SCALES WON'T BUDGE!

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Replies

  • deevatude
    deevatude Posts: 322 Member
    are u sure ur eating enough?
  • stoogeswoman
    stoogeswoman Posts: 25 Member
    My scales give me a different weight every time I step on them - in fact, this morning I went from 212.4 to 223.4 in 10 seconds! So my scales budge all right, but in the wrong way!!!
  • lydt5880
    lydt5880 Posts: 90 Member
    How is the sodium intake going? I'm keeping an eye on mine but it always seems to be way under. I am also drinking at least 2ltr of mineral water a day.
  • lydt5880
    lydt5880 Posts: 90 Member
    My calorie goal is 1300. I am eating most of my exercise calories back but not all of them as they sometimes seem a little high on here compared to other calculations.
  • crazyvermont
    crazyvermont Posts: 171 Member
    Sounds like you are doing just about everything right. You mentioned cardio and just wondering how often you are changing routine? Have found out personally that varying exercise every two weeks(minimum) keeps me from plateauing
  • crudd123
    crudd123 Posts: 244 Member
    This happened to me and I cut my carbs way down to like 20 a day for a week and I lost 3 pounds! Good luck to you!
  • VanessaGS
    VanessaGS Posts: 514 Member
    STOP worrying about the scale and focus more on measurements. Inches coming up are what you want no matter what the scale says.
  • MyaPapaya75
    MyaPapaya75 Posts: 3,143 Member
    When is the last time you had a physical with complete labs done ..perhaps it could be something metabolic..I tried for years to lose weight and was only fighting an inactive thyroid without knowing it. ...I say talk to your physician explain what you have been doing and bring a log of your food and routine and go from there....Sodium is also a BIg culprit...Im not sure what your carb intake is you said low but try perhaps keeping under 200 per day for a week and see how it goes...good luck!
  • californiagirl2012
    californiagirl2012 Posts: 2,625 Member
    Your body loses weight in chunks, not linear. I have found that you can do everything right and your weight loss seems to plateau but you are patient and keep exercising and eating at a deficit (however slight) you will lose it, it will suddenly "whoosh". There are so many variables for the scale though: water retention, digestion, allergies, sodium, carbs, water intake, DOMS, inflammation, the list goes on. People mistakenly think they lose or gain weight when they eat more or less because of these fluctuations

    The scale is a trend tool. The scale is good but put it away and only check once a week and only use it as a trend tool, the same with other metrics. Take front, side, and back progress pictures at least once a month. You will see differences that the metrics won't tell you and it's that little bit of NSV that will keep you going until the next victory.

    I ignore exercise calories anyway so the exercise log is just to track time spent exercising for me. Exercise calories are highly over rated. You can't exercise away eating too much food. I learned this the hard way most of my life running marathon after marathon (and lifting) and not being able to lose weight and in fact continued to gain year after year. And I don't pig out, binge, snack mindlessly, eat out of boredom, etc, but the portion sizes are too big for a small person like me. (well I wasn't small when I weighed over 170 lbs at 51'0"!)

    Anyway I found what worked for me was separating out the two things:

    Eat less to lose weight
    Exercise to maintain or build lean body mass
    end of story.

    I found just ignoring all the complicated stuff everyone throws at us is the key. Day in and day out focus on two things. Eat lless, move more, stay within calorie budget (either weekly or daily). You can eat low one day and high the next, whatever you want. Well, it did work for me. I am the fittest, leanest, strongest, and most muscular I've ever been in my life at age 51 and I'm healthy and don't get sick and have long endurance.

    Not according to "The Reverse Taper Diet " :

    The Theory of Fat Availability:
    •There is a set amount of fat that can be released from a fat cell.
    •The more fat you have, the more fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
    •The less fat you have, the less fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
    •Towards the end of a transformation, when body fat is extremely low you
    may not have enough fat to handle a large caloric deficit anymore.

    At the extreme low end, when your body fat cannot ‘keep up’ with the energy deficit
    you've imposed on your body, the energy MUST come from SOMEWHERE. This is
    when you are at risk of losing lean body mass during dieting (commonly referred to
    as ‘starvation mode’). This happens at extremely low levels of body fat, under 6% in
    men and 12% in women [Friedl K.E. J Appl Phsiol, 1994].

    Oddly enough, it seems as though some obese people have an unbelievable amount of fat available as a fuel, but a lower ability to burn that fat, whereas as they get leaner, they have less and less fat available as a fuel, but a greater and greater ability to burn the fat they do have. So at extreme levels of leanness, it is the fat availability that limits a persons ability to lose fat.


    If you have a lot of body fat reserves you would be surprised at how little you can eat (unless you have emotional eating issues or disorders). The leaner you get the less your body has to draw from and then you have to taper up your calories. There is no such thing as starvation mode for women over 12% body fat or men over 6% body fat. I am a living breathing example of that. I went from obese to now under 12% BF and I've maintained for one year and built muscle the whole time. You don't BUILD muscle in starvation mode, so I proved everyone wrong.
  • lydt5880
    lydt5880 Posts: 90 Member
    So i upped my cals to 1630 per day and the scales are finally budging. It is only a tiny loss but it is moving in the right direction! I am also taking weekly photos and measurements of myself so I can celebrate NSV too. :)