Tuf Training

The other day I gained and lost over a pound in a matter of minutes.

How did I do this??

I moved my bathroom scale to four different places in my bathroom and house and weighed myself.

Each time I got a different measurement – up to a pound difference!!

Not only does this call into question the functionality of my bathroom scale – but also the true value of weighing one self.

We’ve all heard that women are overly focused on the number on the scale, and that your weight does not define you. This is 100% true and I have spoke on this topic numerous times. However, what is also true is that scale weight is one way to measure of what is going on with your body. It shouldn’t be ignored, but shouldn’t be objectively evaluated either.

There are many factors that can influence the scale. I’m going to break them down and explain why your weight fluctuates so much, plus tell you when and how to use the scale so it becomes your friend and not your biggest enemy.

We have all come to rely on the scale as a measure of weight loss success or failure, when it fact it can be completely unrelated to either,

Here’s the reality. Your weight can fluctuate as much as 5-10 lbs throughout the week and even day to day.

Three things that screw with the scale and cause it to go up and down overnight

1. Water

Every day your body is constantly regulating the water levels inside of it and so if you’re a little more hydrated or less hydrated, that can be 1-5 lbs on the scale.

If you eat a meal super high in sodium the next morning your body might retain more water from that because sodium and carbohydrates cause our body to retain more water. You might see the sale jump, simply due to water retention.

2. Inflammation

Inflammation is actually different from water retention or bloating from our monthly cycle.

Inflammation is caused by things like chronic stress, lack of sleep, smoking and even drinking a lot of coffee! Basically anything that keeps your body in an elevated state of stress This raises cortisol levels, which causes inflammation.

Even a hard workout can cause this effect. You may have had a great workout, but you get up the next day and you’re sore but you expect to see the scale moving but it doesn’t. Why? First of all you’re not going to see the results of one workout the next day, but you also may have some inflammation going on.

3. Elimination

Are you regular? if you’re someone who doesn’t have great digestion and you get a little backed up that is absolutely going to show up on the scale.

Yes. A good bowel movement can upload to a couple of pounds, no joke.

If you have a week when you’re not using the bathroom and you feel really bloated and your clothes feel tighter, that’s not fat, that’s just food handing out in your intestines – that you need to get rid of!

How to fix it

What can we do about it?

Let’s start by not putting too much stock into something that can be fickle, make sure you’re comparing apples to apples and weigh yourself on the same scale, at the same time – each day or each week in order to get the most accurate results.

What we really want to be looking for on the sale is fat loss or fat gain and muscle loss and muscle gain – true body composition change.

These are small, barely percentile changes that happen over weeks and months at a time. My recommendation is to track your results over a long period of time, whether it’s on paper or digitally (like in our custom training app for our personal training clients)

Whether you weigh every day or every week, don’t be concerned with the result until you have weeks or better yet, months of data. Get on a nutrition and exercise program, be consistent, stick to it and then just start objectively punching in those measurements every time you weigh.

Eventually, you’ll have a chart of data. It’s going to show you your weight going up and down day to day, but if over weeks and months progressively – you’re going down then you’re on the right track.

When it comes to body composition what’s important are those trends that are happening over time and if the overall trend is down that’s good. If the overall trend is up – that’s not good and that meals you’re going to want to make some changes to your diet and exercise program.

Take into consideration other factors besides the scale : measurements, progress photos, and how your clothes fit.

Reclaim your self worth and self evaluation from the scale! See if for what it is: one measure or one variable of that impacts overall picture of a healthy lifestyle

If you don’t like what the scale has to say or you can’t weigh yourself without having an emotional reaction I need you yo stay off the scale and instead focus on how you look, how you feel and how you are performing in the gym, along with the other positive things that come with taking control of your life and living a healthier lifestyle.

And if you don’t like that it has to sat and can’t weigh yourself without having an emotional reaction – just stay off the damn thing until you can!!

(Or ask your spouse, friend, roommate, boyfriend…etc to hide it!)