salt/water/waste weight - simple explanation

[BrightAngel]

Hi Everyone.

When the Scale is used properly and taken for what it is,
it is a very useful tool for weight management.

But many people allow the scale to do more than measure the total weight of all their various parts.
Somehow they allow it to define who one is as a person,
and to determine their own self-worth.
That is just reading way too much into this single-purposed tool.

For those interested in weight measurement,
This site contains a simple explanation of the salt/water/waste issue.
Check it out.

http://www.net33.com/thin/measuringweight.htm

[Nichole]

Thank you for that but unfortunately I'm still confused.

[BrightAngel]

Someone just called to my attention that the
above cited simple salt/water/waste explanation
is based inside a pro-ana site.

Sorry about that.
I failed to check out the entire site before posting.
It's still a good article.

[Nichole]

Pro-ana meaning pro-anorexia?? Wow, I didn't know that those kind of sites or orgs existed!

[jessdr]

Wow, the rest of that site is SCARY!

[Nichole]

http://www.net33.com/thin/anorexiagood.htm


THIS is scary.

Yes, we've been conditioned to believe that low weight levels are "unhealthy" and the only way of avoiding starving to death is to be force-fed until we're fat. Luckily, that's not true.

One of the characteristics of anorectics is a need to control, and that fits me perfectly. I realized early on that I had to be able to control every aspect of food in my life, even if it meant changing my entire lifestyle, which it did.

Anorexia Nervosa comes in two varieties, and one of them is "restriction" - which is "calorie restriction". Interestingly enough, if you look up "calorie restriction" on google, you will find TONS of stuff, and it turns out that it is the ONE AND ONLY thing ever discovered that slows aging and extends lifespan in every single animal, bird, lizard, worm, etc., that it's ever been tested on.

So if anorexia nervosa is calorie restriction, and calorie restriction is the healthiest diet in the world, what's the problem?


We don't take the time to learn how it should be done, and
We want instant results, but it takes a little longer to do it right.


Well, I figured out how to do it right, and 30+ years later, I'm still anorexic, thin, happy, healthy, and you couldn't PAY ME enough money to change. I'm healthier than ANY of my normal-weight friends.

Also interesting: hardly anyone in the world has strong enough willpower to maintain a diet of calorie restriction. But guess who has a LOT OF WILLPOWER concerning food? Anorectics. We can do what the general population can't do - we can follow the healthiest diet on this planet. In fact, it's much EASIER than the bingeing / purging / fasting / 2468 that we're doing now.

For me this was a lifetime commitment - it's a diet and it's a lifestyle.

It doesn't make much sense... if she's healthy, doesn't that mean that she's NOT anorexic?

[anndelise]

I'm posting this here because this thread refers to using the scale as a tool.

One of the best ways of using the scale as a tool is to ignore the daily up and down differences and look at the overall trend. An excellent program for this is the "Hacker's Diet" tracker. The tracker is a web based program that tracks the overall trend of weight measurements.

An example:
I restarted my weight tracking on...lol, last friday, a week ago.
I discovered the No S Diet on Saturday evening. Sunday was a non-idiot S day, and Monday was a red day because I hadn't had anything prepped for morning meals (so we had cereal), the rest of the day was a NoS day.
I'll list my daily weight measurements followed by the tracker's calculated trend.

Date:___Morning___Trend
Fri 22:___198.8____198.8
Sat 23:__199.4____198.9
Sun 24:__198.8____198.9
Mon 25:__198.8____198.8
Tue 26:__196.6____198.6
Wed 27:__196.2____198.4
Thu 28:__197.0____198.2
Fri 29:___195.4____198.0

If one just looked at the morning weights, it shows an up and down movement. If someone's emotions are tied to the morning weights, then sat (+.6) and thu (+.8 ) would have been downers for them. But if the attention moves over to the trend weight, the only increase was sat (a mere +.1) all the other weights, including thursday's, helped to bring the trend weight down. So even though thursday's daily increased, it was still a weight decrease.

The trend weight is basically the average of the past 10 or so weights. Any daily weight that is under the trend weight is still pulling the trend weight down, regardless of how it compares to it's consecutive days.

If I were to communicate my weight reduction to someone else, I would base it on the trend weight and NOT the daily weight. In this case I would say something like "since I started the NoS Diet almost a week ago, my weight has reduced .8 lbs." (referencing the trend weight) But after this weekend's S days, it might just be a -.6 lbs trend. That'll be ok, cuz it'll still be a reduction from when I started.



HOWEVER.....
weight measuring is only a tool. There are other tools.

Body size measurements. I'll be measuring my waist, belly, and hips each month. I measure each spot three times during the same time frame and keep the average of those. For example, waist is measured three times, belly measured three times, hips measured three times. Then I mark down the average waist measurement, average belly measurement, and average hip measurement. This way I hope to reduce the accidental pulling the tape too firmly/loosely and get a hopefully more accurate measurement.

Measuring weight's not that informative when one is building muscles. But measuring body parts over time can help track fat reductions.

Another measuring tool is tracking body fat percentage using calipers or an electronic device. The trick is to use the same device each time. The focus here is not on accuracy, but on showing a trend based on that device's idiosyncracies.

And yet another way is to just note the feel and fit of certain clothes over time.

Or blood work measurements.
Or resting heart rate, and/or recovery time.
Or mood tracking.
Or any other physiologically or emotionally based focus/awareness.
Or, just as simple as tracking green, yellow, and red days.



For myself, my primary focus is on my little pocket monthly calendar and coloring in green, yellow, and red days.
A secondary focus is the weight trend. Mainly because it's an easy way of communicating the changes without having to go into an explanation of the red/yellow/green days.
Weight trend may or may not be replaced with body measurements when I begin incorporating strength building methods such as shovelglove.


Each person may or may not choose to track anything.
Some people don't like playing with numbers, some people do.
What method (if any) that works for one will likely NOT work for all.

But yeah, if one IS going to use the scale as a tracking method, then there are things to keep in mind (ie salt, water, waste weight), and less emotionally influencing foci (ie over-all trend).


(edited to add the tracker's link: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/online/hdo.html )

[anndelise]

oops, i just saw that this thread's turned into being about anorexia, so now my previous post doesn't quite fit in anymore, lol.

[BrightAngel]

It doesn't make much sense...
if she's healthy, doesn't that mean that she's NOT anorexic?

After reading the entire site, I received this impression.

The author of the site has a long suffered from an Anexoric Eating Disorder.
However, while she may not have been able to correct the psychological aspects of the Disorder,
she appears to have come to a form of peace with her ED,
and found a way to maintain her life and her health,
through a positive use of the personal characterics which are a part of Anexorics.

During the past 30 years, she has learned to adapt herself
to maintain her low weight level in a safe way,
and her site appears to be practical instructions to other Anexorics
on how to keep their eating disorder from destroying their health,
or ending their lives.

I've done quite a bit of research on Eating Disorders of all types,
and learned that both in-patient and out-patient treatment of Anexoria are satistically quite unsuccessful,
so. . .because of that. . .
I admire the fact that this person has found a way to improve her life,
and is trying to help others do the same thing.

[BrightAngel]

I'm posting this here because this thread refers to using the scale as a tool.

This is an excellent post, and exactly what I meant this Thread was to be about when I started it.

The "anexoria" turn it took was quite unexpected,
but probably beneficial to us all,
giving us a way to look at people with Eating Disorders in a more positive way.
After all. . . it IS a disease,
and most of us don't judge and put down people with diseases,
"Look how sick they are, and how much better than them I am"
telling other people with various illnesses
Exactly why their behavior and their methods of recovery suck.

I'm hoping this tread doesn't turn into one of THOSE.

[TigerCrane]

It sounds like she's actually advocating a pretty healthy diet. She suggests a 200 calorie deficit...that's good slow weight loss.

Definitely her lifestyle is weird and spartan...dry tuna and dry oats...ick!