Your Scale Is Lying To You March 19th, 2008


    photo credit: skampy

    Scales lie. There, I said it!

    Sure, you’ve probably used that same phrase before, but now you have my whole hearted support. If you follow your diet and exercise, the worst thing you could do at the end of the day is step on a scale. It won’t give you an accurate account of how close you are to reaching your goals. If you have a goal, you need to stick to it. It’s that simple. But I would not suggest you make that goal be to lose weight. Instead, focus on losing fat. Weight loss is a fickle subject, and it is possible to actually get healthier without losing the dozens of pounds that light the end of your fitness tunnel.

    Before I begin, I just want to say that weight loss is a good thing! I’m not suggesting that you stop trying to lose weight. Please, continue down that path. But don’t focus on your weight. Muscle cells actually weigh more than fat cells, so you could be [tag]burning fat/tag], but still gaining weight. If you step on a scale, and it tells you that you’ve lost 4 pounds in a month, you might get discouraged. All that healthy eating and exercising 4 - 5 times a week, and only 4 pounds! But what that scale won’t tell you is that you’ve burned off 15 punds of fat and have replaced it with heavier muscle, thereby distorting what you see as “results”.

    If you are a bodybuilder (or just looking to add mass), then you’ll probably welcome this increase in weight. Personally, I have been trying to get up to 200lbs for the longest time, and I just can’t do it! So if I notice my weight increasing, I’m ecstatic! However, if you are trying to get tone (maybe by doing yoga), you will burn fat, but your muscle mass will only increase slight. You may still, however, notice a slight increase in weight, but you will definitely see a difference in the mirror. A positive difference!

    What you should do instead is focus on your body fat percentage and various body tape measurements (such as around your arms, waist, and legs). Body fat is composed of your essential fat (what you need to survive) and your storage fat. Men should have between 8%-12%, whereas women should be have about 20%. The disparity is “due to the demands of childbearing and other hormonal activities”. Although there are numerous ways to, I prefer to use a body fat caliper, which basically measures your skin folds. Measuring various body parts is easy. Remember how Hulk Hogan used to brag about having “24 inch pythons”? Ok, maybe not. But he was talking about his biceps; his biceps were 24 inches in diameter. Whoa! To get measurements like that, you simply have to take some measuring tape, and measure the appropriate body part. These girth measurements help by telling you “where you are growing or shrinking, which muscle groups are responding, and which may need to be attacked in a different way.”

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