Throw Away Your Scale! I Mean It … Now!
Today’s tip is a simple one, and one I’ve mentioned before. But, it bears repeating (a lot): Throw away your scale.
That may seem harsh, but unless you are a competitor in a weight-classed sport (weightlifting, wrestling, etc) then owning a scale and getting on it regularly is a sure-fire way to screw up your progress.
Here’s the problem. Women especially, but increasingly more men, are obsessed with weight loss. Not fat loss, as they should. And when you care about weight loss, then you’ll do some stupid things that will cause you to lose more muscle and gain more fat.
Most of the advertising for fitness-related products and programs promise big weight loss. What they do is they devise a way for you to lose a bunch of water weight in a short period of time. Any moron can lose up to 20 pounds of water in under 2 weeks. But, odds are, you didn’t lose a single pound of fat, and you might have lost some muscle – a lose/lose situation!
You all know how much I love watching the Biggest Loser (read my defense of it here), but they are particularly bad about this issue. Every week, contestants get on the scale and compete to see who lost a higher percentage of bodyweight. Since the contestants are so dramatically big (some of them carrying 300 pounds of extra fat), weight loss is highly correlated with fat loss in the beginning. But, once they get nearer to their goal weight, it gets brutal.
The reason being, they are gaining muscle at the same time, and that makes weight loss hard. They can still be losing fat at the same rate they always were on the show, but because it’s based on percentage of body weight, and their overall fat levels are now lower, they can’t possibly lose 2% per week! It’s just basic middle-school math, people.
What’s wrong with all of this? Weight loss is not the same as fat loss. Period. It’s only marginally related. You can lose both water and muscle at a much faster rate than you can lose fat. And guess what, you’re body would rather you did.
Some of this state of mind in our culture is the fault of the medical establishment that still pushes the BMI, the Body Mass Index, on an unsuspecting public. The BMI only tells you if you are heavy for your height, based on some antiquated notions of what “heavy” means.
Want to know something funny? Nearly every single one of the athletes I train is considered overweight by their BMI. In fact, I’m considered clinically obese!
How can that be possible?
Because scale weight tells you nothing important. Please read that again, and again, and again … till it sinks in.
Scale weight only tells you how much you weigh. It doesn’t tell you if you have a high bodyfat percentage, a large amount of muscle mass, strong bones (which weight more than weak bones), or if your carrying a lot of water. (Some women can gain a solid 10 pounds of water during their period – they didn’t get fatter. It’s just water, and it goes away when they are off their period.)
Scale weight is a lie.
What you should care about is if you have a low bodyfat percentage (teens to low twenties for women, high single digits to low double digits for men), a good amount of muscle, and strong bones.
Since muscle weighs a lot more than fat, then you can lose a lot of fat, gain a little muscle and not change your scale weight AT ALL.
This is common. Especially among people who have not seriously worked out before. If you have never done any serious weight training, expect to gain about 10 pounds of bone-mass alone. This won’t show in the mirror. You’re bones have been hollow for a long time, and now that you have been lifting weights, they are filling in. This is a GREAT thing. But, it makes you heavier.
If you are tall, then you can gain even more weight.
My best friend Brandy is 5’8”, and regularly weighs over 160 pounds. She’s well within the healthy range of bodyfat, and is carrying a ton of muscle. She looks great and is in great shape. But, when some women hear that she weighs over 160 pounds, they flip out!
“Oh. My. God!”
She looks so much leaner than that.
And there we hit the problem. They associate “lean” with “light”. When in fact it is usually the opposite. Athletes are the leanest and strongest people around. They are also heavy. If you are both small and light, you are either under 5’3”, have a remarkably small bone structure, or you are “skinny fat” and you need to lift more weight.
Throw away your scale. Start paying more attention to the mirror (and maybe a tape measure around your waist), and be more of an intellectual about your body composition. I promise you, you’ll be happier AND healthier.
