Category: Water

When The Scales Won’t Move

Scales Are Stuck!

Do you feel the scales have “got it in for you”? Sometimes, the scales stay stuck in the same place or even go the wrong way, despite your best efforts! It can be hard not to get discouraged and to think “Why am I not losing weight” or “this is not working for me!”. It’s only a step away then to giving up the diet altogether and thinking “I just can’t do this!”.

Tips to Help

  1. Some people are slow movers, stick with it, it WILL work.
  2. It happens. Some weeks you lose a lot and others very little or you gain a bit. Try averaging it out, so if you lost 2 Kg the first week and none the second, well, that’s an average of 1 Kg a week, that’s 2 pounds a week, which is a good steady loss.
  3. Think about what else is happening with your body. For women, is it hormonal related? You may be retaining water and then you’ll have a bigger weight loss in a few days time. Are you stressed? Maybe you are constipated and holding onto a bowel movement?
  4. Are you weighing at the same time of day and wearing the same clothes? I don’t actually own a set of bathroom scales, I use my daughter’s and have no intention of stripping down to the buff in her bathroom to use them. I also don’t use the scales every day or at the same time, so I use the result as a guide. If it’s generally down over a few days, that’s fair enough.
  5. Check your body measurements. Sometimes, the weight may not go down, especially if you are also exercising, because you are building muscle, which “weighs more” (technically, is denser) than fat so you are getting slimmer, even if you weigh the same or a bit more. A quick check is to see whether your clothes are looser, if so, you are winning, even if the scales are not moving.
  6. If you think you are cheating, even a little bit, try drinking more water or eating a low calorie high fiber food, such as celery, when hunger pangs hit. “Just a little bit” DOES hurt. You can keep feeling full for longer by drinking hot drinks or making your own high fiber soup or even just making a hot savory drink with a stock cube in a pint of water or a low sodium bouillon base.
  7. Remember, while water has no calories it does have weight, so drinking a full glass of water just before you step on the scales, may affect the weight shown.

Stick With It

Sometimes our inner child gets fed up with the health kick and tries to get us to eat “just a tiny bit” or “once won’t hurt”. Remind that inner child of the health reasons you found for going on a diet or the treat you have planned when you reach your target weight or how you will feel going to an event in your new dudes!

800 Calories a Day For 8 weeks January 2017

cucumber

Cucumber

This Way Of Eating – WOE – Week 2

I started back onto this diet, the 800 calories for 8 weeks Blood Sugar Diet on 31 December 2016. I don’t bother with New Year’s Eve and all the cake from Christmas was gone, so there were no real temptations to hold me back from starting again. I knew that Christmas week had reversed the weight loss, so I didn’t weigh myself for a couple of days and was relieved to find that I was “Only” just over 1 kilogram (between 2 and 3 pounds) heavier than my lightest weight before Christmas. That meant I was back over the 70Kg weight level but not so far that it was dispiriting.

Support Group

I found a great support group on Facebook. It’s very useful to have support when you are working on something like weight loss or even weight gain or body building, come to that. Getting the support and encouragement from a positive group of people on the same journey as you is very helpful and motivating. They even have their own abbreviations and language, so that WOE is shorthand for “Way of Eating” and NSV is a “non-scale victory”, such as being able to fit into a size smaller piece of clothing. There is also a shorthand way for describing which week of the diet you are on and whether this is your first “round” or a subsequent round. It is recommended that you take a break between rounds. The group suggests that it is possible to lose 10 per cent of your body weight in each round of dieting, so that someone weighing 100 kg could lose 10 Kg over the 8 weeks. This would be great.

Weight Loss

My weight loss has not been as high since I started back onto the program, probably because I am eating more fiber but maybe not taking in enough water to move it through quickly. But I HAVE Lost just over 1 kg in weight (just over 2 pounds) and I have also lost half an inch from around my abdomen. Two victories to celebrate!

Continuing Weight Loss

I am going to buy the diet book that goes with this WOE in order to gain the most possible information for remaining healthy and losing weight quickly. Why? I don’t have diabetes but my grandmother had Type II and one sister has it. That means I may be at risk for developing it and I would rather not risk blindness, limb amputation, and nerve damage. Also, I KNOW I need to lose weight and this has so far been a very useful exercise in moving that stubborn belly fat!

Staying Hydrated

raspberry in sparkling water

Drink Your Water

Not Drinking Enough Water?

Sometimes it feels like hard work to take in enough water to keep your body hydrated, especially if you are on a diet and trying to stay off soda and other sweet drinks. Even diet drinks are not suitable for those on a diet, because the sweeteners they contain can also cause an insulin spike, just like sugar, making you feel hungry.

Water is just too … Plain!

We all know water is best. And if you are very thirsty, it is no problem to drink cool, sweet water straight down. But other times, it may seem too boring a drink, even if you KNOW you need it to avoid constipation and to bulk out the fiber so it doesn’t clog up your intestines. Milk can be constipating for some people, who may find it best to stick to water. So here are some possible suggestions for drinking down that water in ways that are anything but boring:

Flavored Water

As with anything you put in your body, check what it says on the label first. If you are tempted to buy flavored water, look to see if it contains any artificial sweeteners, if so, avoid it: those sweeteners can produce an insulin spike, just like sugar that will make you feel hungry. Make your own flavored low calorie water:

  1. Get those little herbal tea bags and pour boiling water on, wait 5 minutes and drink;
  2. Make chilled herbal tea by adding less boiling water, waiting the 5 minutes, then adding ice cubes for a cool drink;
  3. Add the teabag to cold water and leave in the fridge overnight;
  4. Add some frozen fruit from your freezer to plain cold water and leave to sit in the fridge or carry it with you in a flask to work. Raspberries work well and you can eat them afterwards for extra fiber;
  5. Squeeze half a lemon and put the peel into a large mug or jug and pour on a pint of boiling water. Leave to cool, then add the juice from the squeezer;
  6. Add a couple of slices of fresh ginger root when pouring in the boiling water to the lemon drink in number 4;
  7. Add a stock cube to boiling water and allow to cool for a savory hot drink (not for those on low salt);
  8. Use low sodium bouillon cubes in hot water for a savory drink;
  9. black tea or black coffee.

Juices

If you are not on a diet and don’t need the fiber, then try drinking juices or smoothies. There are many tasty flavors available or you can easily make your own using a juicing machine. The problem with juices when on a diet is (a) the amount of sugar they contain, especially if you make them with fruit and (b) juicing can remove the fiber in some cases, so you either need to add the removed fiber back into your drink or add extra to your drink. Adding fiber to a juice is a good way of taking extra fiber. You can make green smoothies using vegetables if you want a healthy, low carb drink.

 

Motivate Yourself To Drink Water

  1. Make up your daily water allowance in bottles and stack them on the counter. Seeing the number of empty bottles mount is motivating.
  2. If you have one large container, put a sticky flag on the side each time you drink from it, to show how the level is dropping.
  3. Award yourself a dollar every day you drink your full water allowance. Put it in a jar to watch the coins mount up.
  4. Drink little and often. Don’t force yourself to chug down large gulps infrequently.