Do you live and die by the number you see when you step on the scale?  Do you feel amazing when the number drops down lower than it normally sits or get depressed when you see it start to creep up?

Unfortunately many have strong emotions when stepping on the scale both negative and positive.  The bigger problem is the fact that the number you see, really isn’t telling you much about your current state.  Weight is a very broad thing to measure so if this is the only thing you use to measure your progress, you will  never know what is really going on in your body.

Weight is simply looking at how much mass you have.  There are many things in your body giving you this weight including bone, muscle, fat, organs, water, etc.  When most step on the scale they assume that any changes they see are directly related to a change in fat mass.  If the scale goes down, they are excited assuming it is from fat.  If it goes up, they are bummed because they think they just gained more body fat.  This may be true, but it is not the only reason you will change your weight.

To share an example, we recently spent a week in Mexico at an all inclusive resort.  I won’t list everything I ate and drank, but it was a lot.  Much more than I normally consume.  I worked out a little, but not enough to have much of an impact on the food and drink consumption.

I regularly weigh myself using the Hume Health Body Pod.  I use a scale like this, because it gives you much more information than simply how much you weigh.  I don’t really care about my total weight.  I want to know what is making up that weight and a scale like this helps me see that.

Here are some reading from my last weigh in before we left on our trip.

So based on this data, on 7/26 I weighed 180.3lbs.  I can look at a lot more data it tells me, but just to show you a few things my body fat percentage was 12.6%, muscle weight was 151.7lbs, and my body water percentage was 66.1%.

Now let’s look at the damage I did on the trip.  Here was my weight the day after we got back.

I gained almost 4lbs over the week in Mexico.  But the question should be, what does that really mean?  Did I gain fat or was it something else?  Let’s look at some more information.

With this information we can see a little more of what is going on.  My body fat percentage actually didn’t really change.  It even dropped .2%.  But so did my muscle mass weight down to 149.9lbs.  And my body water % dropped to 64.1%.

Now that I have this information, I can better plan what I should be focusing on when I got back on what to do.  Instead of freaking out that I gained weight and start crash dieting and going crazy on the cardio, I can have a smarter plan.

Regardless of what the scale shows, my main goal is to get back to a normal eating routine.  Nothing crazy, but trying to get back to what I typically do.  Since my muscle mass actually dropped, I want to make sure I am getting enough protein in and getting back to my resistance training.

But what might be the most important thing, is drinking more water.  Maybe the biggest influence on my weight changing was being more dehydrated.  This makes sense because it was very hot in Mexico and most of my drinks were adult drinks versus water.

So this is exactly what I did.  I got back into my routine and eased back in.   I didn’t need to try and make up for anything.  Then I paid attention to getting a little more protein and staying on top of my water everyday.

Within a week of being back my weight was at 181lbs, body fat to 10.1%, muscle mass to 151.7lbs, and body water to 65.8%  Pretty much all back to my normal.  And the biggest thing I paid attention to was not going crazy working out or cutting calories.  It was adding more protein and more water each day.

The more information you have the better action you can take on it.  Most of the time it will involve much simpler things that you would expect.  But these are the things that move the needle the most.

If you like the idea of tracking your progress to help you make better decisions, you can check out the Body Pod by Hume Health.  It is an incredible resource to help you really see what is going on inside your body.

Click here to learn more.

You can use code OCRUNDERGROUND to get 15% off your purchase as well.

I hope this helps you on your fitness journey.

 

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training