Why your scale can’t be trusted
There is a very specific kind of frustration that comes from stepping on the scale and seeing a number that makes absolutely no sense after doing everything right.
You’ve committed to a plan. You’re following it with more discipline than you’ve applied to almost anything in your life. You’re checking the boxes on the things you’ve been told are instrumental to success.
Stress reduction, fiber, protein, portions, water, workouts, steps, sleep, consistency… You’ve had days where you received more compliments, felt leaner, clothes fit better, crushed your workouts… ultimately you felt amazing!
You're unstoppable and excited to step on the scale as it should reflect effort and mood. The weight is a surprise – it’s a little higher and you’re working on lower. But in your mind higher is higher. And when you’re working hard, waiting for proof that the work is paying off, a pound or two can feel like the entire plan has been called into question and that your “failing.”
In the past that was the part that always got me. Because it had been explained to me as such, “if you want to lose weight, work hard and it will come off. And it only comes off if the scale goes down.” Based on what I was told the scale should have rewarded me with a lower number.
When it didn’t, I assumed the number was telling me something had gone wrong. And that is what other trainers and coaches were telling me. Was I eating more than I thought? Were my calories not low enough? Was I eating too much, or had my metabolism suddenly downshifted overnight?
Minutes later (probably seconds if I’m honest) things escalated. “That’s it! It’s too much work. The plan isn’t working. My body isn’t responding. I need to change everything!”
It’s quite unique what historical, cultural and social conditioning and decades of diet culture infiltrating our psyches has done to our ability to see things objectively and plainly.
How a number on a screen can have us questioning it to explain our metabolism, hormones, discipline, progress and whether or not we can reach self-acceptance and our goals.
Imagine? That’s a lot of responsibility to place on one number.
THE SCALE IS NOT A MAGIC BALL
The scale does not tell you if you failed. It only shows what your body weighs in that moment. That’s all. It does not tell you how much weight is minerals, bones, water, food volume, stored carbohydrates, digestion, inflammation from training, hormonal shifts, fat or what your organs weigh. It won’t whisper if what you believe is a higher number is temporary, what you actually weighed in the same point of your last cycle (ex: luteal,) or whether it’s going to come back down in two days even if you don’t change anything.
Body weight is not body fat. Body weight includes everything in the body at that moment. Fat is part of it, but so are bones, organs, water, muscle, glycogen, food, waste, and the normal shifts that happen in a body that is alive, eating, creating, training, recovering, loving, menstruating, and responding to the world around it.
The scale measures the total, it does not honor the parts. That doesn’t make the scale useless or deceitful. It only means the scale has one simple job, but we keep giving it extra responsibilities.
THE SCALE IS NOT A PERFORMANCE REVIEW
Scales do not only respond to fat. A hard strength-training session can leave the muscles holding more fluid while they recover. Eating more carbohydrates (glycogen) can pull water into your muscles, adding temporary weight. A saltier meal can change fluid balance causing you to hold onto extra water. Food in your digestive tract, a full bladder, or constipation adds physical weight. Certain drugs, like anti-inflammatories or steroids, can cause fluid retention.
And then there is the menstrual cycle. It can change hunger, metabolism, digestion, fluid retention, inflammation, and how the body looks and feels from one week to the next, even when food and training stay relatively consistent.
None of those things prove that fat loss is happening, but they also don’t prove that fat gain is happening. Fat loss can be occurring underneath a temporary increase in water, food volume, or inflammation, which means the scale can rise even when the body is still moving in the direction you want it to go.
That is why one weigh-in cannot give you context or tell you whether the plan is working, it can only tell you what the total happened to be that morning.
TRENDS
Trends are harder for us to distort with our perceptions. When we consider the scale with the menstrual cycle, stress levels, sleep patterns, training, hunger and long-term weight the number becomes much less dramatic. You can see familiar increases or start to even predict fluctuations.
Higher numbers might show up for multiple reasons differently for people such as with little sleep, too much caffeine, during ovulation, travel, high-carbohydrate days or with not enough water only to drop in a few days.
Trends also work the other way. The lowest weight is not automatically your actual weight, just as higher weights do not automatically equal fat gain. Both are just measurements that cannot tell the entire story.
That is what I wish more people who are trying to lose fat understood before they beat themselves up from a higher weigh-in causing them to cut food, add cardio, or label themselves as broken or lazy.
Progress is not a lower number on the scale.
MAYBE
You can dislike a number without allowing it to rewrite the entire story. You can notice it, record it, and wait to see where it belongs.
You can also take it a step further and question why you don’t like it? Is the actual number your chasing going to reflect the body composition you desire? Do you want more muscle, a faster metabolism or leaner body? Then maybe the scale never actually changes or it goes up even when you lose body fat and gain muscle.
The scale may be accurate, but accuracy is not the same thing as meaning. Meaning comes from context, and context comes from seeing the pattern over time against what you are actually working towards.