If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
On 5 déc, 11:33, "
wrote: On 5 déc, 10:11, Doug Freyburger wrote: " wrote: Off the point you guys are making, but two things that may make some people curious about weight fluctuation: You give two examples of why it is a bad idea to get on the scale *more than once per day. *Doing so very often tends to be obsessive behavior with irrational motives because the time scale for fat loss is month to month (not a single dieter in history likes the fact but disliking a fact does not convert it to fiction) - Getting on the scale more than once per day is wishing for that which is physically impossible. I often weight one pound less between the time I go to sleep and the time I wake up even though I did not visit the washroom. I sweat while I sleep in addition to breathing. *Sweat is water and therefor not fat. *Taking readings inside of a single day can only tell me about water, food, liquid, stuff moving through my bowels and so on. *None of that is fat and therefore no extra readings per day can possibily have a rational reason related to a program aimed at fat loss. *Of course motivation to start dieting in the first place is often an emotional decision not an objective mecdical decision. I brought the point a few years ago, and someone said the water loss is in the breathing. The second thing is that I sometimes weight one more pound after taking a shower. Did my body really suck up a pound of water? Does your scale really have an accuracy and repeatability of less than a pound? *No. *Back in junior high school science classes I remember learning about error bars and estimating the size of data errors when doing experiments. Is this no longer taught in schools? *Given the confusion two presidential elections ago when the vote in Florida came out closer than the size of the error bars I guess not. *All instrumentation has some amount of error built into its readings. I understand what you're saying. But why is that when the weight changes in those examples, it's always downwards in the case of a night sleep and always upwards in the case of a shower? If it was just a scale malfunction, then should not it be the way around at least sometimes? How many *scales will I have to try until I'm convinced that the phenomenon I'm talking about is real and not just some kind of scale malfunction?- Masquer le texte des messages précédents - - Afficher le texte des messages précédents - Or are you saying that these phenomenon are real, but there is no way I can tell if the difference is really one pound because the scale is not accurate enough? |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
" wrote:
wrote: Does your scale really have an accuracy and repeatability of less than a pound? *No. *Back in junior high school science classes I remember learning about error bars and estimating the size of data errors when doing experiments. Is this no longer taught in schools? *Given the confusion two presidential elections ago when the vote in Florida came out closer than the size of the error bars I guess not. *All instrumentation has some amount of error built into its readings. I understand what you're saying. But why is that when the weight changes in those examples, it's always downwards in the case of a night sleep and always upwards in the case of a shower? If it was just a scale malfunction, then should not it be the way around at least sometimes? How many *scales will I have to try until I'm convinced that the phenomenon I'm talking about is real and not just some kind of scale malfunction? Or are you saying that these phenomenon are real, but there is no way I can tell if the difference is really one pound because the scale is not accurate enough? That's part of my point. The scale isn't accurate to really know the difference between a pound up and the dial jiggling a little. I've seen the scale go down after sweating in a hot shower. I suspect what you're seeing isn't really your body soaking up water. Skin does not aborb water like that that I know of and while lungs do the amount of steam inhaled in a shower is far too small for a pound. At first I wondered if you step on the scale still wet but it takes a half liter of water to have a pound and there's no way I can hold that much water as droplets on my skin and in my hair. My bigger point is that because the time scale for loss is month to month not before and after a shower, there's no useful data to be gotten by stepping on the scale before and after a shower. No matter what causes the difference in the readings it's not fat. I think nearly everyone diets to lose stored fat not water. And/or they diet to lose size and pounds are merely a side effect of the size. The scale measures both fat and water and everything else because it all reacts to gravity. That's the problem - Changing water effects the scale so it's easy to think some progress has been made because the reading on the scale changed. This ends up a self defeating approach because not matter how you try to look at it water isn't fat and water loss is easily reversed into water regain for no apparent reason. Too frequent use of the scale tends to put focus on the small changes not on the trend. It's too much like listening to the static on a radio rather than tuning to a station. If there were a magic scale that accurately mesured only fat it would be far more useful to most of us than our current scales. Body fat percentage scales attempt this but they seem to be quite inaccurate in the current generations. Why would someone really want to lose water not just to see the scale drop? Wrestlers doing a weigh in. Folks with bloating issues. Those are the ones I can think of. Why would someone really want to lose weight not size and not care if the weight was fat, water or lean? Folks so heavy they have foot damage are the ones I can think of who need to lose so much losing lean doesn't matter early on. Those are the ones I can think of. But the scale doesn't just measure fat or lean. More's the pity. |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
On Dec 4, 7:30*pm, "
wrote: On 4 déc, 18:11, James G wrote: On Dec 4, 11:02*am, Doug Freyburger wrote: It's a conundrum - Folks should only get on the scale at a frequency they can handle emotionally, but folks need to know their random water retnetion swing to know how to set their maintenance swing range. *It means weighings need to be done in a way as to gradually build emotional ability to handle them. Good point. *I always forget that other people don't like to weigh themselves daily. Personally, I find myself lucky to never swing more than a pound or two, weighing myself in the morning like this. Off the point you guys are making, but two things that may make some people curious about weight fluctuation: I often weight one pound less between the time I go to sleep and the time I wake up even though I did not visit the washroom. I brought the point a few years ago, and someone said the water loss is in the breathing. The second thing is that I sometimes weight one more pound after taking a shower. Did my body really suck up a pound of water? Between transpiration (sweating) and whatever moisture happens to leave via your breath, sure. Personally, I find my acetone breath the worst in the morning. If you saw this phenomenon between meals and visits to the washroom during the day, you probably wouldn't think twice about it. Your body is still running, so you're burning up energy. Now, a pound I'm not so sure about; If I weigh myself before/after sleep, I usually see something on the order of a tenth of a pound (usually around 0.4 lbs). Doug makes good points, and it's generally inadvisable to get on the scale more than once a day. In fact, most people advocate only weighing yourself every 3 days, or once a week. As Yogi Berra said, "90% of this game is half-mental." If you let yourself get caught up on the numbers too much, you get distracted from your goal, and that leads to screwing up. But the point about scales and precision is an important one. If your scale isn't consistent, throw it away. |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
On Dec 5, 1:59*pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:
But the scale doesn't just measure fat or lean. *More's the pity. Unless you really spoil yourself and get a scale that's capable of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). You can measure your percent body fat to a reasonable degree of accuracy (I believe most are accurate to within a tenth of a percent). In particular, I have the Weight Watchers one made by Conair. I put in my age, height, and athlete/non-athlete to the scale when I purchased it, and now, I can get my weight, body fat %, water % (really interesting feature, if not totally useless), and BMI (which is just convenient. I calculate mine as a passing novelty, because I know I'll never be at the 'perfect' BMI because of my frame size.) In fact, it also does % Bone Mass, which I find fascinating. I'm not really sure what procedure it's using or how accurate it is, but it's interesting. It also tares itself every time you use it (you have to tap it, wait for it to zero itself, THEN step on), which is helpful. The scale cost ~$30 I think. I know the one I had before was manufactured by Taylor USA, and cost me about $25. But it was a bit of a piece of junk, and started showing overload errors (LOL) when I would use it. So I RMA'd it and gave it to my parents to replace their ancient spring/dial scale. |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
James G wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote: But the scale doesn't just measure fat or lean. *More's the pity. Unless you really spoil yourself and get a scale that's capable of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). *You can measure your percent body fat to a reasonable degree of accuracy (I believe most are accurate to within a tenth of a percent). Years ago these were notoriously inaccurate. Has this changed with the advance of technology? They used to use electrical resistance in the feet to estimate body fat percentage. To the extent that manages to run a current from leg to leg it still misses the belly. I played soccer in high school and to this day have muscular legs with good definition so my fat is belly and upper body - How could a scale figure that out? |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Water loss VS fat loss
On Dec 7, 10:28*am, Doug Freyburger wrote:
Unless you really spoil yourself and get a scale that's capable of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). *You can measure your percent body fat to a reasonable degree of accuracy (I believe most are accurate to within a tenth of a percent). Years ago these were notoriously inaccurate. *Has this changed with the advance of technology? *They used to use electrical resistance in the feet to estimate body fat percentage. *To the extent that manages to run a current from leg to leg it still misses the belly. *I played soccer in high school and to this day have muscular legs with good definition so my fat is belly and upper body - How could a scale figure that out? This is beginning to exit the realm of my knowledge about BIA, but I believe as long as that assumption is made (ie. by setting the athletic flag on my particular scale), the equations used (specifically, to calculate TBW and lean content; fat mass is the difference between these... %BF = (TBW - lean)/TBW ) can be adjusted to compensate for it. But it's all moot to me. I don't have this particular build, so I believe my BIA to be reasonably accurate (it is consistent with the BIA measurements I had taken when I wrestled; they introduced periodic body fat measurements to ensure people weren't losing weight too fast between matches). And what REALLY matters to me is the decrease in the values of weight and %BF. I don't really care if I happen to weigh 3lbs more than my scale is reporting. I care about the precision (consistency with self) of the scale, because I'm interested in the change in my body weight/fat. I already know the value to my desired accuracy: "too much." Further reading on BIA: http://florey.biosci.uq.edu.au/BIA/index.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv....section.25999 |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
The importance of water for weight loss | Health Game | Low Calorie | 1 | August 30th, 2006 07:44 PM |
The importance of water for weight loss | Health Game | General Discussion | 1 | August 6th, 2006 11:16 PM |
The water loss story ...!!!! | John E | Low Carbohydrate Diets | 2 | January 27th, 2005 02:04 PM |
Water: the key to weight loss | Philip Miranda | Weightwatchers | 6 | April 18th, 2004 10:22 AM |
Water-loss? | Mette | Weightwatchers | 5 | January 9th, 2004 02:57 AM |