This has got to be the most popular complaint among dieters who are too fixed on one number-the scale. As I’ve said before, if you are dieting to make yourself look better, who cares what you weigh? It’s fewer inches that make you look great! With that in mind..here is what happened this week.

First, I was sooo loyal to the diet, no carbs! But I did have a little more green (broccoli, salad) than they recommend this early on. That may or may not have made a difference. How much did I loose, a whopping 1 pound. No!!!! Yes!, my end of week weight was 170.

OK, to loose a pound is still good, I ain’t hatin’. But when you really discipline yourself you want huge results each week. Still the tape measure proved to be my new best friend, because….

Week 4 Jan 22 2006

Height 5-8
Neck 15.75 down .25
Chest 41.25 down.75
Stomach 35.5 no change…ok this pissed me off. But..I think I was over pulling the tape last week so it serves me right. It honestly looks smaller to me. down 0..:-(
Waist 33 down .75
Thigh 21.25 down .25
Wrist 6.7 down .05
Ankle 8.25 down.25

I really don’t expect a lot of changes on the more “boney” regions like wrist and ankle but it is interesting when your shoes or watch feel loose. The most noteable place is around my face. Not something I could measure per se, but my jaw line is more pronounced and I dont have that droop under my chin-which is success enough!

Still I want to keep going, it’s barely been a month so this is just warm up. If I can drop to 155 I think I will be at my best weight. I won’t be exercising until I see the low 160’s as I’ve found exercise-specifically weight lifting will throw off the fat burning process. As long as my body fat ratio (which is still .19) lowers then it’s a safe plan. I do not want to loose any muscle!

While dieting I typically do other things since I’m in that makeover mode-this includes a whiter smile, and improving my skin tone through a tanning bed or dermabrasion. More on that in the next post.

I’ve really been loyal to the diet rules this week, even when I had business lunches and things that make it tough to stick to protein only. I will probably sprout feathers in another week from all the chicken I have had, but hey-it’s a diet right? Scale report for this morning is:

Weight: 171-I’d like that to be more like 165 by now, but then I have high expectations. Still its progress and the measurements and body fat tell a whole new story. I dropped my measurements again, here are the stats:

Week 3 Jan 15 2006

Height 5-8
Weight 171.00
Stomach 35.50 down 2!
Thigh 21.50 down 1
Chest 42.00 down.5
Bicep 13.0o down.5
Waist 33.75 down 1.25
Wrist 6.75 down .25
Ankle 8.50 same
Neck 16.00 down .5

Strange huh? Loosing it all over and that makes sense because they say there is no such thing as target weight loss. Here is where it gets interesting., I track success off of inches lost and the amount of body fat I loose. I really don’t care if I weight a bazillion pounds, but if my body looks fat or has a high fat percentage, then it’s not good. So the bathroom scale is just a quick way to see if something is happening.

Here is what I do, I take the measurements of my neck and gut-(thats measuring around your navel, not your waist. This combined with your height can give you a quick idea of your body fat. I learned this while in the military and even found a website that lets you calculate the percentages. http://www.he.net/~zone/prothd2.html with this information you can see just what you are loosing, fat or muscle! Fat is good to loose, muscle is very bad! With an Atkins Diet, which I prefer, you want to be sure you arent going too far with the Ketosis process, and for me this is a good way to check.

So I run my calculations through this website and compare it to the week before and guess what?…My body fat has decreased form 22% to 19%. Sweet! I multiply that times my weight and see that I have actually lost 6.5 pounds of fat. The significance here is I’ve only lost 5 pounds so far-so I’m loosing fat quickly and building muscle. Sweet!

I think I will begin to loose a bit quicker in the next week, we will see if I am bragging or whining in 7 days