I about gave up on Atkins

[madeyna]

I have been playing a no win game . Zero loss on the scales in jan. then feb. I lost on ffast then gained it back with TOM then relost some of it then regained some back a few days later so my overal loss for two months is standing anywere from 6 pounds to a 1 pound gain depending on what morning I weigh. I was thinking of ditching low carb. all together in favor of something like WW . The only reason I didn,t do it was I believe in lowcarb for health reasons independent of weight loss. Then I reread a thread about measurements . I had ment to measure after I read it the first time but forgot. Since Jan.2 I have lost 11/2 inchs off my thigh 31/2 inchs off my waist and 2 3/4 inchs of my chest and 1 /2 inch off my arm. :agree: I,m dancing the happy dance and considering running over the scales with my truck :D I don,t see how this is possible for there to be such a big diff. between the scales and the tape but I,ll take it. Because of the fat cells holding water does that mean at some point soon I will get a big whoosh? Also I have been constipated I have only gone twice in the last two weeks and that was with a laxative. The doc says it gets harder the longer it stays in your intestines. She gave me a softener but it turns out its the same one that I have been using thats not working. I am also taking 500mg magnesium but thats not working either. Any suggestions would be great. Sorry if this is too much info. read these boards at your own risk :lol:

[Nancy LC]

For constipation you need magnesium citrate or oxide in around 1000-2000mg to work. Go check what the dosage is recommended on a bottle of "Phillips Milk of Magnesia".

[JEY100]

Glad you hung in there. Good reminder to re-read first section here...."Is it a Stall?"

http://www.lowcarb.ca/tips/tips008.html

When desperate I would use an adult dose of MoM. Dr. Westman suggests using 1 tsp daily of MoM if constipation is an ongoing problem, but I found the mag citrate (800mg)pills just easier to take with other evening vitamins.

[Kirsteen]

Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing the good news. :D

[madeyna]

It sounds like I haven,t been taking enough mag. I,ll bump it up to 750 if that does,t do it 1000

[CallmeAnn]

Even if you aren't working out, the protein in this diet prevents muscle wasting and actually can result in muscle gain. Lets all repeat it together because it's just fun: Muscle weighs more than fat.

Your tape measure is your friend. It is not your scale's friend, but that's okay. Listen to which ever device loves you at the moment. :lol:
So happy you are seeing great results.

[Firefly428]

carb bloat.

I could not go back to eating carbs like the old days.

WW allows the carbs like bagels, fried foods etc. all stuff that made my gut look preggers :)

if I went my plan to something like WW, heck I would still be doing a very low carb WW anyway lol

I got no where to go. I have to just stay here and do it.

eating fried foods, chinese in moderation, bagels, breads, all that mess again will never happen for me.

would you really want to eat that stuff again?

[madeyna]

If I had chosen to go back to WW it would have been whole natural foods not processed junk. I don,t eat that way anyway my high carb. drug of choice is homemade baking. Last time I gained alot it was after we decided all our bread needed to be homemade. Heck I can eat half a loaf before it gets a chance to cool down. After 6 months of that I decided homemade may taste better and be healthier but not if your gorging yourself on it.

[Pinot-Girl]

Glad you hung in there.

And muscle DOES NOT weigh more than fat - a pound of anything is a pound of something.

Muscle is denser so you appear skinnier yet perhaps heavier if loosing fat and gaining muscle.

Sorry, it bugs me when people say that - it's incorrect.

I'll sod off now :-)

[CallmeAnn]

Glad you hung in there.

And muscle DOES NOT weigh more than fat - a pound of anything is a pound of something.

Muscle is denser so you appear skinnier yet perhaps heavier if loosing fat and gaining muscle.

Sorry, it bugs me when people say that - it's incorrect.

I'll sod off now :-)

Oh, boy, a fun semantics discussion to engage in. Seriously, I love it. If a substance is denser and therefore, reads more on the scale in equal volumes, it weighs more. I really don't think anyone here believes that a pound of muscle is heavier than a pound of fat. I can understand your frustration if you object to someone saying it's heavier. That might be more along the lines of what you are saying. If I weigh more on a scale than I did last week, and yet, I can now wear a smaller size, my muscle weighs more than my fat did. You have to acknowledge that there are substances and objects that are the same weight despite being widely different in size. That's all anyone is saying.

Now, if you want to pick on common mistakes - and I totally get why a widespread misunderstanding would make you crazy - please spell 'lose' and 'loose' properly. THAT drives ME crazy. :lol: Thanks for an opportunity to point that out.

[Pinot-Girl]

Oh, boy, a fun semantics discussion to engage in. Seriously, I love it. If a substance is denser and therefore, reads more on the scale in equal volumes, it weighs more. I really don't think anyone here believes that a pound of muscle is heavier than a pound of fat. I can understand your frustration if you object to someone saying it's heavier. That might be more along the lines of what you are saying. If I weigh more on a scale than I did last week, and yet, I can now wear a smaller size, my muscle weighs more than my fat did. You have to acknowledge that there are substances and objects that are the same weight despite being widely different in size. That's all anyone is saying.

Now, if you want to pick on common mistakes - and I totally get why a widespread misunderstanding would make you crazy - please spell 'lose' and 'loose' properly. THAT drives ME crazy. :lol: Thanks for an opportunity to point that out.

It is heavier by volume, that is different to weight. One of something is the same as one of another thing. When you make a cake, you use pounds of different things, it doesn't call for a square inch of butter, and a square inch of flour?? :-)

I've lost to your loose / lose tho, it's a typo I also don't like making for that very reason!!

[CallmeAnn]

It is heavier by volume, that is different to weight. One of something is the same as one of another thing. When you make a cake, you use pounds of different things, it doesn't call for a square inch of butter, and a square inch of flour?? :-)

I've lost to your loose / lose tho, it's a typo I also don't like making for that very reason!!

Believe me, I understand about typos. I'm an awful typist and because I care about spelling, I will re-read and edit everything. I will even go back and edit after posting. I do see it much less on here than I did on the old ASDLC, though.

As for your cake analogy, they don't actually call for weights of things. They call for volumes, i.e. a cup, a tsp., etc. I really believe that when we say on here that muscle weighs more than fat, we are imagining identical volumes of tissue. You've seen the plastic models of a pound of fat vs. a pound of muscle that are often in gyms or weight loss clinics. The plastic fat model is bigger by volume. If you give someone a chunk of scoria or pumice and also a chunk of granite, and ask which one is heavier, the person isn't going to say, the granite and leave it at that. They're going to qualify their answer and say the granite is heavier because a smaller chunk weighs as much as the big chunk of the lava rock.

Like I said, no one here really believes that a pound of muscle is heavier than a pound of fat. I will grant that we might be using some incorrect words to describe the fact but if you want us to be more correct, clue us in as to how we can be more accurate. How would you have us say it?

[Pinot-Girl]

Believe me, I understand about typos. I'm an awful typist and because I care about spelling, I will re-read and edit everything. I will even go back and edit after posting. I do see it much less on here than I did on the old ASDLC, though.

As for your cake analogy, they don't actually call for weights of things. They call for volumes, i.e. a cup, a tsp., etc. I really believe that when we say on here that muscle weighs more than fat, we are imagining identical volumes of tissue. You've seen the plastic models of a pound of fat vs. a pound of muscle that are often in gyms or weight loss clinics. The plastic fat model is bigger by volume. If you give someone a chunk of scoria or pumice and also a chunk of granite, and ask which one is heavier, the person isn't going to say, the granite and leave it at that. They're going to qualify their answer and say the granite is heavier because a smaller chunk weighs as much as the big chunk of the lava rock.

Like I said, no one here really believes that a pound of muscle is heavier than a pound of fat. I will grant that we might be using some incorrect words to describe the fact but if you want us to be more correct, clue us in as to how we can be more accurate. How would you have us say it?

In Britain, we don't use cups to measure!! That is where I'm from :lol:

I totally understand the use of the term muscle weighs more than fat, but sometimes people are not as clever as we are, and misunderstand information. On a site for weight loss, sometimes interpretation is everything....

Downwards and lighter -
PG!

[Kirsteen]

... but sometimes people are not as clever as we are, and misunderstand information.



Hehehe.. I think you might be wrong there. People are probably a bit smarter than you realise. I still say that muscle is heavier than fat, just as I'd say that a concrete brick is heavier than a polystyrene brick. I don't see it necessary to add the words "by volume". People can work that out for themselves.

P.S. I am in GB and have some recipes which call for cups.. although our cup measure is an old fashioned tea cup, rather than the larger volume of the US cup measure.