What Are Scales Really Doing For Us?

Yesterday, I had an individual at ‘The Gym’ that I work at stating she wanted to lose X amount and get to X weight. I get this a lot as a PT and so I thought I would address this in a blog. 

What are scales really doing for us?  

I guess the point in scales for some is to fit into a BMI category, but who decides these categories? The BMI categories were first introduced in the 19th century and to me seems a way of the government to pretend they have some way of controlling our populations obesity crisis when really they are too reactive as opposed to preventative regarding this. I could go on about this, but the government's role in the obesity crisis isn’t the point of this blog. So ...moving on. Who’s right is it to say what weight we should be to be a ‘healthy category’? 

In the example at the beginning, the individual has made a subjective decision to get down to a certain weight as their goal. As humans, we like to have control over things and so we look for objective measures, so it makes sense that this individual has chosen a goal that she could get an objective measure from. However, the goal itself is subjective-based on personal preference. A goal which they have probably plucked out of thin air. A goal that focuses on weight as opposed to toning. However, the flaw with this is that this individual isn’t accounting for the fact that muscle weighs more than fat and so if this individual were to lose fat, but gain muscle (ie what the majority of people will find with a goal to tone up), then they will weigh more.  So you may be training hard, you may be toning up, but the scales may show as increasing weight (as a result of muscle gains). You get angry, you get demotivated. You then decide that your exercise regime isn’t working. It mustn't be because the scales are going up, right? WRONG! You then quit the gym and lose the muscle you worked so hard to gain, replacing it for fat. Can you see how backwards this is? USE SCALES WITH CAUTION!

This doesn’t mean that you can pig out on food and not exercise, leading to an increase in your weight on the scales, claiming it as muscle. And for sure, scales can be a useful indicator of progress for some who are clued up on body composition or someone in a 'cutting phase'/ competing. Scales are also useful for individuals having to make weight for a competition. However, for the majority of us maybe it is time we ditch the scales. This means that if you want to ‘tone up’ (increase muscle mass, reduce fat mass), then perhaps scales aren’t your best method of measuring this.  Don’t let a machine such as scales dictate how well you are doing.

Go by how you feel within yourself, how clothes fit on you, how you look in your progress pictures, how your physical measurements have changed, how much you have progressed with your weight training or even how exercise has impacted you mentally. YOU’RE BETTER THAN A NUMBER ON A SCALE!

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