Losing weight vs. gaining muscle

[boonie stomper]

Re: Losing weight vs. gaining muscle

I started at 149 and am currently at 137. Here's my question. When you start gaining muscle and the scale will show a weight gain (since the scale can't decipher between fat and muscle and everything else)...how is it that you get down to your goal weight (in my case of 125)? I've never been good at math...so I'm hoping someone can explain to me how this works. I know that you continue to lose inches even if you are gaining muscle. So let's say at 137, next time I step on the scale the scale says 139 (but I'm losing inches, so I assume its muscle that's making the numbers)...do things even out and you eventually start losing on the scale? I'm not a slave to the scale, I only weigh twice a month. I jsut thought I would ask, is my goal weight of 125 not going to happen if I'm gaining muscle, or do I still understand math about as well as I did in 5th grade??

Aside from all the good posts preceding me in response, can I ask what is your current hieght? Frame type (ie., large/med/small bone size) and your current muscle status and tone? You don't have to answer; just consider that 2 alternates of yourself could be heavier than you at the same weight, and be bigger, flabbier and less healthy, or on the other hand, smaller, stronger, and more healthy.



A final note, never take any one reading of the scale as gospel. Numbers normally fluctuate wth various non-fat-loss-related circumstances. And, if you're basing your expectation on how once you 'felt' you were at your ideal, don't assume that will apply as you age. Your body's ideal will reveal itself, but it may not be the same as you may have thought in the past. We change as we age, aswell as do our perceptions of ourselves.

[Condor]

Re: Losing weight vs. gaining muscle

Hi Elizellen

My grandmother used to tell me when I was young that 'white' foods such as bread and potatoes etc. were for fattening you up when food was short (during WWII) so in an age when food is plentiful they should not be eaten on a regular bases. She also used to say that if you ate more of the fat that came with meat and buttered your veggies then you would not be hungry again for a long while. Whether she was right or wrong to drill this in when I was only about 5 is debatable but it worked.
I first did what we know as the Atkins diet when I came to Bermuda with my husband in 1995, it was all the rage here and I lost 35 pounds which I managed to keep off.
I previously lived in London for 20 years but orignally I hail from Berkshire, I am 43.
I really miss the supermarkets in the UK esp. Waitrose which has the best sausages and fairly low carb!