The Scale. The scale is a tricky devil. It holds a lot of power of many people. Why? Because, for many it is the easiest and most concrete way of tracking their weight loss progress. Is it a good tool? Yes, but it is not the best determiner of your progress and there are many variables that go into accurately interpreting your scale weight and how it changes from week to week. What is the scale good for? Telling us what we weight. What is the scale bad for? Telling us how fit we are. Telling us how lean we are. Telling us our progress. Being accurate from day to day. Lets look at why the scale is problematic. We have normal fluctuation from day to day, for some people it can be anywhere from 1-3% of their body weight or ~1-4lbs for a 150lb person. So, the scale does not tell us what our true or real weight is in one weighing. Scale weight varies throughout the day and from day to day based on water retention, stomach contents, bloat, and hormone profile. Taking a multiple day running average of our weight can be useful. The only scale weights that matter are those that are done at the same time of day under the same conditions, for example in the morning without clothes and after youve gone to the bathroom and before breakfast. Also, always use the same scale. Different scales will give you different weights and all it does is confuse the issue. The scale also lies about our progress early in a diet or exercise program. By becoming active and changing our diets we can often lost 3-4lbs or more of water and stomach contents in the first week. Unfortunately, this is not real weight loss, it does not represent fat loss, just temporary water weight. This phantom weight loss is a huge part of every short term fad diet and weight loss program out there, their results count on it. Actual real true fat loss is much slower and 1-2lbs of real weight loss ie fat loss per week is great progress. Dont be discouraged after you drop 5 lbs your first week and only 1lb your second week, you really havent lost 6lbs, but 2-3lbs of fat, which is great! Temporary weight loss can come back too, sometimes the scale wont change at all after a week or even go up despite your diet and exercise being on track. This doesnt mean you werent making any progress, its just the scale deceiving you and you probably lost just as much fat as the week before. Dont fall for it and dont get discouraged. Putting too much emphasis and emotion into the number on the scale is a surefire way to set yourself up for potential pitfalls and potential failures. It is a tool and not the be all and end all of progress. The scale doesnt measure body composition. Body Composition is the relation between the amount of lean tissue like muscle on your body and fat tissue. Exercise, especially resistance training is great for developing lean mass. If you are exercising regularly and weight training, dont be surprised if the weight isnt changing, your body composition very well may be. Use the mirror, how your clothes fit, measurements, and body fat instead. They are going to give you a better indication of your progress. Two women, 54 and 130lbs, can look entirely different. One with 20% body fat, 26lbs of fat and one with 30% body fat and 39lbs of fat. These women would look entirely different. Body Composition, or our percentage of body fat is a much greater indication of how we look and how fit we are than our actual weight. Beware the scale. It is a useful tool, but can be detrimental to success when too much emotion is put into it and it is relied upon. It often lies, so take what is says with a grain of salt and realize that single weighing are meaningless, what matters is your average scale weight and how it is changing and even more importantly how your body composition is changing and the number on the scale wont tell you that. Chronic Weighing can be a problem, if you are weighing yourself multiple times per day and letting that number affect your mood and motivation, you may be better off stepping away from the scale and just sticking to your plan. Check in every couple of weeks to see the general trend and leave it at that. It is far too easy to get caught up in the number and let it lead to self sabotage. Dont let the scale rule you, it lies.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:07:16 +0000
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