Who hates looking at the scales? You know it’s just a number. You know your weight can fluctuate month to month, week to week, day to day, even morning to afternoon for all sorts of reasons that have NOTHING to do with your progress.
Even though you know that, you still dread stepping onto the scales.
In this blog, I’m going to tell you about 3 alternatives to the scales to measure your weight loss progress, and how they can even improve your results.
First, let’s cover why the scales can be a flawed method of seeing how you are going, and how they can actually be causing you problems.
Scales don’t measure some vital indicators.
Scales only measure overall mass. They don’t take into consideration:
• Muscle mass – You could have two people stand on the scales, who both weigh 80 kgs. Person A works out, eats well, and has a fat percentage of 15-20%. Person B, never exercises, eats junk, and has a fat percentage of 30%+
On the scales, they weigh the same, but clearly Person B could not be seen to be as healthy as Person A
* Overall strength & fitness. Hand in hand with muscle mass, scales can’t measure your overall health and strength. They can’t tell if you can now do push ups when you could not before, they can’t tell if you can now run around the block when you couldn’t before, they can’t tell if your dicky knee feels more stable now.
* Visceral Fat. Scales can’t measure where you fat is on the body. Visceral fat is the fat stored on and around your organs, it’s what I have nicknamed “The Heart Attack Fat”. As the nickname would suggest, this is the fat that will cause you the most health issues.
If you have a little extra junk in your trunk, it’s probably not going to kill you. Carrying extra weight on your thighs and butt will not have the same effect as having a heap of fat around your vital organs.
As scales can only measure overall mass, to people standing on the scales could get the same result, however if one is carrying a lot of visceral fat compared to the other, they are in more danger of health issues, and should know about it.
That’s just the physical side of things, what about the mental side?
There are many benefits in weighing in and tracking your weight with the scales. When used properly, they are a key part of the process.
They allow you to celebrate the wins.
They allow you to hold yourself accountable if you gain.
They can motivate you to stick to the program .
However, a lot of people are frightened of the scales.
Frightened at least of what they represent. Perhaps failure, regret, shame, anger, and disappointment if a goal or expectation is not met?
Does this sound familiar?
* Jump on the scales, a higher result than expected.
* Get angry, sad, think “This is terrible!”
* Set off on a “Bad” day and sabotage yourself because of the result.
If that sounds like you, then you need to remember the factors above, ie what the scales don’t tell you, and take those factors into consideration.
You also need to keep following your plan and your targets. The worst thing you can do if you missed a goal is sabotage yourself and make next week worse!
The other thing you can do is to measure your progress in other ways, let me give you 3 ways to measure your weight loss progress, without the bathroom scales, watch the video below.
1/ Measure, measure, measure.
What can be measured, can be changed.
Take measurements of your body in key areas, belly button, thighs, chest, waist, legs, arms. If you are following an exercise regime, you could be building muscle, while at the same time losing fat. This wont show on the scales, but will show in measurements.
Use your clothes as a barometer too. Pick out a little black Dress you want to get into, and keep trying it on until you do fit into it again.
2/ If you watch the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.
Focus on the method, rather then the short term results.
If your focus is purely on losing X amount of kilos, you might forget about the little day to day goals that will get you there.
It makes sense that if your day to day goals were small, like:
* I will exercise 30 minutes a day minimum
* I will stick to my eating plan for a seven day streak
* I will celebrate the small wins everyday, and pat myself on the back.
You can see that if you were setting mini goals that meant you were eating well, exercising well, and having a good attitude, that weight loss is inevitable, right?
So focus on small mini goals day to day, that keep you on track.
I recommend, 3 monthly goals, 3 weekly goals that work towards the month goals, and three daily goals that work towards the weekly goals.
3/ Look for alternatives to bathroom scales
For example, we know that bathroom scales don’t measure muscle mass, skeletal mass, water retention, and visceral fat, but bio-impedance scales do.
Bio – Impedance scales send a harmless electrical current through the body, and measures the resistance of water in the body’s different structures.
So water in fat cells has a different resistance to muscle for example. So bio – impedance scales can measure exactly how much of you is muscle, fat, bone, and water (among a few other things)
Some of them can also even measure visceral fat.
All these things, when taken into joint consideration of you overall mass, will give you a much better idea of where you are at, and how you have progressed in say, 6 weeks or so.
We’ll be conducting bio-impedance scans this Saturday March 19th at the gym in Mercer St Geelong, Click here if you’d like to know more – http://ucan2weightloss.com.au/bioimpsept2015-2/
That’s all for now!
Bren “I don’t cry on the scales” Ryan
Personal Trainer
Weight Loss Coach
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