I know this has been posted about a lot...

[BreakfastSurreal]

but I have lost 19lbs since the beginning of May (16 on atkins) and can't tell at all..my clothes are fitting the same they always have...does this mean that someday soon I will get a whoosh and drop sizes? Just curious about others who were in this situation, how many pounds did you lose before you noticed inches come off? And how long did it take you?

[eireanngobrach]

are you using a tape measure? I have lost 17 lbs and I certainly don't feel like it! a few pair of my jeans are too big to wear, but they were loose fitting to start with. I was ghoping that I could break out my next smaller size and fit into it no problem, but was disappointed when it was still too small.

I have been losing inches though, I have lost about 2 of my chest ( what a shame), 6 off my waist and 3 off my hips, but my clothes are not snug, so people can only see in my face that I am little thinner...

don't get discouraged. you have lost a great amount!!!!! i wasn't seeing the scale budge for about a week around my tom and was bullshit and ready to quit, but i got through it and dropped a lot, FAST. it will happen, just keep at it and judos for how far you have come already!!

[not2late]

I agree check with a measuring tape. If you wear "stretchy" clothing like tee shirts, they will conform to your smaller bod and you won't see a difference. If you wear non-stretchy stuff, you might see a difference.

[BreakfastSurreal]

yep I haven't lost any inches yet

I'm not really discouraged yet, a lot of my weight was probably water weight...but if I get to 40 pounds down and still haven't lost an inch I will be upset! heh

[cajunthunder]

Are you exercising? That can make a major difference in inches lost. :yes

[jpierce]

If I could go back to the beginning of Jan. when I first started, I wish I would have measured myself. I think everyones different on being able to see a difference. Me and my sister went on the same time. She noticed immediately and it took me at least almost 30 b/f I could tell on myself. Now I'm at 40 and none of my old clothes fit and I'm down from a 16 to a 12 and I'm not sure when it happened. I can tell you that my sister is big boned and very well porportioned and I have a petite frame and don't carry weight well at all. I carry it in my butt hips and thighs. (Just not as much of it now). Keep working on it. You will definately see a difference.

[BreakfastSurreal]

yes, I exercise for 30 mins 5 days a week. And take vitamins. And my percentages of F/P/C are good. Maybe I need to give it some more time

[BreakfastSurreal]

If I could go back to the beginning of Jan. when I first started, I wish I would have measured myself. I think everyones different on being able to see a difference. Me and my sister went on the same time. She noticed immediately and it took me at least almost 30 b/f I could tell on myself. Now I'm at 40 and none of my old clothes fit and I'm down from a 16 to a 12 and I'm not sure when it happened. I can tell you that my sister is big boned and very well porportioned and I have a petite frame and don't carry weight well at all. I carry it in my butt hips and thighs. (Just not as much of it now). Keep working on it. You will definately see a difference.

Wow Jena you sound just like me! I started atkins at 201..I also have a very petite frame...I think...very small wrists, but broad shoulders. I carry all my weight in my butt hips and thighs too...I am wearing a size 18 right now, I think I'm the only person I know who weighs 180something and wears a size 18! Oh well it will come one day I'm sure

[**Nikki**]

I agree with Jena that you should keep on working it. I know what you mean about not seeing a difference like you should. I still see myself as fat, :geek (I got my fat goggles on). I've lost quite a bit and I look better to my family. I do know the clothes are a trip, I was wearing from the beginning tight stretch jeans who was I fooling. So, when I lost some weight, say like 20lbs. I didn't see a difference at all :no but, I just kept on doing the WOL because of how much better I felt & keeping my fingers crossed to lose the weight. From the start I measured and weighed myself, but measurements to me show you better than the scale (fluctuations). I like to measure my waist first thing in the morning every week. I do notice some of my fat cells are filling up in the day with the water, but when they get tired of filling up with water I will get the whoosh!!! Because I burned the fat in some of them. That will happen for you too! Here is an article on the Whoosh someone posted that I copied and pasted a while back: HTH

WHY THE SCALES CAN LIE:

We ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don t understand what s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

A biologist at Berkeley shared something very revealing on the low-carb BBS system about 4 years ago that helps us all through the erratic weight fluctuations you invariably encounter:

"Fat cells are resilient, stubborn little creatures that do not want to give up their actual cell volume. Over a period of weeks, maybe months of "proper dieting", each of your fat cells may have actually lost a good percentage of the actual fat contained in those cells. But the fat cells themselves, stubborn little guys, replace that lost fat with water to retain their size. That is, instead of shrinking to match the reduced amount of fat in the cell, they stay the same size! Result - you weigh the same, look the same, maybe even gained some scale weight, even though you have actually lost some serious fat."

This is what we have been telling folks. You lose inches but not pounds because your body plumps the fat cells. I tell them it is a complicated biochemical process that your body replaces the fat molecules with water and fluids until you exceed your bodies predetermined fluid level. Then your body will release a chemical that releases all this stored water and you get a sudden overnight loss of several pounds. Then the cycle starts over again with inches gone and the scales lag behind.

The good news is that this water replacement is temporary. It's a defensive measure to keep your body from changing too rapidly. It allows the fat cell to counter the rapid change in cell composition, allowing for a slow, gradual reduction in cell size. The problem is, most people are frustrated with their apparent lack of success, assume they have lost nothing, and stop dieting. However, if you give those fat cells some time, like 4-6 months, and ignore the scale weight fluctuations, your real weight/shape will slowly begin to show.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That s why, when it comes to eating, it s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it s associated water. It s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It s the actual weight of everything you ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale s sneakiest attribute. It doesn t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn t necessarily mean that you ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you re just sitting around. That s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn t differentiate between the two. It can t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn t appeal to you, don t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It s a matter of mind over scale.

by Renee Cloe,
ACE Certified Personal Trainer

[Katy1234]

Hey Breakfast! :wave

I have had the same experience, but I have decided that I must have been a bigger size than the clothes I was wearing - I think I must have streched out my clothes, because I haven't gone down any clothing sizes and it really is bugging me. :raving

30lbs gone and I am still in a UK 20 (Somewhere between 16 and 18 American depending what store!!!) :confused

I think we just need to hang in there and hope for the best - looking at the pics on the before and after forum helps me because I figure if it happened for them it's sure as heck gonna happen to me so long as I persevere!! :guns

Keep the faith in the good drs woe and something will happen :hug

Katy xx

[not2sweet]

When I first started the end of January and lost my first 20 pounds, I got discouraged too because nothing changed except the numbers on the scale. I was probably at 30 or 35 pounds lost before I started seeing my clothes get baggy. But once they did it was consistant.

Don't get discouraged you're almost there! And I am in the 180's and in a size 18 in things that button and zip (I carry most of my weight around the middle), and a 16 in elastic waisted things.

Keep your chin up it's getting ready to happen for ya! :hug

[not2late]

Don't get discouraged. No one noticed how much weight I lost until I lost 40 pounds. :yikes

[jpierce]

It's sounds like were all saying the same things. Some people notice right away and some people take longer. But there is no arguing the fact that whether you notice or not, your still down in your weight. It's gotta be coming off somewhere whether you can tell or not. Just keep up the great work and take pics if you can. I LOVE to see these pics of everyone sometimes it's easier to tell when you look at yourself that way instead of in a mirror.

:hug

[love2beeamom]

I did not notice a difference for quite a long time.. And I had lost about 40-50 pounds before others started noticing.. It will happen, just be patient, and keep up the good work!

[cajunthunder]

I posted in another thread that I am wearing size 14 misses now in bottoms and mediums/large in tops, depending on how they are made. I weigh 198 lbs right now, and I exercise daily, including working out with a trainer 2 days a week (had to cut back from 3 days - $$$)

I was thinking back to about 10-12 years ago and I wore size 14s and 16s when I weighed in the 160-170s.

The difference? Exercise. And no it doesn't happen overnight - it takes time. It can make a world of difference in your body as you lose the fat and I'm walking proof of that. The scale says one thing, but my body is saying something else. Yes, seeing the scale go down is really nice, and I am thrilled that I'm finally in Onederland, but it's the major changes in my body that are the best reward. :joy

I am going to try and get a picture today to post, but I've always hated having my picture taken. :tounge