't tell you what's going on with your muscle and fat. Track your body fat percentage instead:

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/cbbf

vick9180

Your fat is probably just turning to muscle which weighs more. Trust the inches, don't worry about the scale.

Maybe I'm being nit-picky here, but this statement is full of myths!

Your fat can't turn into muscle. A fat cell is a fat cell and a muscle cell is a muscle cell. The two can't convert into the other.

Also, muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same....1 lb. A muscle cell takes up less space than a fat cell. While losing weight, the fat cells are still there...they don't go away. But, if you took a cubic inch of muscle cells and a cubic inch of fat cells, the muscle cells would be more dense, because you can fit many more muscle cells into that space. Maybe that's what this poster meant by that, but I've run into this belief a lot that you can convert fat cells to muscle and that muscle weighs more than fat.

So...losing inches is great because it means you're building lean muscle mass and shrinking down those fat cells. And since muscle cells are more dense than fat cells, the scale may not budge.

P.S. Sorry to pick on you poster...I don't mean any harm...just to knock out the myths.

Fueled

Your fat is probably just turning to muscle which weighs more. Trust the inches, don't worry about the scale.

Maybe I'm being nit-picky here, but this statement is full of myths!

Your fat can't turn into muscle. A fat cell is a fat cell and a muscle cell is a muscle cell. The two can't convert into the other.

Also, muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same....1 lb. A muscle cell takes up less space than a fat cell. While losing weight, the fat cells are still there...they don't go away. But, if you took a cubic inch of muscle cells and a cubic inch of fat cells, the muscle cells would be more dense, because you can fit many more muscle cells into that space. Maybe that's what this poster meant by that, but I've run into this belief a lot that you can convert fat cells to muscle and that muscle weighs more than fat.

So...losing inches is great because it means you're building lean muscle mass and shrinking down those fat cells. And since muscle cells are more dense than fat cells, the scale may not budge.

P.S. Sorry to pick on you poster...I don't mean any harm...just to knock out the myths.

LOL, OK Vick, i will give you that "turning into" is completely inaccurate here. Fat cells shrinking while muscle mass is growing only gives the impression of one turning into the other even though that is not really what is happening. I apologize for the inaccuracy.

The raging "muscle and fat weigh the same" debate bugs the hell out of me, though, because it is just a question of semantics about how the word "weigh" is being used. By your argument, nothing in the world weighs more than anything else. A pound of the Empire State Building weighs the same as a pound of a bird's nest. How is that information useful? What is useful, and what i believe our original poster was asking for, is a comparison of relative weight, in which case you have to assume constant mass. Muscle density is 1.06 g/ml, and fat density is 0.9 g/ml, so ONE LITER of muscle would weigh 1.06 kg (or 2.34 lbs), and ONE LITER of fat would weigh 0.9 kg (1.98 lbs), a difference of 18%.

So yes, although i find it absurd that this is not just assumed, i will revise my earlier statement, and say *a cubic inch of* muscle weighs 18% more than *a cubic inch of* fat. This means you can most definitely lose mass and not lose weight.

In other words, trust the inches, don't worry about the scale.