Confused and disheartened - I need advice!

[Kirsteen]

I am sooo confused. I have lost some lbs, and my clothes size has dropped, but my measurements on the tape are the same and my neck is 1/4" bigger than before! What is going on? Am I losing muscle/bone and gaining fat? Or could I be losing fat/muscle/bone and retaining water?? I lost 17lb in the first week, then added more fats and stalled for weeks. I then started losing slowly again, (though I lost nothing this week after upping carbs and an indulgent meal out). I cannot afford to lose any muscle or bone, because I have been almost totally bedridden for years. Since starting this diet I have been able to be up more than over the last two years, and also do a small amount of exercise in bed, which is stretching me almost beyond what is good for me, I have been crediting the drop in clothes size to that exercise (Callanetics) because I can see my body pulling in afterwards. To my eyes my midriff looks slimmer, and my clothes are more loose, so I can't understand the tape measure. I am using the same tape measure as before. Could it be that upping the fats was ill-advised? I am on the Atkins diet - could my body be resisting burning my own fat, and burning my meat and bones instead?

Can anyone offer any suggestions as to what might be happening please?

[Bru88]

Kirsteen it is common for your weight loss to slow weeks 3 and 4 on Atkins. With you being very limited on you on your movement adding the fat might not work, you might be burning the fat instead of body fat. Drop the fat for a week and see what happens. Thats the one nice thing about Atkins you do have to see what will work for you. Stay strong and watch those little cheats, they can add up quickly. Hope you and your boy friend get to go on holiday, sounds like a pretty place.....Bru
PS you have probably added muscle also which will slow the scale down, its sometimes hard to see on the tape (hard to measure the exact same spots sometimes) Best of luck...Bru

[jschwab]

Your measurements will catch up eventually. If you are like me, the bigger muscles only push the fat out. Eventually as you get leaner you will shrink. It's too early to get worried about it yet.

Janine

[M Levac]

Kirsteen, hang in there. You will slowly return to good health. You will slowly use up the fat that is stored on your body.

During this period, you will see your weight fluctuate as you lose fat and regain lean tissue. You may also lose lean tissue in the form of enlarged organs that return to normal size. Or muscle that don't need to be so large anymore to support so much weight. But since you were bedridden, I don't think that part would apply to you. Instead, I think you will regain muscle mass.

Trust your tape measure only so much. Your body changes size and weight according to what you eat, what you do and how healthy or sick you are. For instance, as you cut out carbs, you lose a lot of water. That water takes both weight and space so it's normal to lose weight and size. But then as you progress, all these changes make it difficult to keep a reliable score of what's happening.

Look at the general tendency over a long period. Not at only two measurements over a couple of days. A longer period will tell you more accurately what's happening than a couple of days so take your time.

[Kirsteen]

Thanks so much for the encouragement, everyone. Sorry for sounding so melodramatic yesterday. I've been measuring for weeks with no change, and having read all those posts saying that everyone's measurements were going down, I had began to question whether the diet is working properly for me. 'm dieting to improve my health and physical abilities, but you've reminded me that the body is a miraculous machine, so I shouldn't look for simplistic answers to complex chemical questions.

Thanks again,