For Newbies: Ditch the scale! page 7

**Hazy1966** · 01-25-2012, 02:43 PM

Thanks Griff.

I'm a newbie here (but a lifelong trainer).
I joined the forum with a couple of nagging questions, but it seems I no longer need one of them answered. Thank you for the concise, easy to read post.

Hazy

**Rattybag** · 02-19-2012, 02:40 AM

Im starting to understand now and lose the habit of a lifetime of weighing myself every day! Its a hard habit to break!!
I did however, get my bodyfat, muscle mass measured via the Kinetik machine and this has got me puzzled.
According to the machine, my bodyfat% is 26.1 which is about right for my height - maybe a fraction high, but my muscle mass% comes out at 69.8!!
Surely that cant be right can it? sounds like a body builders muscle mass!
What should this be in average? Im 140 lbs, 50 years old and 5ft 4" tall.

**kcarol** · 03-01-2012, 04:15 PM

I don't mind +/- 5 lb fluctuation. I do mind when the +/- 5 lb fluctuation begins trending upward. So I weigh every once in a while. My weight recently began fluctuating between 184-189, when it's usually 170-175. So...yeah. Lord knows that ain't muscle.

I appreciate the intentions of Griff's post. Just keeping a smart eye on the scale (with proper context) works for some, doesn't work for others.

**BygoneCat** · 03-02-2012, 08:45 AM

Ah, the scale of good and evil....I haven't thrown the scale out, but I moved it to another bathroom that I don't use because hubby still wants it in the house. I am on day 2 of my scale free life. Today, I am trying to pay attention to how I feel. I am aiming for weighing myself no more than once a month. If I get to the end of my first Whole30 and I feel good about how I feel, I might not weigh myself. It's a hard addiction to break...Why do I care? It's a lifetime habit, just like thinking the number of calories is important and the food itself isn't.

**kcarol** · 03-06-2012, 08:56 AM

The water replaces fat in your cells during fat loss, OMG, it's true! Look:

"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. "

**DavidR** · 03-08-2012, 01:08 PM