(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free work, workout, and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Is your goal weight actually sabotaging your fat loss results, your body recomp success? The simple answer is maybe, and it’s something we don’t often think about, but seeking to see faster results on the scale is often what leads to us doing unsustainable habits and us not seeing the recomp we want and ultimately regaining the weight very quickly.

(00:54):
We also have to recognize where this goal weight is really coming from because it’s not only the fluctuations on the scale, but truly our goal weight that can hold us back. Because when you have that specific number you really want to drive towards, you are staring at the scoreboard versus focusing on the habits that you need to be doing or the play on the field that you need to have in order to get that scoreboard to change. And in staring at that, a lot of times we aren’t implementing a lot of the practices. We don’t realize what needs to change. And we get caught up so much in that that we ultimately either don’t make changes, get overwhelmed, stop, don’t keep doing the habits that we need or actually accurately adjust based on what’s going on. So we need to stop staring at the scoreboard.

(01:33):
We also need to recognize that that goal weight might not actually be what we really want and understand the whole ramification of that. Not to mention the fact that trying to see that happen faster often leads to us creating those unsustainable habits losing weight very quickly. But we’re not a controlling for whether or not we’re losing fat versus muscle. It’s why we don’t necessarily look leaner or achieve our full body recomp that we want. And it’s also why we end up regaining the weight very quickly or feeling like we can’t eat anything without the scale jumping 20 pounds. So I want to break down why it’s potentially important that we reassess what our goal weight should be and even let go of our goal weight and also the reason why the scale can change so often and how we can really change how we even use this device to our advantage.

(02:18):
So going to the goal weight, is it really that number that you want? And I say this because a lot of times we’ll say, I want X weight. This is the weight I should be at. Well, Y is that number so important to you, and I think this is a really key reflection we need to do because often that number really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. The reason we have that number stuck in our head is because that was the number we were at at our wedding when we felt like our most fabulous and we loved the way the pictures look. It was the number we were at when we PRD in that race. It was the number we were at when we felt amazing, when we loved the way we looked, when we loved the photos, but it’s the feeling we’re after not the number.

(03:01):
And we need to separate that out because if you had all the things you had at that point, if you fit back into the clothes, if you loved how you looked in photos, if you had all the energy to PR in a race, would you really care if you hit that number? And the answer is truly no. That number has no relevance outside of it is a marker of that time. And in noticing that and in assessing that, we need to find all the other ways we can measure success to get back to that lifestyle, to own the habits that we had then and all the things we were doing to feel our most fabulous. Because a lot of times we’ve let those habits slide. We’ve let that lifestyle slide, those mindset slide. And so even now looking at photos as we’re in our journey forward, we don’t see the success of snowball because we don’t have the mindsets we had at that time.

(03:44):
We don’t have that feeling of confidence that we had built at that time. And so we need to assess what does that number represent in terms of these other factors to strive to act as if and also to measure progress in all these different ways to help us truly assess if we are or aren’t moving forward because the scale simply isn’t going to change quickly. And the more we try to, the more we sabotage our success from creating those unsustainable habits to creating metabolic adaptations to not really seeing recomp happen. Because we often say, oh, my results are slow. Well true fat loss is slow and it should be slow. You can’t out exercise around diet time as much as you want to. You got to put in the daily work and you got to put it in day after day after day for a lot longer than you want.

(04:26):
And a lot of what leads to the speed of our results is all the things we’ve done prior from the mindsets. We’re willing to embrace the discomfort we’re willing to embrace to even how long we’ve had the weight on because the longer you have it on, the longer it’s going to take to get it off. That’s why if you just gain it recently, it’s a lot easier sometimes. So it’s why you can’t judge someone else’s six week transformation to your own because we’re all starting at different points and everything we’ve done prior in our life really has an impact. But so in assessing how to navigate the scale, how to judge progress in other ways, you do want to track performance. You do want to track measurements, you do want to track progress pictures. All these things can help try on that outfit that you felt really fabulous in at that time.

(05:05):
How are you making progress towards that? But assess all the different lifestyle factors that you were even doing, not just your goal weight. And I say this too because even if you do want to drive towards a goal weight, it’s going to fluctuate daily and you’ve got to understand why it’s going to fluctuate daily. It’s going to fluctuate because of inflammation. If you’re stressed, if you’re not sleeping well, if you have more muscle tissue damage from tough workouts, yes, if you have a tough workout Friday night and you weigh in Saturday morning and there’s muscle tissue damage from that, guess what? You might see the scale increase. And it’s not from doing anything wrong. You did do everything right that week, but you see it go up because of that inflammation, that muscle tissue damage, potentially even storing more glycogen if you had carbs later at night.

(05:45):
And also because you need that to repair and with the glycogen storage. So if you have more carbs, you’re going to bring with that water weight and see the increase. So the scale is going to fluctuate, not for negative reasons all the time. It’s for recovery and repair. It’s potentially a negative reason that we’re stressed and inflamed from that, or lack of sleep. Maybe you didn’t poop yet. You can have a full bowel. But it’s a lot of different reasons that aren’t really fat loss. The scale is showing your weight in time on that moment. And so if you’ve even eaten food, if you’ve consumed water, that is going to increase your weight on the scale. If you go away right now, go eat some stuff or even go sweat out some stuff and dehydrate yourself and then go away again, your weight is going to change.

(06:26):
And that’s why we can’t base things only on this. And that’s why you have to understand the nuance to the scale and what it’s really telling you, which is just your weight, not muscle versus fat. And that’s why there’s other forms of measurement with the progress photos, the measurements, the using the clothing is so key, but then also recognizing the reasons why it fluctuates. And I even like to, when I’m deciding how to use the scale, because I do understand, and I even use goal weights to help set macros sometimes to get an estimate if we don’t know where someone’s starting from or even if someone’s maintenance is right now lower because they’re undereating and we want to boost it or just to give that estimation, you can use goal weight to do some different calorie calculations. However, I don’t like to get so focused on that, and I like to make sure that clients know how they can really use a pursuit of that to their advantage, whether it’s weighing once a week, whether maybe it’s not really weighing at all, and just using that check-in once in a while, whether or not it’s weighing daily.

(07:19):
But you have to understand then the fluctuations and the impact they have. So if you’re weighing once a week, you want to run through potentially the checklist of, Hey, hey, am I sore? Did I work out later at night? Did I have more sodium or eat out? Is there some other change? Did I sleep well? And you might want to track those things in a journal before you step on the scale to even see the impact, because that way if you don’t get the result you were thinking that you should have gotten, you can go back and assess was my consistency there and my macros was my consistency there and my workouts, and I also see that I was sore. I started a new progression. That might be why, but you can at least put it in its place. And if you are really impacted by that one fluctuation each week, you might have to weigh daily.

(07:54):
So we often say don’t weigh at all, which again, the scale is not the best indicator of body recomp. And if you are struggling with really being attached, that’s a goal weight. You might need to step off the scale and put it away for a while and only use measurements and again, those other things that represent that lifestyle. So you can get back to that feel that you had at that goal weight. But if you are really sensitive to those fluctuations, it can help you desensitize yourself by a little immersion therapy and actually weighing every single day, even multiple times a day to start just to see all the fluctuations and all the reasons why we don’t want to get so conditioned to want to do it or need to do it to watch, but at the same time, sometimes doing a little bit more to see how much it really varies can help us mentally separate from it as well.

(08:36):
But even with that too, if you know did the habits and you do that little journal and you celebrate, Hey, I have all these habits wins, maybe trying on the clothing to say, Hey, I have these clothing winds. I know the inches are going off. What does this weight then relate to all these different factors. You can then step on the scale. So I also do like to put it in its place like that. And what I mean by that is you celebrate all the different wins. You’re doing all the different habits. And so then you get the estimate of, Hey, what weight now represents this fabulousness? Because that’s how we can even find a way to use our weight for maintenance. When you reach your goal, when you’re feeling like you’re looking good, when you’re seeing those inches come off, assess what that weight is now for you at my most fabulous, what weight is that?

(09:17):
Instead of saying, oh, well, it’s not my goal weight, who cares? It’s what you weigh right now when you feel really fabulous, and that’s what your goal weight was based off of, and your goal weight is going to change as you gain more muscle as potentially you’re not in a deficit. So when you lose the weight, you might hit a little low and actually gain a couple pounds, but ultimately look leaner in that maintenance process a couple pounds up because you’re not deficient in anything. When you are depleted in a deficit, you’re not storing anything extra. And so just by storing so that you’re not depleted, you’re going to gain a couple pounds, but use that then that weight and the scale to help you understand, okay, this is what I weigh when I look the way I want to look now. So that’s another way to use it of I did the habits, I did the journal, what weight now represents how I want to look and feel.

(10:03):
So you can use then to set a new goal weight that way. But I think it’s really key just breaking down all the different nuance of things that we do understand what our goal rate really means, which again, it just relates back to getting back to a feeling we had. That is what we are ultimately searching for, the feeling of fabulousness that we had. And our goal weight is just the number that we might’ve weighed at that time. So we’ve got to assess the lifestyle, assess all the other components of it, all the other measurements of success that led to us feeling fabulous and that represented the fabulousness of that time. Used those not only as measurements of success, so the clothing that we wore that we’ll know when we fit back into that, we feel our best, the performance goals that we had, but also again, assessing the lifestyle habits and the mindsets we had to help us implement them.

(10:46):
Now, to act as if, to get back to that feeling of fabulousness, but then stepping either off the scale or knowing how to use the scale to our advantage, whether it’s weighing once a week, again, not using it, and using progress, pictures, measurements, all those things. Or even weighing daily and understanding the fluctuations. Even using that journaling of all the different reasons why the scale can change. And going through that list before we step onto it to understand what the number is really telling us while assessing our consistency and habit. And I think celebrating those wins before you step on the scale is so important because then you have that accurate reflection like, Hey, if you weren’t consistent with your macros, okay, that’s going to have an impact potentially when you step on the scale and you’ll own that. But the more, hey, these are the habit wins, or here are my areas for improvement, here’s my journaling on why the scale might be impacted or how I can interpret that number.

(11:31):
And then you step on it, that can give you information. And then as you feel fabulous seeing progress in the other forms of measurement, jumping into that lifestyle where you know, feel your best, you can then weigh on the scale to help you understand what weight will help you maintain all that fabulous then, and that will change over time. But I really hope this helps you get some perspective on the scale and not allow the scale to sabotage you. Because wanting to see it change faster, going after those fad diets where we’re trying to lose 10 pounds overnight, is ultimately what leads to us creating unsustainable habits, regaining the weight and repeating this yo-yo dieting cycle, and not losing fat any faster, but losing muscle, which then leads to metabolic adaptations, thus blaming our hormones more, even hormonal imbalances, which then make it harder to lose the weight later.

(12:16):
Make us blame our age, make us blame menopause, make us blame all these other things when really it’s poopy dieting practices and poopy training practices that have added up that we haven’t owned because we’re so caught up in the scale. So let go of the scale. And again, that doesn’t always mean not using it at all, but let go of the power the scale has and start to assess these outside factors and really understand what this tool is telling you. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack Podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work, workout, nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone I.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript