heidij123's Journal, 01 Sep 15

Agreed. How ever and when ever one weighs themselves, it needs to be consistent. 

frosty is quite right, what I'm you choice it should always be the same time 

well done heedji123 take every drop you can get it puts you in the right frame of mind for the next one 

Hello Heidij. I think your weight will fluctuates if you weigh yourself daily. What's important is the overall trend. I try not to weigh myself too often as there are so many other factors that affect your weight apart from what we eat. I do admire your diligence and determination and that's an example to us all. Keep going. Kind regards, Jim  

I weigh every day, as I find it helps motivation. A drop is encouraging, an apparent gain is possibly even more motivating, lol! It's just been a question of deciding when to record it on here. So I made a decision for now. It's nice to see a downward trend, and that's the main thing. I've been doing this for long enough now to know that if I'm eating within my limits, it will go down, and not to worry about occasional blips. 

And thanks folks for the encouragement! 😀 

You tend to see plateaus then a drop, with any weight loss you follow. I think your weight loss is great and a result from that holiday walking, as there is always a lag. Even though everyone these days wants instant this, and instant that, it does not change what your body wants and does. The 5:2 diet works because it can fool your body into burning off calories and is a prime example of the slowness of your body to adapt to change. Ideally you don't want a human body to rapidly change, otherwise it would be metabolising foods and expending vast amounts of energy to do this quickly. The plateau is your body way of naturally storing energy, giving up a percentage for normal activities and calorie burn time, so adjusts to that. You then start to do more, and your body starts using the conserved energy which it has in stored,and when demands are made of it, burns those calories to support the new activities. As you are clearly not giving your body enough calories to get back to the same old stored energy level, prior to your holiday, your body will try to store energy in the form of fat, because your activity is now less. This is not a bad thing, as your body does need to have fat as energy stores for any present weight. Slimming is just a carefully balanced way of reducing weight to a level that your body needs to carry less fat to store energy for your chosen weight. The goal is not to loose all fat, but to have that perfect balance of fat, for your chosen weight. :) Nutritionists and Doctors have come up with the ideal weight loss to be just 2 lbs per week, so that your body has chance to store enough fat to maintain this weight change. Rapid weight loss that is done via food alone is inadvisable and can lead to illness. 

Thanks for all that, Mindfull! Today's drop could indeed be a delayed result, but more likely from Sunday's walk. Anyway the 5:2 does seem to be working in speeding up weight loss, which had not exactly plateaued, but certainly stagnated. One net result is that my intake over the whole week is lower, but it does also seem to mean that I can have a lower intake without my body going into energy conservation mode 😀 And fasting doesn't feel bad either, now that I'm used to it and have found a way of doing it that works for me 😀 

Nice drop! Unexpected ones are more rewarding IMO. I'm glad to hear you've found a way of eating that fits your lifestyle and goals. Here's to great success. I weigh every day but record here once a week. I have a spreadsheet that goes all the way back to when I formally started my weight loss. 

I also weigh most days but just record once a week, as the scales don't tell the whole story. I also go on how my clothes fit, and how difficult the jeans are to put on lol! At the end of the day it is whatever motivates and works for you. 

mindfulbody is quite correct, the body doesn't want to lose the fat, apparently in an article I read years ago it appararently comes from caveman days when we never knew when were next going to eat and it is something we have never shaken off and it will fight us to keep it. By losing weight slowly (1.5-2lb per week is ideal) you are sort of telling the body is ok and that it can cope with as it knows it will be fed soon. So it will allow us to shed the weight. 

I agree Claire, fit of clothes is a good way to judge. Hoping I'll need a whole new summer wardrobe next year 😀 

Blimey peeps, are we beginning to sound like a broken record? If you want to know your weight accurately then, Yes weigh yourself at the beginning of every day and take averages. If you are just doing a spot check then do it weekly. The only reason you need an accurate weight would be if you want calculate your body fat percentage accurately, in conjunction with a skinfold calliper. 

Okey Dokey, Ya'll need to relax a little! Heidi this from the blind woman...first I would think you would want that line your looking at to drop not even out. But what I'm most curious about is why is it that you think it should be smooth? Are bumps bad? Just something to wiggle around in your heads. }:->  

Ha ha, good point, Spiritspell! Giles, you've obviously been here before and thought this through! For me, I had two months of slow, steady downward trend, with very few days when it went up, and then switched to 5:2, and not surprisingly, I admit, it's all over the place. So I thought I'd post it, just to record what happens, really. I'm doing some challenges that require weekly weigh-ins, so I was wondering how to handle this. Now I've decided, and I'm happy with spot weights as long as they reflect the general trend, be it up, down or steady. So I'm going to do what I said in my journal entry 😀 At the end of the day, what counts is whether I'm losing weight or not! And I am! 

At the end of the day, I think all anyone wants is to be at a healthy weight and a newer lifestyle to maintain that goal. The road may be bumpy in places, but who cares, as long as you feel good :)