When Your Scale Lies…
When Your Scale Lies…
Nov 1st, 2010 | By Coach Nancy | Category: Coach Nancy - The Way I See It..., Living the Fit Life
So often when I coach women, they are totally focused on what they weigh. And I don’t really blame them. You see a focus on what you weigh in just about every ‘health’ magazine published today. But focusing on the scale can be very misleading.
From a very simple perspective, our bodies are composed of lean mass (our skeletal structure plus muscle mass) and body fat. Sure we want to lose our body fat but we don’t want to lose any of our lean mass. As we age, we tend to lose lean muscle. And if we don’t engage in weight bearing exercises, we can also lose bone density. Both of these are to be avoided!
When we focus on the scale only, we may be excited to see the number go down because a diet we are on seems to be working. But if we are losing mostly lean mass, we’ve done ourselves no service – just the reverse.
The other missing component is that if you are very focused on the right diet and exercise program, you can actually add lean mass and burn fat. If you are really efficient, you can actually gain more muscle than you lose fat. I recently decided to prove this. I’ve gone and added more muscle mass than I lost fat. The result is I’m actually measuring smaller around my waist and hips. My butt is actually higher and smaller than it was just a few months ago.
I’ve taken pictures to show you this change. Unfortunately the ‘after’ pictures are not of the quality I usually show (you can only do so well taking your own picture with a cell phone) but even with that, you can see the improvement:
The picture of me on the left is how I looked in July and the right image is how I look now. See how I’m more tapered at the waist (more visible looking at my back), see how my lower abs have come in further? Shee how my rear is lifted and my upper thigh is smoother and leaner?
Now here’s the thing, I weigh more in the right picture than I do in the left!
So stop watching the scale so closely and work hard on your workouts, take care with your diet and make sure you reduce or elimiate simple carbs from grains and sugar, eat plenty of high quality protein and take your measurements with a tape measure. You’ll be surprised at how you might weigh more but look better!
Nancy,
Wow…you really look amazing! Thank you for the updated photo! You are proof that we can win this war on hormones and aging! You are a real inspiration!
Simply amazing!
Kimberly
The question I wanted to know is with the added muscle did you find your clothes looser in some arrears. I find that some of my tops the sleeves are tighter?
Thanks Kimberly!
Hi Marcia,
If you are eating to fuel fat loss while you add muscle, the odds are strongly that you won’t get bigger (clothes tighter) from a few pounds. I’m smaller in all areas except perhaps in my shoulders and possibly back. But my arms, legs, abs, butt are all smaller. So with me what is happening is that I’m burning fat while adding muscle. Sure I’m adding a bit more muscle than fat loss but overall I’m more compact.
If you just add muscle without losing fat, sure your clothes will get tight. I’d suspect your diet is off.
Nancy