Getting Depressed From Your Weight Scale
Jumping on the scale can the most nerve wracking part of the week if you’re trying to gain or lose weight. Everything that you’ve done right or wrong is gonna boil down to that one number that you’ve been hoping would move the way that you wanted to.
…and then all of sudden when you look down there’s the number that you didn’t want and it’s way worse than you thought it was going to be.
I think part of the reason why people jump from diet to diet and try new fads that sound good at first is all because of the weight scale.
While your weight is important to a degree, it really should only be ONE indicator of whether you’re physique is headed in the right direction. Read more to find out why.
Why The Weight Scale Is Somewhat Overrated
There’s way too many subtle factors that can throw off the true measurement of anything that can get placed on a weight scale (see How to Properly Weigh Yourself). The fact that you’re never really getting a 100% accurate measurement of yourself at any given time is enough to not rely just on that for tracking.
The second reason is because weight is distributed by the ratio of lean body mass to fatty tissue in the body. Your weight can simultaneously drop while losing the wrong type of tissue by a host of factors that you’re supposed to be monitoring at the same time (more on this later).
An example of this is when someone tells you their weight and visually their body shows something else. You ever wonder why someone else at 200lbs can look completely different than someone else at the same weight?
The reason why is because of the difference in weight and density of muscle cells vs. fat cells. A liter of fat weights 1.98lbs and a liter of muscle weights 2.3lbs.
Fat also has a density of 0.9g/mL, while muscle has a density of 1.1g/mL. That’s why the same weight can look hugely different in two different people:
You can still see differentiation in fat even at similar body fat levels all because of distribution.
That’s also a reason why losing weight at a rapid pace can also indicate that you’re more likely losing more muscle mass than fat. Muscle weights a bit more so dropping weight in a short period of time is never a good thing.
This is why crash diets gets quick results now and horrible results later down the road. Weight distribution gets thrown off. A good example of laugh now, cry later.
The Wrap Up
Weighing yourself isn’t something that you should avoid doing but it definitely can’t be the only indicator for what progress should be. Physiologically many things are happening to your body at once when you’re excising, so you can’t pinpoint everything you doing right to just one number. You should use the number on the scale in conjunction with tape measurements of your body parts to get idea of what you need to do next.
What else do you want to know?
How to Properly Weight Yourself
How to Accurately Measure Your Body Fat Levels