sorry, another im not losing weight question.

cassidyamymommy
cassidyamymommy Posts: 71 Member
edited November 11 in Health and Weight Loss
ok i get it...calroies in vs. calories out. i weigh and measure everything i eat. lost about 11 pounds this month, being my first month at this again....but now my weight has gone up. i feel like i hit a wall already, but in one week i have lost 4 inches....what in the world is going on?? my exercise is wii fit, for min amount of 30 mins, but usually is closer to an hour lately.. i also noticed drastic weight loss in the begining when i wasnt exercising but just tracking food. am i gaining muscles?

Replies

  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
    11 pounds in a month? ... ...

    That is not the amount of fat you've lost.

    To begin, when you start reducing the amount of food you eat, you lose a lot of water weight. The less food to be processed, the less water needed to process it so it gets flushed out.

    If you are not lifting weights, you are not gaining muscle.

    What is happening for you is you are losing fat and water, but water weight will fluctuate depending on many factors (period, amount of food ate, amount of sodium, amount of potassium, exercise, etc.).

    However, you may be re-gaining some lost water, which will hide your fat loss.

    Example:
    Week 1: lost 1 pound fat, 1 pound water. (2 pounds!)
    week 2: lost 1 pound fat, .5 pound water. (1.5 pounds!)
    week 3: lost 1 pound fat, 0 pound water. (1 pound!)
    week 4: lost 1 pound fat, gained 1 pound water. (0 pounds oh no! Stall!)

    Keep at what you are doing. The first month will see crazy weight fluctuations sometimes.

    Log all your calories using a food scale, and be careful logging your exercise calories as they are often heavily over estimated.
  • rmyers14
    rmyers14 Posts: 14 Member
    Your body wants to maintain homeostasis by holding onto fat. You might need to make another adjustment to your over all caloric intake to continue to lose weight. I'd stick with what you're doing for a couple of weeks and if there is no more fat loss then adjust.
  • cassidyamymommy
    cassidyamymommy Posts: 71 Member
    alright, but what about the 4 inches lost?
  • melseamoo23
    melseamoo23 Posts: 1
    edited January 2015
    Inches are more important than pounds!! If you're weight training, or doing body weight exercises on the wii you're going to be leaning out with muscle by conditioning it. Muscle and fat weight the same...1pound fat = 1 pound of muscle =1 liter of water. Muscle is just more compact. So if you're seeing inches lost, your body is getting rid of excess water (which helps flush out fat as well) and starting to just be more compact muscle. In my opinion, measuring yourself is going to be a way better indicator of how you're doing. Good luck!!
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
    but in one week i have lost 4 inches.
    There's your progress. Inches are visible progress, a number on the scale is not. Do not let the silly scale mess with your head.

    I went six months without a change on my scale, but dropped a full pants size because I was still losing inches. Had I only focused on the scale, I would have called it no progress or whatever - instead I went out and bought new jeans!

    Get yourself a tape measure, take some progress photos (you don't have to share them with anyone, but they are great for visual comparison for YOU), and pay attention to how the clothes fit.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Weight loss isn't linear

    4 inches? You got this!
  • katiesalbato439
    katiesalbato439 Posts: 1
    I'm so proud of you! You'll start looking how you want soon, your weight platos in the first 1-2 months. Just changed up your exercise routine so your body doesn't get bored! Something new/harder everytime :smile:
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    The scale is evil when the numbers go up, and wonderful when they go down lol I haven't had a decent drop in a few months. But I'm now in a size 8(Aus). So it's coming off of somewhere...
  • lisaw19855
    lisaw19855 Posts: 165 Member
    I lost 8lbs by week 3 and seemed stuck around 8-9lbs lost until week 5 I've suddenly dropped again and have lost almost 12lbs. I don't know why but it seems pretty normal.
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    To understand what's going on, and for an argument about why weighing every day is more useful than doing so once a week, see the chapters "The Rubber Bag" and "Signal and Noise" in John Walker, The Hacker's Diet.
  • cassidyamymommy
    cassidyamymommy Posts: 71 Member
    I have taken pictures, and i see maybe a tiny bit of difference so far, and i notice when i am doing the exercises that my one weak ankle has gained more strength in them...i am also not as winded just going up the stairs in my house. so i guess success comes in all shapes and sizes lol
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    To expand on my earlier point: the fact that your weight has gone up from one week to the next is probably just a simple fluctuation due to retaining more liquid or solid waste than usual, for whatever reason. I had surgery earlier this month, and between the antibiotics, the sedative, and the inflammation from the trauma, I gained about 5 pounds in a week. I know that I did not eat an extra 2800 calories a day! It was all water weight (well, some extra solids—I had not known that narcotics cause constipation...).

    If you've lost 11 pounds in a month, you're clearly doing things right; just keep doing them. The point of daily weigh-ins is that they make it obvious how much your weight fluctuates; if you also track the exponentially smoothed moving average, as John Walker explains how to do, you'll see that as long as your daily weight is usually below the average, you're losing weight.
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