So, I keep hearing how when we are not losing wt, we are losing inches...I dont understand how we lose inches, when we are not losing weight??....I also dont understand how we dont lose weight when we are not eating calories, it seems to defy everything I know about losing weight...calories in and calories out...Know I hear sugar alchohols can stall weight loss?? How, if we are only eating 800 calories a day...I dont get it....Can someone please clarify this for me if you understand it...thanks so much...

Your body goes into"starvation mode". It's daily needs severely drop- akin to the feast or famine days. The inches vs pounds thing is a part of your body converting fat into muscle-(well sort of- fat goes away and muscle grows from amino acids and protein intake. )

Muscles weigh more than fat-and have less bulk than fat. So you lose inches but don't lose weight as your body grows muscle.

Does that sort of explain it?

And calories in vs calories out doesn't always work. That's why diets only work for a while. That starvation mode and metabolism change really impacts it.

I have been on a plateau for at least 6 months, hovering around 160. I have finally started losing weight again. Measured 155 this am. Journaling my food, playing with exercise, taking my vitamins ( which I had gotten lazy about and had my vitamin d drop. ) vitamin d appears to be one of the big secrets for successful weight loss. Imho.

I will try to explain it. Lets start with not losing weight and not enough calories.

Many many years ago people had to hunt for their food. They would gather as much as they could before winter because the winter time was lean times. Our bodies learned to hold onto weight during those lean winter times. If they lost weight during those times they would eventually die. So fast forward to today. Our bodies believe when we cut calories we are in lean winter times. So it holds onto the fat and weight with the idea of protecting and saving your life. It does not want you to starve to death. Since we all know we no longer have lean winter times and food is plentiful we have to have patience during our starvation times. When your body more specific your brain realizes we are not starving it starts to lose that weight. Increasing calories will help jump start it.

Now on to your second question - how we lose inches and not weight. I don't have a scientific answer for it. However I would bet money that DL does have articles on it. My doc did say that this was the way it works. If I had to guess I would say it had to do with our bodies catching up to what has been happening during the weight loss. Also working out helps to sculpts our bodies. I have been losing and gaining the last five pounds for several months, but everyone keeps saying I am losing weight. I keep telling them no my weight is stable, but I believe that I am still losing inches as my clothes are fitting better and better.

I hope that helps a little. Hopefully DL will chime in with articles!

thanks everyone for taking the time to explain...it does help, still not sure completely...how about the sugar alchohols..why do they stall wt....are net carbs a misleading theory? does this mean no more protein bars?

I am stuck on 5lbs also. I can see from my clothes fitting looser and people telling me how skinny I look. I hate the stalling part. I do believe if some days you take in more calories than other then that gets your weight moving, also exercise works too. I have been stuck between 185lbs and 190lbs. sad

How we lose inches when we are not losing weight - muscle vs. fat. Rapid weight loss is the result of your body metabolizing fat - body measurements are shrinking. High Protein diet promotes the addition of lean muscle - one pound of muscle is considerably smaller (less volume) than one pound of fat. So you can reach a point where the "weight" of the fat being metabolized by the body is equal to the "weight" of the muscle being added by the body = no weight loss. But one pound of muscle has less "volume" than one pound of fat = inches are being lost even though weight is stable.

Sugar alcohol - I know that stalls are sometimes attributed to consumption of sugar alcohol. There are some that believe a more likely cause is the higher amount of carbohydrates commonly found in foods that contain sugar alcohol. Here is a link to one of the better articles that I've read on sugar alcohol. It does a good job of explaining what sugar alcohols are and their pros and cons.

http://www.ynhh.org/about-us/sugar_alcohol.aspx

I'm off to jury duty. You guys have a great day!

Thank you DL, I think I finally got it...gonna go look at the link on sugar alchohols....thank you every one for you imput...it all helped bring it together for me...xxxx

Whoa friends! Thanks for sharing all this info. And for this question. I was also wondering about it and now i understand a lot better! Man, i love this forum so much. All of you, so much!!