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Dieting Tips: Are You On A Diet Seesaw?

Diet Article: When weight goes up and then down and then up again.

Our weight is never exactly the same from day to day. So many things in the daily diet, such as sodium, the weight of the foods we eat, and the type of foods we eat send our bathroom scales on a never ending Up-And-Down Journey.

Therefore, if you lose 3 pounds one day, then gain back 2 the next, don't panic. The important thing is to stay true to your healthy weight loss plan. If you are doing everything as you should, the weight will come off.

The body isn't able to 'instantly register' your weight loss after meal times. It takes a while for it to adjust and in turn reflect the new numbers. The food that you eat has some weight to it - and the heavier the foods, the more that the body will weigh until the foods are digested and expended via energy and via waste.

Just try to keep in mind that when you are dieting, you are doing your best to lose the unwanted weight. In your mind, you are already there - you have already reached your recommended healthy weight. It just takes the bathroom scales a little longer to catch up.

Let’s take a look at Brenda who needed to lose 32 pounds of fat.  She currently weighs 165 pounds.  Her goal weight is 133 pounds or thereabouts.

Let’s see an example of her meal plate for today.

Breakfast Meal Plate: one whole grapefruit, one banana, one whole grain biscuit with reduced fat margarine, one serving of 50-calorie, sugar reduced orange juice, a cup of coffee with one spoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of Creamer, and 1 cup of skim milk. She also enjoyed one boiled egg with her breakfast as a protein source.

Lunch Meal Plate: Brenda enjoys one medium sized baked potato that is topped with the following ingredients: reduced fat sour cream, chopped tomatoes, chopped jalapeno peppers, chopped broccoli, reduced fat margarine, sea salt, and cracked pepper.  She also enjoys two glasses of iced tea without sugar as well as a large peach.

For afternoon snack Brenda decides to enjoy another banana.  Today she has an intense craving for fruit – but better fresh fruit than fatty desserts. She also enjoys two cups of decaf coffee at her afternoon break.

Dinner menu: Brenda enjoys a serving of chicken noodle soup, a wedge of cornbread prepared with stone ground cornmeal, one half of an acorn squash with reduced fat margarine and ground cinnamon, and just a dash of brown sugar. She also enjoy two glasses of water with her meal with a squirt of lemon. Later in the evening she enjoyed two cups of hot tea without sugar or cream.

This morning when Brenda stepped on her bathroom scales she weighed 165 pounds.  But when she stepped on the scales this evening before going to bed she weighed 171 pounds.  This is the first day of her weight loss plan and she has already gained rather than lost weight!  How in the world could this have happened?

While Brenda felt like panicking she decided to give her weight loss plan a few more days.  When she woke up the following morning she decided not to weigh because you didn’t want to be disappointed.

Throughout the day Brenda enjoyed the following foods: a serving of lean roasted chicken, baby carrots, wild rice, and for dinner she enjoyed a large salad which contained black beans as the protein.  She also used reduced fat salad dressing. She also enjoyed a serving of certain for breakfast and a couple of healthy snacks throughout the day.

When she woke up the following morning she decided to step on the bathroom scales and calculate the damage.  She was surprised to discover that she weighed 162 pounds.  How could Brenda have weighed 171 pounds just a couple short days ago and now she was almost 10 pounds lighter?  It just didn’t make sense. Had she really lost three pounds of fat?

This is what happened.  On the day that Brenda weighed 171 pounds she had consumed foods throughout her day which are heavy in weight.  Therefore when she weighed that evening, the bathroom scales were registering false pounds.  Those false pounds were in the form of water weight gain, not ‘fat’ weight gain. The three pounds that she lost were indeed 'fat' loss - and she also lost about six pounds of water that was due to the foods she had eaten which were plentiful in such.

If you are on a diet, it is a good idea to weigh every morning before you start your day.  If you gained weight, think about the foods that you put into your diet the day before.  Did they contain a lot of salt?  Sodium is notorious for creating false weight gain.  Did the foods that you consumed weigh heavily and were they rich in water content?

What you want to see is a decline in your weight when you’re on a diet plan, but don’t panic if you happen to see a slight weight gain.  To keep on track with your diet plan, keep monitoring your weight every morning.  By doing such you can learn a lot about your body and how it handles the foods that you eat.

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