Scale not budging! Am I not doing enough?

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  • 81Katz
    81Katz Posts: 7,074 Member
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    In the real world a pound is a pound is a pound. On MFP a pound of muscle miraculously weighs more than a pound of fat. When I weigh a pound of beans at home and a pound of chicken feathers, they are both 1 pound.

    Now... when I upload that data to MFP, the chicken feathers weigh much much more.
  • wamydia
    wamydia Posts: 259 Member
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    If I'm reading your post right, it looks like you just started losing weight again about a week ago and lost 8lbs right away. So I'm assuming the problem is that the scale got to the 8lb mark and then just stopped?

    This is completely 100% typical. What often happens in the first week or so of weight loss is that you cut down your carbs and sugar and your body sheds a ton of water weight. When I first started losing, I lost 11 lbs in the first week and a half. After that initial loss, your body will often need a little break to adjust to the changes in how you are taking in and using calories. Which results in the total scale stoppage and sometimes even a small gain (which also happened to me and I also panicked that I was doing something wrong). Keep exercising and eating on your plan and your body will soon start to lose weight from burning fat. When that happens, weight loss will resume but it will be at a much slower pace. You don't want to lose more than 2lbs a week from here on out as that means you are most likely burning muscle for energy instead of fat.
  • wamydia
    wamydia Posts: 259 Member
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    How could a pound of muscle weigh more than a pound of fat. A pound of anything is 16 ounces. Muscle takes up less volume than fat so that's why your body looks smaller. But a pound is till a pound.

    Amen.
  • twinsmom03
    twinsmom03 Posts: 90 Member
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    IMO I say keep doing the exercise your doing...but increase your protein and reduce your carbs! 8 pounds the 1st week is great...also drink as much H2O as you can.
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
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    Do not go by the scales as muscle weighs much more than fat. I lost over 20" a couple of years ago and never lost one pound on the scales...but my body looked great! I had turned all those fat pounds into lean muscle. You should take body measurements and depend more on that than the scale

    She's been working out a week. There's no chance in H-E-double hockey sticks that she put on any muscle mass...at all. Gaining muscle mass is extremely hard to do. You lost 20 inches and the scale never moved? At what weight, cuz that sounds really fishy and I'm sure there are professional body builders across the land that would love your secret.
  • samanthasky
    samanthasky Posts: 114 Member
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    You have days where you are not logging any food, so you're either not eating anything all day ... or you're eating whatever, just not logging it.

    Even though I don't log days I eat about the same things every day! I plan out my week meals so if its a meal for one day of the week it's probably the same for the rest!
  • samanthasky
    samanthasky Posts: 114 Member
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    Do not go by the scales as muscle weighs much more than fat. I lost over 20" a couple of years ago and never lost one pound on the scales...but my body looked great! I had turned all those fat pounds into lean muscle. You should take body measurements and depend more on that than the scale

    She's been working out a week. There's no chance in H-E-double hockey sticks that she put on any muscle mass...at all. Gaining muscle mass is extremely hard to do. You lost 20 inches and the scale never moved? At what weight, cuz that sounds really fishy and I'm sure there are professional body builders across the land that would love your secret.

    I definitely did NOT put on muscle mass! lol. I've hiked up my workout to walking the 45 minutes and an extra 45 minutes of another exercise! I'll weigh myself next Thursday!
  • samanthasky
    samanthasky Posts: 114 Member
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    Has it been a full day, or just a few hours of not budging?

    It was two days of not budging. I guess I just get obsessed with the scale. It's motivating and discouraging at the same time.
  • samanthasky
    samanthasky Posts: 114 Member
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    If I'm reading your post right, it looks like you just started losing weight again about a week ago and lost 8lbs right away. So I'm assuming the problem is that the scale got to the 8lb mark and then just stopped?

    This is completely 100% typical. What often happens in the first week or so of weight loss is that you cut down your carbs and sugar and your body sheds a ton of water weight. When I first started losing, I lost 11 lbs in the first week and a half. After that initial loss, your body will often need a little break to adjust to the changes in how you are taking in and using calories. Which results in the total scale stoppage and sometimes even a small gain (which also happened to me and I also panicked that I was doing something wrong). Keep exercising and eating on your plan and your body will soon start to lose weight from burning fat. When that happens, weight loss will resume but it will be at a much slower pace. You don't want to lose more than 2lbs a week from here on out as that means you are most likely burning muscle for energy instead of fat.

    Thank you for explaining this to me! I'm exercising more and I will try to eat more calories! Yes, I know I dont want to lost more than 2 pounds a week. But thank you!
  • montoyarenee
    montoyarenee Posts: 15 Member
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    One pound of muscle weighs the same as in round of fast. The fistprt commenter who mentioned this, bphowever, says muscle weight more than fat (not that it's a 1:1 ratio). They probably meant muscle is more DENSE than fat. Meaning that if you look at the same volume (physical size) of muscle versus fat, the muscle will weigh more even if it takes up the same amount of space. This is why lean athletes will weigh more than a person of that same physical size with no muscle. HTH

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