The 5 Most Powerful Lessons I’ve Learned: Part 5

There are five lessons that I've learned along my journey - and they're so important, I wanted you to learn them too. Over the past few weeks, I've shared these lessons with you, and I hope you've been able to put them into practice. Now it's time for the final lesson: 

Lesson #5:
Scales are for fish.

(YEP I SAID WHAT I SAID!) I HATE SCALES. But I'm not immune to them. I used the scale as the primary measure of progress when I started out, too. But if you're relying on the scale to tell you you're doing something right, I promise you, you will NOT make change. Weight loss is not a perfect line declining on a graph, it's a messy and up and down process week to week, and the scale does not tell the whole story.

"Weight is a measure of the force of gravity pulling down on an object." Remember this, the scale is not telling you body fat. And the scale can and will go up and down for MANY reasons, not just fat loss or gain. Fat loss, muscle gain, water retention, time of day, last time you ate, if you had a big workout, if you have to go to the bathroom, hormones and time of the month... all of these things and more will cause your weight to fluctuate day to day and hour to hour.

But none of this contributes to overall calories in and calories out. You have to understand that if you burn more calories than you consume, including all the calories you burn, sleeping, breathing (research basal metabolic rate, or BMR, and total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE), and you maintain that slight deficit over time, in general you WILL lose weight, even if the scale goes up after a week (which could be due to any of the reasons I listed earlier) it does not mean you GAINED BODY FAT!

If you eat the same as you burn you will likely maintain where you're at, and to gain weight you would consume more than you burn and maintain that surplus over time. That amount of time varies for everyone.

So, as I said....scales are for fish. The numbers on the scale are WAY more likely to get inside your head and play tricks on you than show actual progress. Time is your friend, not the scale. The scale is way more likely to deter you from your goal than help you. Hide the scale on the highest shelf and do whatever helps you get the most time under your belt!

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