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#150 - Stop Fighting the Scale: A Practical Guide to Losing Weight
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The scale can be one of the best tools for fat loss or the fastest way to quit early when you don’t know how to use it the right way. Thousands of people stay stuck or quit because of public enemy #1: the scale.
In this episode, we're going to fix that! You'll learn:
- Most common scale mistakes people make and the simple changes you can make to fix them starting today
- Why the scale can go up even when you’re doing everything right and the main drivers that have nothing to do with fat gain
- Best practices using the scale that makes weigh-ins actually useful you stick to the plan and see better results
- How to know you’re making real progress even if the number isn’t moving much by using other important metrics in addition to the scale
Get tons more practical fitness content made for everyday people. 👇
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Transcript
Introduction to the Fit-ish Project
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We have the weekly episode for you. Before I get into this, if you can leave a review, continue to share this show, get this out to more people who can use this information. I appreciate that. But let's get right into the topic for this week.
Understanding the Scale: Myths and Misconceptions
00:00:25
Speaker
I wanted to do an episode completely around how to properly use the scale and actually understand the scale. And the reason that I wanted to do an episode like this is because people often equate what that number on the scale says as to how healthy they are, how disciplined they are, if things are working, if they need to change things. So like if you step on the scale and that scale is a lower number, it's a number that you would like to see, then people think, oh, I'm healthy. Things are going well. progress is all good. And if they step on that scale and they have the opposite effect where maybe that number is a little bit higher than they would like to see it, they start to think I'm bad. I'm not disciplined. Like things aren't working. I'm failing. I need to change things or they just get frustrated or where they quit. And this sucks because a lot of people just don't really understand how to actually use the scale properly. They don't understand how to use it as a useful tool and they don't really actually understand the entire picture. They just look at the scale, they see a number and they think good or bad, right or wrong. And that's just a terrible way to go about fitness because I have seen this so many times now and I've had tons of conversations with people around the scale and about how to actually use it properly and why the scale isn't the only thing that you should be paying attention to.
Motivations Behind Fitness Journeys
00:01:37
Speaker
but it's still a message that I know a lot of people just need to hear and that so many people struggle with. Because when we think about fitness, there's a couple of reasons that people get into fitness. And the most popular one by far
00:01:52
Speaker
is that people want to look better. And when people want to look better, they just assume the way to do that is to lose weight, which there's a lot of truth to that. If you lose body fat, you are going to look more lean, more toned, more athletic, more fit. And that is the look that a lot of people want. And so people will just turn to the scale and they see that scale number going down. They assume I'm getting healthier, I'm gonna look better, all
Debunking Scale Myths and Best Practices
00:02:13
Speaker
those things. things and yes that is absolutely part of it but the scale alone cannot tell you exactly all the things that you need to know and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are making progress and so with this episode i wanted to just dispel some of those myths around the scale talk about why the scale fluctuates so much talk about some best practices to actually use the scale and then ultimately give you some tips about how you can go about using the scale so it's actually working for you and not against you so If you've ever been that person who said, I'm eating healthy, why isn't the scale going down? I'm working out a ton, my weight still isn't changing, I'm doing everything right and the scale even went up, like what's actually going on, this episode is for you. So by the end of this episode, you will know exactly what the scale is best for, what it is not for and what it cannot tell you, why it fluctuates so much and then ultimately what you can do to make the scale work for you rather than the scale working against you. So let's get right into it.
00:03:10
Speaker
Why is the scale so popular in general? Well, when you think about just health in general, this is an extremely simple way for people to see one
The Popularity and Limitations of Scales
00:03:22
Speaker
metric of their health. And it's become the most common popular one because again, it's very quick. Like most people have these in their homes now. It's extremely fast feedback. It feels very objective because it's a number you can just look at it. It's not very like wishy-washy because you have that objective number on the scale.
00:03:40
Speaker
And it's been one of those things that's just been normalized in our culture. Like when dieting got very popular and people started wanting to change their appearance and lose weight and things like that, the scale was the simplest, easiest, quickest way to measure that. And we all know that humans love convenience. We love fast feedback.
00:03:58
Speaker
We love to have things that are just simple to understand and body weight for these reasons was that thing that people started using. And so like the scale became this default way to measure and track progress and see if we're healthy and all those things. But again, the number on the scale doesn't tell us everything that we would want to know. It can tell us some things, but it can tell us everything. And that's what I wanted to dig into next. So what does the scale actually tell us? It tells you what your total body mass is on a singular day. And that is it.
00:04:26
Speaker
A lot of people think that the scale can tell them specific things like how much fat they're losing, what their health is, whether they're being successful or failing at certain things. But it literally just tells you data. It tells you a number. It tells you how much you weigh on a particular day, how much fat you have, how much muscle, how much bone, all that different stuff inside your body that's going on. It tells you how much you weigh that singular day. And a lot of times people will use a scale of thinking that, oh, like this is going to tell me how much fat that I've lost. Like I step on the scale one day, it's down four pounds. Sweet, I lost four pounds of fat. That is not true.
Factors Behind Scale Fluctuations
00:05:03
Speaker
You could not eat for the next 24 hours and you would lose multiple pounds. That doesn't necessarily mean that you lost a bunch of fat.
00:05:11
Speaker
Or you could go do a really heavy workout, go sit in the sauna for 30 minutes, you would lose a ton of water and that scale would likely be down after that workout versus before that workout. That does not mean that you lost a bunch of fat. And so A lot of these fluctuations, a lot of these differences on the scale you'll learn in this episode have to do with just water fluctuations within our body. Our body is made up of mostly water.
00:05:33
Speaker
And so you can't necessarily just tell by stepping on a scale whether or not you're losing a bunch of fat. You also can't tell what your health is based on stepping on a scale. Yes, the scale can be a helpful metric. We can look at things like BMI and I know BMI sometimes gets a bad rep, but for the average person, BMI is actually a pretty good predictor. when you start to look at people who have lots of muscle mass, people who work out a lot of people who are more like fit and athletic, BMI doesn't become quite as good of a scale to use because it doesn't account for muscle mass, you need to look at things like body fat for that. But for the average person who doesn't have tons of extra muscle, BMI is actually a pretty good predictor and you can figure out somebody's BMI by their body weight and their height. So that gives you somewhat of
00:06:18
Speaker
predictor of where they may be at as far as their health and maybe some things that they may be predisposed to because of their higher BMI maybe they're in a good range so then they don't have quite as many issues to worry about with health and things like that.
00:06:31
Speaker
Another thing that people really attach to the scale is whether or not they're failing. So for whatever reason, people tend to attach like this moral judgment on what that number says on the scale. So you step on the scale one morning, it's 10 pounds higher than you want to see it. And people just assume like, I suck. Like I'm not doing the things I need to do. I'm bad. Like I need to change things. I'm not disciplined, all these other things. Or you step on it one day and that scale is down three pounds just because you didn't eat.
00:06:58
Speaker
a heavy dinner the night before and people like oh this is a good day you know like i feel good about this things are good i'm healthy and it's just so funny how we equate those small little subtle differences based on what that scale says on how we feel about ourselves and whether we're doing the right things or not doing the right things the scale cannot tell you those things and so your weight is going to change based on a lot of different things But that number can only tell you so much. Like it's part of the equation. And I think it can be extremely useful for a lot of things when we're talking about fat loss or even just health in general. Like it can be helpful, but it doesn't tell the complete story. So you need to really understand like what it is and what it isn't. And then once you have that, you can start to include that in the big picture to get a good outcome.
00:07:43
Speaker
idea about, okay, this is where my body weight is, but I'm also looking at these other markers to see if my health is in a good spot. This is where my body weight is, but I'm also paying attention to if I'm losing inches or if my clothes are fitting tighter or if my progress picture are looking different, that way I can tell if I'm actually losing fat. So you wanna use the scale in conjunction with other things in order to actually see some of those those things that we solely try to focus on the scale for like our health or like fat loss or different things like that. The next thing I wanted to get into is just talk about why the scale fluctuates so much. And once you really understand this, like once you really comprehend this, you will stop using the scale as something that can just throw you off so easily because that scale should fluctuate a lot. And if you ever have weighed yourself multiple times in a day, you will know that that scale does fluctuate quite a bit like.
00:08:33
Speaker
For the average person, it could fluctuate anywhere between three to five pounds in a single day. That's pretty normal. Fluctuates based on a lot of different reasons. I know for myself personally, the scale will fluctuate anywhere between five to seven pounds in a day. So like I typically weigh myself in the morning. And then if I would weigh myself like later afternoon or maybe even early evening, that scale would likely be up like anywhere between five to seven pounds. And then i weigh myself the next day and then it's down five to seven pounds from that night.
00:08:58
Speaker
it's not that I'm like losing a bunch of fat or anything like that. It's just like, there's different things going on. So that scale can be up or down based on a lot of different things. And again, a lot of it just has to do with how much water your body is holding onto. So when you have more sodium in your diet, you're having more salt, your body's going to tend to hold more water, which makes that scale go up. When you're having more carbs, that also causes your body to hold onto more water because your body is now holding more water, more glycogen, and that is going to make that scale heavier. When you have a lot of muscle soreness and inflammation going on in your body, your body holds on to more water.
00:09:33
Speaker
When you're more stressed out or you're having bad sleep, your body tends to hold on to more water. If you have a lot of alcohol, this can also cause your body to hold on to more water. I've had several instances, like anytime I go on a vacation or if I've had a weekend where like I'm drinking multiple days in a row, that scale is always up, usually somewhere around like 10 pounds. I've had it go up as much as 17 pounds in a single weekend during a birthday weekend where I had quite a bit of alcohol. So alcohol is a big one that can cause you to just hold on to quite a bit more water.
00:10:05
Speaker
hormones is another thing that can cause some water retention females with their menstrual cycle you're obviously having a lot of different fluid fluctuations going on so that can mess with what the scale looks like just depending on when you're even going to the bathroom like if you weigh yourself before you go to the bathroom in the morning it will be a lot different than after you've gone to the bathroom how much food you're eating and how much food volume you're actually taking in so if you're having like lighter meals you're obviously going to probably weigh a little bit less than if you're having very heavy, dense meals of lots of food. So there's just so many different instances on why that scale could be fluctuating in a singular day or based on a couple of different days. And so
00:10:43
Speaker
hopping on a scale and then seeing like a two pound increase or or a three pound loss or things like that it's like there's so many other factors that are going into that but we instantly think that because that scale is up or down based off of a single day or two that we lost a bunch of fat or gained a bunch of fat but it does not work like that it's fluid retention in the short term like those day-to-day weigh-ins that you're doing tells you much more about like what your body is doing fluid wise than it does for a fat loss trend or even like a weight gain trend or a fat gain trend.
Focusing on Long-term Trends for Progress
00:11:14
Speaker
And so that's what I want to get into is when you're looking at these things over time, like when you're looking at trends over the weeks, over the months, when you're looking at weekly averages of your body weights, when you're pairing the scale with other tools to measure your health or to measure fat loss or fat gain, now you can actually start to get a realistic picture of what's actually going on here. But one thing that I wanted to touch on before getting into the practical tools about how to actually use these things the right way is just expectations around the scale. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what expectations are in a fat loss phase, what expectations are in a maintenance phase, so like you're not trying to lose weight or gain weight, and then what expectations are when you're trying to like gain muscle or even gain weight. Like what should the scale be doing? How much should it be moving? That sort of thing. Because I found that people often have really, really skewed expectations. And there's several reasons for this. I think social media is a big thing for this. A lot of people will post their transformations or things like that of people like having these very drastic changes in a short amount of time. And so people just assume that's like a normal thing. It is not a normal thing. Like for every single case that you see of people losing a ton of weight like that very quickly, A lot of times they have done very aggressive, more drastic type of things and they were able to stick to it. But you also don't see them in the future.
00:12:34
Speaker
You don't see the people who gain all that weight back. You don't see the people who develop disordered eating because they are doing these things that aren't healthy for them long term. You don't see all the sacrifices that these people are having and how their energy is tanked and how they don't feel great and how their relationship with food now sucks because they did all these crazy, drastic things.
00:12:55
Speaker
So you really have to take a step back and look at like, what's the best possible answer for me? And am I doing this in a way that I can actually sustain? And am I actually taking a realistic outlook on this? and So when you think about fat loss, three to five pounds of fat loss in a month is very good progress. I've given the example multiple times about how much weight I lost within my one hundred pound weight loss journey. Within my first year, I lost 60 pounds, which if you break that down, 60 pounds divided by 12 months, that is five pounds per month. it doesn't seem like a whole lot it's a little bit over a pound a week of fat loss but again you stay consistent you stay patient and 60 pounds is life-changing for pretty much anybody if you lose 60 pounds you're going healthier you're going to look different you're going to feel better all those different things but people get so in a hurry about needing to lose as fast as possible not caring how they get there or even if they're like losing muscle or just losing a bunch of water rather than focusing on good sustainable habits and focusing on fat loss and not just weight loss
00:13:54
Speaker
you have to do this in a way that's going to actually make sense and you're going to actually get to the result that you want be able to sustain it so having the right expectations about this is really important for that and it's normal when in a fat loss phase to see some ups and downs to even have that scale spike sometimes but again we want to look at trends over the weeks and months we don't want to look at single days look at those weekly averages and make sure that you're trending in the right direction When it comes to a maintenance phase, what I like to think about when it comes to the scale and like a maintenance phase is to have a range. So even if you have weight loss goals, like if you're somebody who wants to lose weight, there's going to come a time where you no longer want to lose weight. Like you're not supposed to lose weight for your entire life. Like that's not the goal here. You're supposed to lose weight and then get to a weight where you want to maintain and then maintain that. Like most of your life should be spent in a maintenance phase of just maintaining all the progress that you built and being in a healthy range and being able to just live life and maintain that good weight. And so having some sort of range, I think is the way to go here, because if you're trying to stick to a certain number, again, that's just not very smart for a lot of different reasons, because that scale is going fluctuate based on a lot of things. And again, this is just telling you, these water fluctuations are happening. So why would we make this certain particular number our goal when it doesn't really matter if it's not fat loss, or if it's not fat gain. So having a range like a three to five pound range, or myself, I'm a little bit bigger. I like to have like a five to seven pound range when I'm just maintaining. And then I know like I'm weighing myself every single day, which I think is really useful for me and something that I like to do. It just keeps me in tune with where I want to be. So if I start to see that scale creeping up, if I'm starting to get outside of that five pound range, then I know, okay, I need to start to dial in and a little bit more. I've been eating a little bit more, maybe not exercising as much, maybe having more alcohol or eating out more, just having more calories in some way, and that scale is starting to go up
00:15:47
Speaker
Not a big deal. You just pay attention to those things and then you just rein it back in. Maybe go into a fat loss phase for four weeks or six weeks, cut a little bit of fat, dial things back in and then you're good to go.
00:15:58
Speaker
Being in tune with these things and just measuring these things regularly, I think can be helpful for a lot of people. There's this study that looked at people who were able to lose weight and then keep it off for long periods of time. And I think the timeframe was over five years.
00:16:14
Speaker
which is very rare. People who lose weight, a lot of them end up gaining it back within three to five years of losing that weight. They gain most of it back. So it's very rare to find people who have lost lots of weight and who have been able to keep it off.
00:16:25
Speaker
They looked at these people and they looked at some of their habits. And one of the things that they did was called self-monitoring, which basically they were just weighing themselves frequently so that you don't have that like shock factor of you're not really tracking calories. You're not really focused on weight loss or weight gain or anything like that. You're just kind of wanting to maintain, but you're not really looking at your weight ever.
Monitoring Methods for Sustainable Habits
00:16:45
Speaker
You're kind of just eating whatever you want. And then let's say you step on the scale randomly four months after you've gotten out of a fat loss phase and that scale is up 20 pounds. You didn't even realize that you were gaining all that much weight. Like you felt like you were gaining a little bit and you knew you were eating a little bit more, but now you step on that scale, you've gained 20 pounds and you're like, crap, like what do I do now? Like versus if you just weigh yourself couple times a week and just keep things dialed in and not let things get too out of hand, it makes a little bit easier to just stay on top of things and just stay consistent with things. So That's kind of how I think about using the scale when you're in a maintenance phase, like just weighing yourself, whether it's a couple times a week. If you want to do it every day like I do, then nothing wrong with that. I know some people don't want to do that, but like just doing it a couple of times a week just to kind of keep your eye on what's going on and not let things get too out of hand, I think is a really useful thing to do.
00:17:34
Speaker
And then the third thing is like muscle gain. So people will have time periods where they want to really like maximize building muscle. Like what are the expectations around weight gain and just how to use the scale with that? So with muscle gain, you don't need to be doing anything like a dirty bulk or gaining tons of weight or like seeing that scale spike ah up a ton unless you're like a really young, athlete or something like that, and like you're just trying to put on tons of weight for like a sport or something, you don't need to be trying to dirty bulk and see that scale move up tons really quickly. Because if you're putting on tons of weight very quickly, you're likely putting on a good amount of fat with that. And for most people, that's not their goal. They want to build muscle, they want to put on lean tissue so that their body looks different, so that they feel different, so that they have better health effects So that their metabolism is a little bit faster. And so when it comes to this building muscle, the gain here should be pretty slow. So for like the average person, or like the moderate to advanced person, you're only looking at the scale going up about point to five pounds to about a half a pound per week. So in a month, You're looking at maybe a pound to about two pounds of gain on the scale. Obviously, if you're getting a little bit above that, like no big deal, but you don't need to be seeing that scale go up 10 pounds in a month because again, you're likely putting on lots of body fat if you're seeing that scale go up very quickly, even if your goal is to build muscle. You're somewhat more of a beginner, then it might be a little bit more. So maybe like a half a pound to like a pound per week.
00:18:58
Speaker
So even then though, at the end of the month, that's like two to four pounds of gain over a month. And then if you look at like maybe a bigger timeframe, let's take six months. That's like a good amount of time to bulk for. if you're bulking for half the year, 25 weeks or so, that would be like six to 12 pounds for somebody who's like a moderate to advanced person of weight gain on the scale. And then for a beginner, that could be 12 all the way up to like 20 plus pounds. But again, six to 12 pounds of gaining over a six month period is not that drastic. And so just understanding what the expectation should be when it comes to fat loss, when it comes to gaining muscle, when it comes to maintaining your weight, having some sort of framework and just expectations around what that scale should be doing and just some things to look out for. I think it's super helpful because as I've said, the expectations around a lot of these things, people just don't have realistic expectations for these things. And I think it stops a lot of people from ever making the progress that they could be making, because if you feel like you're doing all the right things, but that scale isn't moving very quickly, you're going to be discouraged. Like I've had this happen a lot with clients where they're losing pretty consistently, but in their mind, they don't think that things are moving very quickly and they think that maybe they're not being consistent enough or they're doing things wrong or they need to change things to speed things up. Like had a client who,
00:20:19
Speaker
has lost, at this point he's lost close to 100 pounds. He was right around 90 pounds last time I had talked to him. He was in the first couple of months of losing weight and he had already lost some weight prior to us starting together. Like he had lost 30-ish pounds. And so he was continuing wanting to lose weight, but he had hit a plateau.
00:20:38
Speaker
it was a couple of months had passed he had lost around like 10 to 12 pounds and he had messaged me and said that he didn't feel like he was doing enough or being consistent enough because the scale wasn't moving that much and i was like what do you mean like the scale has gone down 12 pounds like you've lost an average of six pounds over the last two months like that's really good progress like that's over good progress like you're doing everything right you're you're making really good progress but in his mind he didn't feel like it because again people's expectations about needing to lose 10 pounds in a month 15 pounds in a month 20 pounds in a month and it's not that you can't do that in certain situations lot of people do lose 10 15 20 pounds in a month but again they're losing lots of water weight in there sometimes they're starting to lose muscle mass if they're cutting their calories too low or maybe they're just a person has lot of weight to lose so they can afford to lose a little bit more But you want to really start to dial things in and really focus in on the ultimate goal, which is losing fat. Losing weight is different than losing fat. We want to lose fat tissue so that we look better, so that we feel better, so that our health is better.
Differentiating Fat Loss from Weight Loss
00:21:40
Speaker
You can go out and lose weight and lose lot of weight very quickly in a lot of different ways. But if you're losing a bunch of muscle mass, if you're losing a bunch of water, you're not going to look the way you want to look. You're not going to feel the way you want to feel. And you're not going to get the outcome that you really want to have. So you really have to think about what's the thing that I want.
00:21:56
Speaker
in this situation and how do I stay focused on doing that? It's not just to see a lower number on the scale, it's to look better, feel better and live better. So keeping that at the forefront and just continuing to remind yourself about those things, I think can go a long ways. And then the last part that I wanted to get into is just talking about some of the best practices around just using the scale in general. So having just some clear rules about how you can actually use the scale and get the best accurate data out of the scale and help you to actually progress forward and make it so that the scale isn't something that you hate or something that you want to avoid or something that you want to throw against the wall because you actually understand what's going on and because you are using it in the proper way. so
00:22:38
Speaker
What I typically recommend is that you weigh yourself at the same time, ideally every single day if you can, like keep the same routine. Usually do it in the morning if you can after you've gone to the bathroom. That way you're just going to get the most accurate data. So wear the same clothes or the same amount of clothes or no clothes. go to the bathroom, weigh yourself, get that data and try to do that every single day.
00:23:01
Speaker
If you don't want to do it every single day, at least trying to do it three times per week, I would recommend just so that you can start to see trends. And the reason why I don't like doing it just like once a week is because that scale fluctuates so much.
00:23:13
Speaker
It could be one of those days where you step on the scale for that week. And for whatever reason, you had more salt, you had more carbs, you had alcohol, you had crappy sleep, you had a really hard workout. Whatever the reason that scale could be up three, four or five pounds from the week before, just based on whatever is going on and why ever your body is holding on to water. And now you only have one data point to compare that to like you look at last week, the scale said 205, you stepped on it this week, the scale said 207. And so you're like, in your mind, you're like, well, what am I doing wrong? you know like, do I need to change things? Am I eating too much? Is this even worth it? Like you get frustrated and you start to think that you need to change the plan versus if you just weigh yourself every day, you start to get used to those fluctuations and you actually have a bigger picture of what's going on because you can look at the seven day average versus just looking at that one day. And now that you have seven different data points, you can average that weight out and look at your weekly average. and compare that to your previous weekly average and now you can actually start to see trends so you're not just worried about maybe one of those days you're stepping on the scale and it just happens to be one of those days where the scale is up i had this exact same thing happen to me recently because i'm currently in a fat loss phase
00:24:28
Speaker
The day that I started my fat loss phase, I stepped on the scale. And for whatever reason, it was a super low day for me. I don't know why it was, but I stepped on the scale and it said like 208.4 or 208.6, something like that.
00:24:42
Speaker
And I know that that was really low because I had been weighing myself previously and my weight was somewhere around like 212, 213, 214 on average. So like it was like a day where the scale was down five or six pounds.
00:24:55
Speaker
And if I was only measuring, let's say once every week or once every two weeks, and I was going about doing my thing and then, you know, i' I'm eating in a calorie deficit, I'm eating protein, I'm getting my steps in, I'm doing my workouts. And then I go to step on that scale, let's say in two weeks. And that scale says 210.
00:25:13
Speaker
Now I think that like, what's going on? Like, I have no idea why this scale is up. Like, why am I heavier now? I've been eating in a calorie deficit. I've been doing all the things that I need to do. And that scale still went up. Like, what the heck is going on?
00:25:25
Speaker
But if I was measuring every single day for those 14 days, I would know, okay, these are my averages. And based on my averages, oh, I was actually like 213 for an average of that first week, not 208. And now I'm at 210 on the second week of averages. So I've actually lost three pounds. Okay, I'm trending in the right direction. So when you have more data points to compare it to, It's a lot easier to actually get the full picture and get the full idea of what's going on. And again, I've seen this happen so many times.
00:25:55
Speaker
People will be like, oh, I hate the scale. It's frustrating. I barely ever use it. I only want to weigh myself every two weeks. And like you can do that. And if you do that for a long enough time and you're doing all the right things, like if you're doing that for months at a time, you will see that trending in the right direction.
00:26:09
Speaker
But for a lot of people staying consistent, when you're seeing that scale go up, let's say you weigh yourself twice per month and for whatever reason that scale has hasn't moved a whole lot, maybe it went up one pound on that first weigh-in and then you weigh yourself two weeks later and then it's back to baseline.
00:26:27
Speaker
You could still be technically doing a lot of the right things, but for whatever reason, you happen to step on the scale on two days where that scale was up. Like maybe the day before you weigh yourself is like your little treat meal or like you have a meal where like you have more carbs and you have a little bit more sweets or. You stay up late, like you weigh yourself on Mondays and on Sundays you do a really hard workout and then you stay up a little bit later. Like, so the scale happens to be up You never really know because you're just randomly hoping that you step on the scale on the right day and that's lower and where you want it to be. versus just having more data points, having more numbers to look at, looking at weekly averages, looking at trends, looking at the trajectory and making sure that you're moving in the right direction. So I'm a big proponent of weighing yourself more frequently and just getting used to seeing those fluctuations. And that way you just have a better look at what's actually going on.
00:27:18
Speaker
The second thing that I would say about just using the scale in the best possible ways to pair it with other metrics. So especially if fat loss is the goal, having progress pictures every couple of weeks or every month is a really good idea because you can start
Comprehensive Progress Tracking Methods
00:27:32
Speaker
to see changes. There will be times where, especially as you get closer to your goal and you don't have tons of weight to lose, like that's kind of where I'm at. Like I'm not looking to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds anymore. Like when I go into a fat loss phase, I'm looking to lose maybe five to 10 pounds. And so seeing those differences on the scale, it takes quite a while. But when I'm taking progress pictures, I can start to see differences every couple of weeks. Like, oh, I'm looking leaner in these certain areas. I can see a little bit more muscle definition. I can see a little bit less fat around my sides, are around my stomach or things like that. So having progress pictures to pair with those scale weigh-ins can help. Other things like waist measurements, arm measurements, leg measurements to see if you are losing fat or building muscle is also helpful.
00:28:15
Speaker
Paying attention to how your clothes are fitting. So if you have like a pair of jeans that used to be tight. Now they're getting a little bit looser. If you have a t shirt that used to be kind of tight. Now it's getting a little bit looser in the stomach area, maybe a little bit tighter in like the arms area, which is a good thing. So having clothes to just use to see if you're losing fat in the right areas. And then like if you have access to measure your body fat. In certain ways, that can also be helpful, but having just other metrics that you can use alongside of the body weight scale can be extremely helpful for letting you know whether or not you are
Celebrating Non-Scale Victories
00:28:49
Speaker
making progress. So when you have more ways to measure, you're going to get a more accurate picture of what's going on. And then the very last thing that I wanted to touch on just real quick as well is the scale is great and it can tell you a lot of things when you use it in the right way and when you pair it with these other things that I just mentioned.
00:29:07
Speaker
But there's so many things which I call non scale victories that are happening when you are chasing fitness goals when you are exercising consistently, when you are focused on eating a better diet when you're focused on doing all of the things that you want to be doing to look better feel better. live longer, all those things. There's so many victories that are happening off the scale that we oftentimes lose sight of because we're not actually looking for those things. And these are things that I always try to point out to clients because they are important. Like that's the real victory, right? Like we want to look better. we want to feel better. We want to live longer. And the scale can't necessarily tell us those things, but you know what can is all these things that we're doing.
00:29:45
Speaker
off of the skill all these non-skill victories so our workouts are getting better we're getting stronger in the gym we have less knee pain or back pain or injuries we're having more energy we have better sleep our mood is getting better we have better relationship with food we understand food a little bit better we have more confidence we have more consistency in our habits we have better discipline our endurance is improving our mobility is improving like We can actually go to play with our kids without getting winded or getting injured. We can sleep better. We can go into a normal store and buy clothes. We can go up a flight of stairs without feeling winded.
00:30:22
Speaker
We have all these different instances that are happening, but we only catch those things if we start to train ourselves to look for them and stop focusing just solely on what that number on the scale says. So I'm a big advocate for finding the non-scale victories because Those are the things that actually are important. If you could have all the things that you want, like if you could feel better, if you could look better, if you could have the body you want, but that number on the scale wasn't what you wanted it to be, would you still care about that number?
00:30:48
Speaker
If you do, then obviously you have some thinking that you need to do because that's not what's actually important. That number isn't important. And oftentimes we just pick this random number and then we decide that we're not going to be happy or feel good until we hit this certain number. And it's just stupid. Like, for whatever reason, we think that once I get to this number on the scale, I'm going to feel great. But that scale could be the exact same. And you could look very different. Life could be very different. You could feel completely different. And that number on the scale could be very different. I've had this experience myself, and I've seen it with other people who they change their body compositions, but the scale doesn't change a whole lot. So I have this side-by-side picture where I'm basically the same weight in the two pictures. Like there's a three pound difference, but there's like a two or three year difference in those pictures. I'm leaner in the picture that is three years later. I'm more athletic now. I have just so much more going on and like just feel better, more healthy, more fit, all those things in that second picture. But the scale hasn't moved a whole lot. So if I was solely just focused on that scale and that was my only way to measure success or measure progress, And I would feel like I hadn't done anything. But because I was paying attention to these non-skill victories, because I was paying attention to how I looked, because I was paying attention to my progress pictures, getting better, losing inches, feeling better, all these other things, like that's lets me know that I made a ton of progress. So again, keeping what's actually important, important here and focusing on just using that scale to help you and just use it as a tool, but not letting it be the end all be all and control your life and control your emotions and
00:32:19
Speaker
keep you just frustrated because that's the last thing that you want to be doing and when you really just grasp this concept and really understand like what the scale is and what it isn't i think you can have a much better relationship just with exercise and just food and fitness and health and all these different things and it makes this whole process just much more enjoyable so to close this all out just a couple of just closing comments As long as your habits are consistent, you will make progress over time.
00:32:45
Speaker
That progress is likely going to be slower than we want it to be because it almost always is. Like we all want faster progress. But if you're doing the right things, if you're controlling the things you can control, you are going to make progress. Whether or not that's showing up right away on the scale or not. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. But keep controlling the things that you can control.
Emphasizing Consistency Over Fluctuations
00:33:03
Speaker
Second thing, focus on the trajectory, like where you're trending rather than on singular days, because if you're only focused on singular days, you are always going to be frustrated. You're always going to want quit. You're always going to be changing the things that you think you should be doing.
00:33:16
Speaker
And it's not very conducive to getting good long term results. And the third thing, as I just mentioned a second ago, is just to not lose sight of what's actually important. You want to use fitness and health to live a better life, to look better, to feel better. You don't necessarily care about this particular number on a scale. So keep that in mind every time you step on the scale and it's not the exact number that you want to see. Just remember what's actually important. And with that being said, i appreciate you listening. Hopefully this was helpful and you got a nugget or two out of this. If you did or you know somebody who could use this info use this podcast who also maybe struggles a little bit with this concept, be sure to send that to them. Get the show out to more people. i do appreciate that.
00:33:58
Speaker
I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.