Stop Weighing Yourself!
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If you’ve ever dieted and weighed yourself regularly before you’ll know the drill.
- Wake up
- Do a wee
- Get naked
- Stand on scales
What happens next has a lot to do with what number comes up on those scales.
Scenario 1: The number is significantly less than the previous weigh-in
You fist pump, yell “Woo!” really loudly, and then proceed to do a little naked happy dance. If you’re the quieter type, you’ll enthusiastically think: “YES!”, nod your head a few times and then proceed with your day. Either way, the number on those scales made you happy and because of that today is going to be a good day. All your hard work is paying off.
Scenario 2: The number is the same or high than the previous weigh-in
“Nooooooooo!’ you inwardly cry as your heart breaks into a thousand pieces. If you’re feisty you might kick the cat on your way out the bathroom door. Worst day ever! You tried so hard and thought you had such a good week. Surely one Freddo Frog can’t ruin it all?! You worked out so hard and restricted your food so much. It’s not fair!
Maybe, you expected it. Because you’ve been off the diet this past week or two and showed that wheel of brie last night who was boss. Plus, you’ve gone a little (ok maybe a lot) over your alcohol limits and overall you pretty much ate whatever other food just happened to be lying around in your house. You think mean, negative thoughts about yourself: “I’m such a pig!” “I’ll never get my shit together.” “I have no willpower.”
What a horrible, disappointing, frustrating and emotional game it is – losing weight and stepping on those scales!
In light of this, I’d like to rally you to join my new movement: It’s called STOP WEIGHING YOURSELF and all you have to do to join is ditch the bathroom scales. For good. Don’t get on them anymore. Chuck them in the bin!
Just like the fiery, passionate women of the 60s burned their bras, I say we burn our scales! We didn’t want to conform to the stereotype that as women we were good for nothing except housework and childbearing (I thank God every day for being born when I was), so we fought for our rights. I passionately believe that we should now protest against the stereotype that we have to be thin, lean or skinny to be beautiful and valuable woman!
Regardless of your weight or body size, I believe everyone should feel special, important and valued. We shouldn’t be judged or shamed by our bodies. We all deserve the right to feel comfortable and confident in the skin we’re in.
If you’re reading this thinking: “Yes Kate, but being overweight is bad for your health!”…
I know it is. I’ve spent my entire career helping people lose weight through improving their diet quality. It’s what I do! I wholehearted believe that we all need to take responsibility for our OWN health, but we shouldn’t have to feel ashamed for the way our body looks! If you’re unhappy with your body, here’s what I think you should do:
Get off the scales. They don’t tell you anything helpful! Because…
Scales don’t show your fat mass
If you’re concerned about your health and want to lose weight for that reason, your goal should be fat loss, not weight loss. You might do a week-long ‘cleanse’ (I wouldn’t recommend it) and lose five kilos, but that wasn’t 5 kilos of fat. You lost water, glycogen (carbohydrate stored in your muscles), some muscle mass and a tiny bit of fat.
Fat takes longer to lose. It starts to decrease when you make small, repeatable habits a part of your everyday life. Like moving and eating vegetables daily. You need to consistently create an energy deficit to lose fat by consistently choosing healthy, nutrient dense foods.
At The Healthy Eating Hub, we’ve recently started offering body composition scans with our InBody570. This is a highly precise piece of technology that measures your exact body composition (muscle, bones, fat, water) and is the BEST way to track fat loss over time.
When you repeat healthy eating habits daily, your 4-6 weekly scans will pick up the changes, no matter how small they are!
Scales don’t show your muscle mass
I’ve had clients want to lose weight and get to a certain number on the scales, which after measuring their body composition, is impossible to achieve. This is often because they have a high amount muscle mass. The only way they’d get that small would be to lose so much body fat that they’d be dead!
You see, body fat is not bad. We’re supposed to have body fat. It’s a vital part of our anatomy and physiology. It only becomes a problem when we start to store too much of it. And unfortunately, the body doesn’t have a stop button. It’ll just keep on storing fat so long as we keep consuming an excessive amount of energy.
It’s actually super important to know what your muscle mass is doing. When you’re moving regularly, eating a healthy, plant and protein rich diet, your muscle mass should be staying stable or even growing. You don’t want it to decline! Muscles make up the bulk of your metabolism. They burn stacks of calories. Give you good posture, keep your bones strong and they help keep life fun! You can walk up mountains to see sunsets, or dive into the ocean or play with your children without muscles! They are just amazing!
The Inbody570 can accurately track your muscle mass over time and ensure that as you’re losing weight, you’re maintaining your muscle mass and not losing it. Maintaining muscle will keep you healthy, but also make it easier to keep your weight off long term.
Scales don’t show your water levels
Your salt intake, whether you’ve exercised or not, your menstrual cycle, whether you’ve urinated or not and a bunch of other factors will affect how much water your body is holding. The day to day fluctuations in your home scales have more to do with water than they do with your eating habits. You may feel that this happens but when you ate that doughnut, 100% of it didn’t instantly go to your butt. The bad eating habits yesterday is not why you’ve put on weight today!
My parting words:
1. Ditch the scales and stop weighing yourself all the time!
2. Come and get an InBody scan with me. Let’s get an accurate picture of where you’re currently at – a starting point to track positive changes in your body over time!
3. Break down your big health goals into small, realistic goals and habits. Things that you can easily repeat every day:
- Add two cups of vegetables/salad to your lunch
- Grab a protein rich snack for afternoon tea
- Hit your 10,000 step a day (you’ll need to plan exercise or a walk to achieve this)
- Get 8+ hours of sleep every night
- Swap dessert for a piece of fruit and train yourself to enjoy eating that after dinner
There are HEAPS more I could help you with!
4. Lastly, start to develop a healthy acceptance of yourself and your body.
You are a valuable, important, beautiful person, regardless of what the scales say! Make healthy choices because you LOVE who you are, rather than because you hate who you are!
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