posted February 10, 2011 09:52 AM            

I hate it, I step on the scale and it's been the exact same weight for almost 3 weeks and it's very discouraging! However, my clothes are getting kind big so I suppose I'm losing fat.

I dunno if it's my cycle or water weight or what

So my question to LL family is; has anyone ever experienced this? What do you usually do?

I'm tempted to throw the scale in the damned garbage and buy a new one later LoL, sounds irrtional but I don't need to be discouraged right now, I need to stay in a positive mindset if I want to reach my goal and the scale clearly isn't my friend.

I welcome all advice and input!

posted February 10, 2011 10:53 AM            

Yet went down two sizes.
So either it was water weight or evil scale because my clothes are getting baggier.

It is plateauing....
just keep going.
I have found that measuring once a month and getting a size smaller outfit, and try squeezing into it helps, until yippe,
I can fit in it,
even when the scale says no weight loss!

{{{hugs}}}
You'll make it!

posted February 10, 2011 11:16 AM            

I figure at this rate of me shrinking I should be a 13-14 by Summer, can't complain about that.

I heart you

posted February 10, 2011 11:18 AM            

Besides muscle weighs more than fat - so you can appear thinner but weigh more.

Keep up the good work and don't be discouraged.

posted February 10, 2011 11:21 AM            

You're doing just fine. Maybe you've been exercising and gained muscle. The scale is not the only means of measuring progress. You're making over your body. You're losing inches in places that matter.

There are SO many techniques in this book, you'll feel tremendously inspired.

EDIT: Hadn't seen a couple of the above posts before posting myself. I had to get my book out to see if there were any websites worth posting in it.

posted February 12, 2011 08:33 AM            

first, you will loose fat stored in the skin. i.e. you don't loose fat from the bum or the belly at first, but from the thickness of your skin

also, the right way to loose weight would be to keep the muscle and loose the fat, obviously. but to do that, patience is necessary, it takes time.

http://www.soyouwanna.com/soyouwanna-lose-weight-1427.html

check this article. lots of good infos

not always easily acceptable, but for having read similar stuff on a very serious french website, I think this article is talking much sense.

some highlights from this article.

quote:

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it isn't easy to lose weight. Your body wants to stay the way it is, and it thinks that attempts to change it are harmful. We think losing weight is simple in theory but difficult with regard to the hard work and willpower you have to put in.

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quote:

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If you go on a severely limited diet, your body will do a bunch of irritating things, such as: giving you hunger pangs, making you feel tired and sluggish, drawing the energy it needs from your muscle tissue as well as your fat, etc. Therefore, you shouldn't try to lose weight by dieting alone.

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quote:

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you need to figure out how many calories a person of your age, sex, and weight usually needs in a day (see Eat Less), subtract 500 from that amount, and follow a diet that provides you with that many calories. For example, if you would ordinarily need 3000 calories in a day, you would follow a 2500 calorie per day diet. Then you figure out how much exercise a person of your weight would need to do to burn 500 calories per day (see Exercise), and you get off your lazy ass and do it.

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quote:

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The "Basal Metabolic Rate" is the number of calories a man of that weight would burn just to keep the heart beating, the lungs pumping, etc. You would just burn your basal metabolic rate worth of calories if you slept 24 hours per day.

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quote:

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Under no circumstances should you reduce your caloric intake to fewer than 1200 calories per day.

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posted February 12, 2011 10:58 PM            

but for a little while now, I realised it didn't work anymore. I don't loose wait as I used to.

so I had a look on the web to understand how to loose some weight. and once this achieved, how to keep it like this.

what I understand is that there is a minimum of calories that the body needs. it needs it to function properly. basically, for the lungs, heart and so on to function. for a man it is roughly around 2000 calories, a little less for me. not sure for a woman. but this is the first number that one needs to know to proceed.

whatever you eat above this threshold is going to be stored by the body. and to keep it, the calories are transformed in fat. but calories aren't fat, they are energy. fuel if you prefer. but when they are transformed in fat, they become very "attached" to you. they don't want to let go. the body likes to transform calories in fat, well to a certain extent, until it becomes a problem for it. so when one is loosing weight by cutting calories too much and not respecting the minimal threshold of calories the body needs to function, the danger is that the body will not give up the fat. why would it give up what is protecting him (and protecting you) when is being deprived of newer fuel?

so the bottom line is to eat enough, and to eat a little bit of everything. by everything I mean 3 things.

as far as I understood, there is 3 great categories of nutriments. I don't know their english name, but in french it's lipides, glucides and proteines. or you can call them:

lipides: fat
glucides: sugar
proteines: meat/cereals

the first category, the fat is essential, like the oil in the car, there is a lot of friction in an engine, and heat too, so the oil you put in there helps the engine to work and prevent it to brake down because of rusting metal. fat in the body is the same, it is a sort of lube.
1 gr of fat = 9 calories
the body needs roughly 30% of this for someone who is not doing a diet. so out of the number of calories that the body needs per day to function, 30% should be lipides (again for someone who is not on a strict diet to loose weight but just wants to keep in shape, for someone on a strict diet, I suppose they need a bit less of fat and more proteines I think).

then the glucides, or sugar are like the fuel the car needs to move. no fuel... well, nothing happens. there are different sort of sugar, slow burning and quick burning.
1 gr of glucides = 4 calories
for someone who's not on diet to loose weight, their intake of sugar should be 55%

then, lastly there is the proteines, aka bricks of the body. they are your body. they are the element out of which the body is made. they are the bricks used to build it. you find them in meat, fish, eggs, and cereals. but there is different type of bricks that the body needs. and if the meat and fish and egg can contain all the different type of bricks needed to build a strong body, cereals do not have all of them, except soja which is the only one, as far as I know, that has all different types of proteines. that is why a veg child is, to me, nonsense, because without bricks, the body is sort of limited to become stronger. and I suppose adults always need proteines to regenerate the body becasue an adult who doesn't do a diet needs 15% of proteines in his daily intake.
1gr of proteines = 4 calories.

(for the record, in french, calories are expressed as Kcal, may be in the US too, I don't know.)

so, to loose weight in a definite manner, you need to take food into account. it is not a bad habit to eat, hey, I am french! I love to. and here we eat fat too. in my fridge I have a jar of goose fat to cook some meals. so food is good, and all types are good AND necessary.

this is the first part of the journey, understanding the food. the second, which goes hand in hand, is doing some exercice. from what I have read, there is more benefit to exercice more than 1/2 hour because before this time, the body doesn't burn the existing fat. but being an air sign with a virgo mars (also conjunct jupiter, for good and evil) I need to read more on that aspect of the "journey".

posted February 13, 2011 12:02 PM            

A plateau indicates your body needs a shake up. If you've been walking then incorporate a little jogging or some hills. If you've been doing the elliptical move to a stair climber for a while. Increase work out times, use heavier weights, do more reps, etc.