If you’re about to start a journey to improved health and you have a weight loss number in mind, then we need to talk.
Focusing on some random number in your head is one of the most self-defeating things that you can do.
As a gauge of your progress, it can play tricks on you.
It makes you believe you’re not getting anywhere or even going backwards when you’re actually getting healthier and stronger.
And a low number might tell you you’re doing great when you’re actually depleting your health.
Want to know what the right thing is to focus on?
Focus on:
- how you feel
- how your clothes fit and
- how much stronger you are.
If you wake up in the morning and you have tons of energy and the jeans you couldn’t button a few weeks ago are feeling loose, you’re succeeding!
We spend too much time looking at numbers that don’t matter and ignoring the things that do.
Top 3 Reasons your weight doesn’t matter.
1. Remember those diets you’ve gone on in the past that made you lose a ton of weight in a day or two?
Remember how excited you were?
You were probably starving yourself and actually losing health!
When you’re working out and eating right, the number on the scale can go up for a lot of reasons, including a boost in your body’s levels of glycogen.
That’s great news, because glycogen helps you store carbs for energy. It also causes your body to retain more water, hence, the scale fluctuates by up to 7 pounds.
Your body is responding to the quality nutrition and exercise that it’s getting. It's giving you the end results you’re looking for.
2. The numbers on a scale are influenced by lots of things that are out of your control.
Maybe you’re stressed about work so your cortisol levels jumped. (one of the millions of reasons I meditate daily.)
Maybe something you ate had a ton of salt in it so you’re retaining water, or the food that you ate weighed a lot (even though it didn’t add any fat).
When you’re working out and eating right, your clothes fit you better and you have a lot more energy. That’s the only guide you need.
3. Muscle weighs more than fat.
You know you’ve heard it before, and it’s true. If you've started working out, you are building more muscle.
It’s also true that this same new muscle mass that’s pushing up the number on your scale is also burning calories a whole lot faster than the same amount of fat did.
When you build muscle your body's metabolism is boosted. It burns 3 times more calories maintaining those muscle cells than it did when they were fat cells. Talk about a great reason to strength train!
A pound of muscle and a pound of fat are not the same when it comes to how much room they take up in your clothes (fat takes up more). The image above really drives this point home.
They’re definitely not equals when it comes to the good health that they’re offering you.
Seeing a lower number on the scale is not a measure of how healthy you are, and seeing a higher number is not a sign of defeat.
You only need to pay attention to the fuel you’re giving your body and the way that you’re using it.
You’ll soon see results in the only way that counts – how you look, how you feel and how your energy levels soar.
Yours in health,
Danette
P.S. Please share this with your friends and I welcome your comments below.
