Weight vs Size
Since summer, I have dropped a pants size and a shirt size, and several bra brand sizes. But when I weighed myself yesterday on a whim, I weighed 9 pounds more than I did then. I am visibly smaller than I was, but I weigh more.
This is what 208 pounds and size 16 looks like, as of Friday:
This is just one more example of why weight is not a measure of health.
I do not weigh myself often because I find that, though this may seem paradoxical, my actual weight is not a good indicator of my weight loss. Weighing myself leaves me feeling frustrated and confused.
In situations like this, people like to say, "Muscle weighs more than fat." This is true, but muscle is also very dense and slower to build in mass than is fat. And also, I have not been working out since summer. I walk about 5 blocks a day (much less than I used to), carrying a bag, and I was standing a lot in class. Every 3 weeks or so I hit the club for several hours of cardio. That's about it. Also, it's probable that I have very dense bones due to 20 years of dance and the fact that I continue to walk almost every day.
Being hypo makes the body more likely to store fat (due to insulin resistance) but I do not know how being non-hypo would influence my body's tendency to store muscle. I have also been drinking a lot of grapefruit juice, which is thought to increase insulin sensitivity, and maybe this also has an effect on fat/muscle storage ratios. I don't know.
I do know that I am significantly, visibly smaller all over my body than I was a year or even 6 months ago. I expect to continue to get slimmer. I do sometimes think of my weight loss in terms of numbers: I think I looked best when I was around 130, and so it's the number I think about when I think about a "goal weight". But moreso, I think about it in terms of size, because I think that's more consistent. I have closets full of clothes that are currently too small, and I want to wear them again. If I end up a size 6/8 and weighing 150, I can be happy with that.
I strongly urge anyone engaging in size loss to toss out the scale and focus instead on how you look and feel, and how your clothes fit. If I had been only looking at my scale for the past months, I would be miserable, but knowing I have lost size is encouraging and makes me happy.
This is what 208 pounds and size 16 looks like, as of Friday:
This is just one more example of why weight is not a measure of health.
I do not weigh myself often because I find that, though this may seem paradoxical, my actual weight is not a good indicator of my weight loss. Weighing myself leaves me feeling frustrated and confused.
In situations like this, people like to say, "Muscle weighs more than fat." This is true, but muscle is also very dense and slower to build in mass than is fat. And also, I have not been working out since summer. I walk about 5 blocks a day (much less than I used to), carrying a bag, and I was standing a lot in class. Every 3 weeks or so I hit the club for several hours of cardio. That's about it. Also, it's probable that I have very dense bones due to 20 years of dance and the fact that I continue to walk almost every day.
Being hypo makes the body more likely to store fat (due to insulin resistance) but I do not know how being non-hypo would influence my body's tendency to store muscle. I have also been drinking a lot of grapefruit juice, which is thought to increase insulin sensitivity, and maybe this also has an effect on fat/muscle storage ratios. I don't know.
I do know that I am significantly, visibly smaller all over my body than I was a year or even 6 months ago. I expect to continue to get slimmer. I do sometimes think of my weight loss in terms of numbers: I think I looked best when I was around 130, and so it's the number I think about when I think about a "goal weight". But moreso, I think about it in terms of size, because I think that's more consistent. I have closets full of clothes that are currently too small, and I want to wear them again. If I end up a size 6/8 and weighing 150, I can be happy with that.
I strongly urge anyone engaging in size loss to toss out the scale and focus instead on how you look and feel, and how your clothes fit. If I had been only looking at my scale for the past months, I would be miserable, but knowing I have lost size is encouraging and makes me happy.