Becoming Victim to the Scale

Last week a friend of mine was getting upset because she had done a hard workout but her scale didn’t budge. She wanted to see it go down two pounds and she was consumed by the fact that it didn’t. She’s a healthy size 6. She looks great and is fitting better in her clothes. But that doesn’t console her. All she is focused on is what it says on the scale and what she can do to change it.

She checks the scale regularly throughout the day to see if it has budged, and she feels euphoric if it has gone done and depressed if it hasn’t. The results run her life, her decisions about food and exercise, and how she feels about herself.

Yet she has a 50/50 chance of stepping on the scale and having it go down or up. And as much as she would like to believe, she doesn’t control the outcome on an hourly basis nor even on a daily basis.

That is because our weight varies throughout the day, depending on how long ago we’ve eaten, had a beverage, used the toilet, been active or the extent we’ve been exposed to high heat or stress. Our bodies are more than 70% water, and our weight shifts constantly throughout the day as we get hydrated and dehydrated, and as we go through the phases of metabolizing our food and digestion. It is well documented that at any given time during the day your weight can vary from one to five pounds. You have no control of this, yet many people hold themselves accountable for any change they see on the scale.

As a society we are so focused on weight as a number that we’ve forgotten what really matters. What matters is your body fat percentage and if it is within a healthy range, which is between 20-25% for women and less for men. To put on a pound of fat you would have to eat 3500 calories more than you already eat and burn off in a day, which is about 1800-2000 on average. Few can eat 5500 calories in just one day. Yet it isn’t that hard to overeat 500 calories over the course of a day and for that to add up to 3500 by the end of the week. Now you’ve put on one pound of fat, and that is the weight that matters.

Unfortunately you don’t know which it is when you get on the scale and it goes up. You can’t feel the difference between water weight and fat weight. My girlfriend had noticed that she was more bloated after her workout, and that bloat clearly water and not fat – weighs something. She probably has lost some fat weight, but she has no good way to easily measure that on her scale. Even the scales that provide body mass index (BMI) numbers aren’t going to tell her that. The BMI is a calculation based on height to weight and can’t distinguish between fat, muscle and water. So she is assuming that it is fat and that she has to work out more and eat less. That is the wrong decision.

First it is wrong to penalize yourself based on what the scale says, becoming victim to a number. Secondly, increasing exercise with less food will drive down your metabolic rate and create a worse situation. But that is just what most people do. When the scale goes up, the inclination is to severely cut back on food and over exercise. It may seem like the right thing to do, but in reality it stresses the body and leads to perceived starvation. This leads to fat storing and often a belly roll, which I used to get whenever I did this.

Now my belly roll is the result of menopause, and it is there to protect me. My weight has gone up the last couple of years as my abdominal fat has taken over the role of producing estrogen from the ovaries. This is a normal process and one I can’t easily fight. As most gynecologists will tell you, women are expected to put on about 10 pounds around the waist during menopause. But many women struggle as they go through this period of their life because they can’t control what they see on the scale. Yet they continue to get on it hoping to see a different outcome. This only leads to a feeling of defeat.

This week get rid of your scale and stop being the victim. You don’t need a scale to tell you if you’re overweight and unhealthy. Free yourself to pay attention to how you feel physically and let that drive your decisions instead.

Alice Greene is president of Feel Your Personal Best, a healthy lifestyle coaching company located in Newburyport, MA. Contact her at agreene@feelyourpersonalbest.com or 978-465-3555×5.