Why am I losing inches and not weight?

[Aleria]

So first, some background. I started No S as my first diet, ever, in January. My main goal is to lose inches, so I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering the reason. I eat mostly good food, but definitely could use to be a bit more balanced towards protein and veggies. I don't pig out on S days. My weakness is probably caloric drinks, and I'm working on getting those under control. I started doing 2 hours of Aikido - basically cardio - three times a week, at the beginning of September.

I'm 5'2", I walk a lot and always have, since I grew up in a town were there was very little to do, I'd just go walk in the woods. Now I walk to the store and between classes on my very large university campus and go on mild hikes on weekends. I have muscular legs and a relatively broad frame (36" ribcage under my bust), but I definitely have padding here and there, along with very definitive curves

But this brings me to my question - Why have I lost 6" off my waist with only the change of the No-S diet and the very recent addition of Aikido, while not losing any weight? My friends and family are telling me it is simply changing to muscle, but as none of them have any real knowledge in nutrition, fitness and health, I take their opinions on this with a grain of salt. I would like to know what you, people whose journeys towards health have involved much more time and research than mine, think. Mainly out of curiosity. If I can get the body shape I'm looking for without losing any weight, I'll still be happy. But the student in me can't help but wonder why.

[levictoria]

Wow. six inches is a HUGE difference to not see anything on the scale. Here's a couple of thoughts...

1. Are you working out differently than you were before? You may have lost fat pounds and gained muscle pounds.

2. Did you change scales? Is your scale on a flat surface?

3. Did you weigh yourself at different times of the day? Different times of the month?

4. Did you take your measurements at the same time of the month?

You know how us women are... hope that helps!

[Aleria]

1. Are you working out differently than you were before? You may have lost fat pounds and gained muscle pounds.
Just the Aikido, and as said that is only cardio and only in the last two months. I'm still walking about the same amount, I'd say. I don't lift weights or anything of the sort.

2. Did you change scales? Is your scale on a flat surface?
No, same scale. I'm assuming it's a flat surface.

3. Did you weigh yourself at different times of the day? Different times of the month?
Always in the morning, but yes, different times of the month. I do not own a scale, and only weigh myself when I go to visit my grandparents & parents. When I was visiting them over the summer it was consistently at around 165 but before and then now afterward it's been 155-160

4. Did you take your measurements at the same time of the month?
I don't know honestly XD but as I'm a seamstress I've measured myself quite a bit for making things. Also a lot of my clothing is fitting a lot looser, even things I've custom made to fit me in order to pull in my stomach a bit are 2-3 inches too large from when I made them in August.

[vmsurbat]

A few thoughts:

1. Yes, you probably have been changing some fat pounds for muscle pounds. I'm the same height as you and when in college (long, long ago) I had a roommate who was also my height and weighed 15-20 pounds more than I did but had a better figure--she was much more active and fit. Although heavier with muscle, she was more trim and lean than I was.

Also, in my own experience with NoS, I added regular exercise (walking with a pedometer) after about a year (and losing 30 pounds). My rate-of-pounds lost has slowed, but I've continued to measure smaller even after periods of no weight loss.

2. When you began NoS and improved your eating habits (even if they aren't yet where you'd like them to be), you probably lost some "bloating" inches. Some kinds of food (esp. salty snack foods) can make one a bit puffy...

3. From what you wrote, I think you HAVE lost weight. You stated (I'm paraphrasing here) that you averaged 160-165 and now average 155-160 when you weigh. That means you've could have lost about 5 pounds of fat! (and probably did).

Keep up the good work!

[Aleria]

The bloating inches is an interesting idea. I didn't eat a ton of snack foods before No-S but I rarely eat them now, so it's a possibility.
Basically my graph looks like this:
January-April: 155-160, 39-34"
April-August: 165, 36"
October: 160, 33"

In the summer I was not following No-S due to being at my parents' house, where meals are not at regular times and there is too much delicious baking to resist.

[kwidener7]

Even if Aikido is mostly cardio, you are still using muscles and are therefore building more muscle. And it is certainly different muscle than what you use for walking. I mostly run and cycle and have put on more muscle (even in my arms), without doing much lifting or strength training. Do you have sore muscles after some of your workouts?

Another thing I noticed when I started No S was that I seemed to put on muscle more easily than I ever had in the past with constant eating, small meals, etc. I've read up on Brad Pilon's "Eat Stop Eat" principles and his blog and video posts and he has a lot of great science to back up less frequent eating and fasting helping with building muscle. It's kind of like the idea that breaks from strength training help your body build muscle and the same goes for eating. Check out his site http://bradpilon.com for more on the science behind meal frequency and fasting. Even if you never decide to fast, he's done a lot of research on the body and the frequency of nutrition. He's debunked a lot of the old "science" and I have found his method with No S seem to be a perfect match for me. I know there are others here that follow Eat Stop Eat along with No S.

Sorry about going off on a tangent, but since you were asking from the perspective of a student, I figured you would be interested in the science that Brad has researched. And Reinhard and Brad are my gurus.

[levictoria]

It sure sounds like you are losing weight. That's weird that you're not seeing lower numbers on the scale. I know my TOM can really mess up everything.

[clarinetgal]

Is your form of exercise really focused on the core? I know when I focus on the core more, that's the first place where I lose weight. I think like others have already mentioned, you could have also lost some bloating around your middle, depending on what kinds of foods you were eating.

[marygrace]

I was reading Health magazine last night, and there was some feature on three readers taking up a challenge to lose weight. I noticed one of the readers was listed as not having lost any pounds or inches, but her body fat had dropped by about 3 percent, and she definitely looked like she lost weight. Somewhat surprisingly, the article didn't offer any speculation as to why that was, but I thought it was pretty interesting nonetheless.

[DaveMc]

How different people's bodies react to different combinations of diet and exercise seems to be something of a mystery, and still nowhere near fully understood in scientific terms, from what I can tell. One thing that I've picked up is that the prime suspect whenever anything changes rapidly is: water. Water sloshes in and out of us all the time, and detaining a greater or lesser fraction of it (or moving it around to different parts of the body) can make a big difference to both our body weight and our dimensions (as tissues swell or contract as their water content goes up and down). Changing muscle or fat content both seem to be relatively slow processes, but changing the amount of water retained by the body can happen quickly. So while I can't answer your question, I'd suggest that it's something to do with water.