Debra mentions in a comment to this Quilters' Lounge post that this week she had, as they called it at my WW meetings, a negative weight loss, and it was suggested she wasn't eating enough. I've heard this before, and I just don't get it. The Basal Metabolic Rate of a reasonably healthy human woman requires approximately 14 calories per pound just to maintain respiration, heart beat, and brain function. Debra has been keeping her calorie intake at about 1200 calories per day, so unless she weighs 85 pounds and does nothing but lie in bed, she should have lost something. But Debra DOESN'T lie in bed, and she DOESN'T weigh 85 pounds, so what gives? Does she switch off at night, requiring no calories for 8 full hours? Doubtful. Is she being force fed drawn butter while she's sleeping? I doubt that too. If Debra weighs 170 pounds and wants to lose 2 pounds per week, according to this site, she's doing everything exactly right.
The recommendation from WW that she eat MORE has never made sense to me. Food is fuel, measured in calories. If you ingest more fuel than you expend, you store the excess as fat. Kinda like buying 25 gallons of gas when your car has a 15 gallon tank - the rest goes straight into (onto) your can.
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If there was just one thing I learned with my weight battles through the years that I'd like to share it would be - don't measure your success by the scale alone!!!! After loosing a lot of weight about 10 years ago, I hit a really bad plateau - everyone at work kept telling me I looked thinner, but that WW scale kept telling me I was the same. Week after week, I paid my money, followed the program to the T, but didn't see the scale move. Bottom line, I got so discouraged, I gave up and the pounds started piling on again. Measure your success by how your clothes fit, if you made good food choices, if you didn't snack while preparing dinner, but please don't measure it by the scale alone. Remember, the scale is just a number - I wouldn't care if the scale said I weighed 250 pounds if I was able to wear a pair of size 12 jeans!
Of course the scale is just an indication. I understand that. What I *don't* understand is how consuming fewer caloires than you expend can result in anything but fat loss.If the body requires 1500 calories for basic metabolic function, consuming 1200 would result in a 300 calorie deficit, and as a result, 1 pound loss every 12 days. Eating more doesn't change that basic math. Does it? I'd love to have someone explain that "you're not eating enough" logic to me, because I sincerely don't get it.
I don't get it either. I have not been depriving myself at all of the "good" foods this week. I have been sticking to the zero point value foods and they don't seem to be adding up to 1!
I do know that I have to increase my activity. Period.
My guess is that my body thinks it is not going to get another meal so it is refusing to budge off its calorie intake. I think once I increase activity, it won't have any choice but to burn calories and I will see a reduction in weight.
I think.
the gain may be due to fat turning to muscle...muscles weigh more than fat and if you increase your activities, you are gonna be getting more muscles...to tell if it is muscles, you need the kind of scale I have that measures the amount of body fat...
If the human body worked like a straight math equation, you're right, a calorie deficit would always result in a weight loss. But the body is a biological organism and has the ability to CHANGE its metabolic rate. One person's basal metabolic rate may be 1500 calories a day, while another person, the same height, the same weight, but who has more muscle, will require 2000 calories. Another person with less muscle will only require 1200. This is why in the long run low calorie diets *alone* do not work -- our body wants to remain where it is and will actually work against our weight loss efforts to keep us there. Bottom line -- try eating more for a few days, or varying the point amts. each day, and see if it works!
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