Weighing Scale - Your Friend Or Foe?
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20/2/2019
Written By: Ryan Chan |
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During your attempt to lose weight, you constantly weigh yourself multiple times throughout the day, tracking your progress. But the scale just isn’t showing the numbers you hope for even though you have been exercising diligently and watching your food intake. You end up feeling unmotivated and depressed due to the lack of visible result, eventually giving up losing weight.
Why is your weighing scale doing this to you? It all boils down to the use of right method and equipment for tracking progress.
Why is your weighing scale doing this to you? It all boils down to the use of right method and equipment for tracking progress.
Why is this happening?
If you are someone who have high body fats to begin with, seeing visible result from the mirror can be rather depressing at the start. During the course of you exercising and eating healthy, your body will be using your extensive amount of fats as one of its source for energy. Through the process, your body composition will improve, losing fats, building muscles resulting in your weight remaining the same or even increase.
If you are someone who have high body fats to begin with, seeing visible result from the mirror can be rather depressing at the start. During the course of you exercising and eating healthy, your body will be using your extensive amount of fats as one of its source for energy. Through the process, your body composition will improve, losing fats, building muscles resulting in your weight remaining the same or even increase.
So then what is your best option to track your progress?
As fat take approximately 3 times more space than muscle, you will be losing in physical size gradually even though your weight might remain the same or more. This is because muscle is much denser than fat which explains why someone who is fat and obese looks much bigger than someone who is lean and muscular even though they weigh the same.
1. What You Wear
Thus, instead of being overly obsessed with the numbers on the weighing scale, your best and most convenient way to check your progress would be what you wear. Ask yourself are your pants getting loose? Are they slipping down your more easily? Are your clothes looking baggier than usual? If they are, then there you have it, your results!
2. Girth Measurements
Alternatively, a more accurate and trackable way for recording progress is girth measurement. If you have access to measuring tape, get someone to help you with measuring of the circumference of places such as your waist, arms, thighs and chest. Subsequently, the measurement should be taken around the same place for accuracy.
3. Body Composition Analyzer
If your gym has the Body Composition Analyzer (which uses bio-electrical impedance in most cases), it is also a possible option. However due to the mechanics of how the machine analyzes your body composition, hydration level is extremely important for the accuracy of the test. But it is a factor that is hard to gauge or keep constant thus result from the test may vary. You can try to take multiple tests and average out the results provided that your gym allows you to do so (hogging the machine and wasting their paper).
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