OK Lisa,
You have made me want to get up and move around. I am gonna turn on a CD and let me and the boys run around.....

Great idea Leigh about the puppet show! I think we will do that after the running around.... LOL To calm us down!

I am gonna post a article I just found that I thought was pretty interesting. I know that no one is having too many problems with gains right now but I still thought it was pretty interesting......

If you have a few minutes to read it, check it out or skim through it.

Have a wonderful day! Off to shake around

www(dot)primusweb (dot) com/fitnesspartner/library/weight/scale.htm

Why The Scale Lies
by Renee Cloe,
ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.



© 1995-2002 The Fitness Jumpsite™
All rights reserved

Lisa,
How did you get those hearts on each side of your user name???

Just curious

Lisa- I'm glad you like the new bed. Sounds wonderful. I hope you have fun while dancing

Penny- thanks for the article - that was very interesting. A few things I knew, but not everything - I certainly learned a lot. Hmm . . . what are you saying? I need to give up weighing myself every day????

I've decided that I'll use some flexpoints for a milkshake after dinner tonight. I'm having 2 shrimp fajitas for dinner. Boy we eat a lot of Mexican food, don't we?

Wow, I can't believe how busy this thread is! Thank u everyone for making me feel so welcome. I think this is just what I need. It's so nice to know that I'm not alone in this, and that there r others who understand what I'm going thru. Most of my friends just don't get it. It's all so simple for them...just don't eat as much. Well DUH!! lol
I've been going to Weight Watchers on and off for about 5 years, and I lost 75lbs all up. Now, I want to lose the 35 I gained since I got married, plus the 10 or so I needed to lose before that.
My husband and I really want to try for a baby, but I don't want to be fat and pregnant, u know? I mean, I know I'll get fat anyway, but I don't want to start out that way. My mother and aunt think I should just do it now and lose it all after the baby, rather than lose now then have to lose baby weight afterwards...what do u guys think?

Nikki

Oh yeah...it's 10:30am here and NO COOKIES YET!! lol...hey that's a major acheivement for me these days!!

Nikki,

You sound like you are really doing great! I think it is a personally opinion when to have a baby but since you asked....... LOL

I think you should lose the weight before you get pregnant. The more overweight you are while you are pregnant the more health risks they are. And when you are pregnant, it is not fat, in my opinion. I think there is a different between being pregnant and being fat

Congrats on the no cookies! Awesome!

Have a wonderful night!

Good evening ladies,

Oh, I would LOVE to address all of you personally tonight but I know I'll miss someone!

Di, so very sorry about your grandfather...hugs! We have a ceramic tile floor in kitchen so I have seen the same lumps .

Tanner..HAPPY BDAY GUY!! Spryng..good luck with the sale.

Ginny...Hi! Love to hear from you.

Nikki...Welcome... 2 boys, Will-3 and Tony1

Lisa...So glad you're still here. I have a name for the person who PM'd you but I won't type it here

Leigh...Congrats on the 2 lbs lost chickie!

Ricci...I HATE the 3's and I think the 2's were just practice. Grrrrrrrrrrr

Hi to everyone else! Got home around 2:30 this afternoon. Had a great visit but I'm tired from sleeping with Will last night. He didn't kick, but was hogging the bed. When I went to move him over at 3am he was soaked through so I had to hunt down a diaper that of course I left downstairs and take his wet jammies off and try to find a towel to put over the sheet all without waking the rest of the household up! Heard my Aunt up at 4:45 getting ready for work, then Tony was up at 5:45 for the day...so I was too . It was also 45 degrees this morning...hmmm, didn't summer officially start?

Crystal, have a great trip...Penny, you too!

OK, I have to get off of here. I'll check back in tomorrow. Lisa...I'll most likely join you in your challenge. I'll check it out after I get some zzzzzz's.

Will refuses to clean up...picking up the toys and putting them in a garbage bag and taking them outside had NO effect on him. He just said "bye bye toys". Any ideas? (other than killing him of course, I really don't want to go to jail)! Nite, nite ladies.

Hi everyone!

Hi Nikki, I didn't get to introduce myself yet to you, sorry, I must have missed your first post! I'm Diane, mommy to Logan and Ethan. They are fraternal twins and they will be 2 years old on July 26th. I'm doing a combination of W.Watchers and South Beach at the moment.

I agree with Penny that you should try and lose some of the weight before pregnancy. I ended up losing my first 35 pounds before I got pregant, which is a good thing because I ended up gaining over 70lbs. The pregnancy weight came off within 9 months, most of it in the first few months actually. I'm about where I was pre-pregnancy, give or take 5 pounds, but still need to lose about 20-25 more.

Thanks for all the well wishers towards Ethan's ever so large head, it was actually quite big before the accident, so it just sort of exagerates the size a bit more. lol. He seems to be perfectly fine and in great spirits. He has a nasty bruise, but the swelling had gone down a lot.

I loved the article about weighing yourself, and how deceiving it can be, it really clears a lot of things up for me.

Well goodnight ladies, I'm off to put the boys down for bed soon and watch another movie. Tonight it's The Magdeline Sisters, I'll give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down tomorrow morning. Sigh, Steve comes home on Sunday, I can hardly wait. I expect many backrubs after the he// week I've had.

cheers ladies,
Di

Good evening all!

Sorry I can't get personal tonight but I've had a very busy and hot day (even got sunburned on top of my tan!) and just got home about 30 min ago so I am beat.
But my day has been alot of fun. Sold a ton of baby clothes, most of my maternity clothes (sniff sniff ) lol my crib, toddler beds, etc. So it's been a productive day but tomorrow will be even busier because at my MIL's they are having their yearly town festival and the parade go right in front of their house and all that so it draws in lots of yard salers... so I'm looking forward to that.
But anyway, I need to get in bed. And thank you all for wishing Tanner a happy 1st b-day! I can't believe he is no longer a baby!! Maybe it's time for #4?? NOT!! LMBO!!!
ok, gotta get my butt in bed, lol. TTYL! Oh, before I forget, my WI, it was the same as last week. Which I know is because of TOM because I weighed two days ago and it was down a lb but back up today, but TOM is due to hit in two days so I'm retaining. O-well... next week will show a loss for sure!!! G'nite!

Good evening ladies!

Spryng,
I know you are having a busy weekend and it hasn't even started yet I hope you are making a ton of money! I know the feeling about selling all the baby stuff. I brought all mine to a resale shop and it was really emotional. No, it really was!

Geri,
You haven't slowed down any yourself! I am hoping you have a better nite that you had last night! Get some sleep!

Di,
I hope you and Steve have a wonderful time when he comes home Sunday. Well you had to mention the egg on the head, eh? Andrew fell against my jacuzzi tub this afternoon and got an instant black and purple egg on his head. It was horrible! And I said now I know how Di felt when Ethan fell. I hope Ethan is feeling better

Well Hunter and Nicholas stayed at my inlaws tonight and Andrew and Hubby are asleep so I have some little "me" time right now!

I will talk to ya'll tomorrow!

Good morning!
I started a new thread.......see you there.
Ginny