This is a very important subject and something i see happening amongst everyone i coach on weight loss.
Monitoring the changes your body makes when weight loss is the aim.
How do you currently monitor changes when on a diet? following a healthy lifestyle? Exercising?
A guarantee 99 out of 100 answers will be
WEIGHING SCALES
Now, what i am about to tell you has come from experience in losing weight myself and also helping clients lose weight across the last 5 years.
First of all, i get it. I understand why you get on the scales and i understand how frustrating it can be when that number has not changed or in fact has gone up even though you have had the most amazing week of eating clean!
Well folks, welcome to the Human Body!
The dieting world we have lived in the past 30 years has brain washed us into thinking that this figure ont he scales is the most important part of our lives.
Just read that back for a second and ask yourself why it has so much power?
I will tell you why, because we all remember a figure on that scales when we remember we were happy.
But were we happy? Really, can you honestly tell me you remember that exact figure on the scales that made you happy?
Generally people remember a number on the scales that was some time ago, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years or even before they had their 3 children, before they grew up and had responsibilities like a mortgage, a full time job and day to day stress in life.
One of the biggest challenges i have as a coach is to get into people’s heads and understand exactly what is going on.
You can have the best week in the world, be feeling amazing, full of energy, getting comments from friends and family about how well you look, feeling the difference in your work clothes but wait, you have not got on the scales to check how much you have lost so you get up early the next day jump on the scales and BAM
1 pound off or even nothing!
How can this be when you are feeling fantastic and getting all of these comments!?
You get up the next day, its showing you are a pound heavier! OMG what is going on, my diet is not working, you get home that night, you grab a bottle of wine and a huge slab of chocolate, what’s the point if its not working!
You wake up feeling awful, you have undone all of your hard work and all because of that 1 number on the scales.
Now whats happening?
What’s happening is we have been brainwashed into thinking this figure on the scale sis the most important part of our journey.
Ask yourself this
If that number on the scales can be so destructive, why do we bother stepping on them?
This is where i want people to change their way of thinking
And no, it wont come easy.
Your scale weight can fluctuate between 3-5lbs in one whole week! Yep, you heard me right, it can fluctuate between 1-2lbs a day!
You need to know that before you step on them.
So what causes the scale weight to fluctuate so much?
Water Retention – especially around monthly cycles in women
Stress Levels
Muscle Mass
Dehydration
Glycogen levels – will cover this in a separate post
All of these things play a part and its truly hard to determine which one when you step on that scale at the end of the week.
If you are stepping on the scales more than 2-3 times a week you will start to see the effect this one number has on your life.
For most that step on everyday, they will notice the fluctuation and it will mainly have a negative effect on the mind and you will question what you are doing and in almost most circumstances go off the rails or evenquit what you are doing.
So why do we let this one thing trouble us so much.
I think its because we have been measuring in this way for so long.
Let me ask you this question
Would it matter to you if you never knew how much you weighed for the rest of your life?
Lets just expand on that question.
If you monitored changes in a different way
How clothes feel / dress sizes
How healthy your skin, hair and nails feel
How your energy levels are
How your confidence level is
How your digestion is
How relaxed you are
How focussed you are
How much of an effect do you think this would have on your life?
So what do we do?
Well we teach our Bootcamp and online clients to take weekly measurements as well as weight.
Once a week simply measure
Chest- Men around the nipple, ladies under the bust
Hips- The top of your hips
Waist- Around your belly button
Upper leg- At its widest point
Arms- From the middle of the bicep
Also take the following photo’s
• One facing the camera
• One facing away from the camera
• One side on to the camera
Now, my suggestion would be not to take a weight measurement but if you have to, take it at 3 points across the week and take the average measurement as a guide to what is happening across the week.
Taking all of these stats week by week allows you to build a picture of what’s happening and will allow you to speak to somebody to adjust things as you go.
All diets needs tweaks and you need to bear this in mind.
What has worked day 1 may not work day 31 and its all about noting the stats down and making adjustments where necessary.
You deserve not to beat yourself up about your weight, you deserve to be happy.
The scales will never make you happy!
Stop looking at the scales for the answer and start looking at you as a whole.
As i say to clients, its a tick box exercise when it comes to health
Long term changes have a far better effect than any number on the scales will!
If you have scales in your house and you cant stop yourself getting on them then force yourself.
Simply give your scales to someone to look after, get your partner to hide them or better still, take them out into the back garden and smash them to pieces 🙂
Body Fat
Your main aim when it comes to loosing weight should be reducing body fat.
This is something the figure on your scales will not help you with.
Im sure you have heard the term
Muscle weighs more than Fat
Well that’s great if you are training to build muscle.
Increasing your muscle mass through resistance training will make you slightly heavier day to day and in return will mean you are burning more calories each day simply walking around.
This is why resistance work beats cardio for fat burn.
Now, how many of you actually monitor your body fat %
Probably not that many.
The lower your body fat % the harder it will be to drop that figure on the scales, the higher, the more scale weight that will generally come off.
Body Fat % will also put you into a category.
Now i hate categories because it generally stresses people out and people hate being labelled however body fat % has to be categorised in terms of your health
Underweight
Normal
Overweight
Obese
The higher your body fat % the greater the risk of many diseases like
Type 2 Diabetes
High Blood Pressure
Stroke
Heart Disease
Certain Cancers
So without trying to scare you, wouldnt it be better to know the percentage of body fat you have compared to just a number on the scales?
The picture is much bigger than just a figure on weighing scales.
I regularly have clients that dont drop any scale weight but lose inches, we have a few that don’t drop either we have some clients that lose a lot of each.
What needs to be brought into this equation is you as an individual. Your history of dieting, your genetics, your family history and your current lifestyle will all play a part in your health.
Start focussing on your health and not a number.