Why Your Scale Weight Fluctuates

what to do when you’re dealing with the scale as  in scale weight obviously scale weight can mean a lot of different things and i’m here with  nadine with the fitness joint personal trainer extraordinaire former fitness competitor and she’s  going to talk to you obviously more about the scale and i would say personally men don’t care  as much about the scale even though i think we we do more than we let on and it’s a bigger issue  with with women and not trying to be sexist by any means but i think it’s a more it comes up a  lot yeah challenging uh struggle with women in the scale so let’s have nadine share with some of  the things that you might be thinking about that you don’t even realize that’s not good in relation  to this your scale weight well the first thing is i want to say that i learned this from my fitness  competition because when i was at my heaviest and at my fitness competition i weighed with it  i was only five pounds lighter for my fitness competition and i think for most people if you  were to before and after picture they’d be like that was only a five pound weight loss of course  it wasn’t a five pound weight loss but i put on muscle and i lost body fat and my body composition  completely changed while i’m not training people for the most part to do fitness competitions that  also happens to people who start exercising they start exercising they start eating more protein  you start putting more on more lean muscle and losing body fat so you cannot lean muscle so i  think what people need to understand is on a scale you’re weighing your fat your muscles your  bone your brain tissue water weight water weight water weight all kinds of different  things yeah that the scale doesn’t represent actually how fit you are how in shape you are even  though i think most people want to weigh a certain amount of weight they have a set thing they want  to weigh and so it’s hard to take that away from somebody and say hey look well your body fat  is amazing because i think most people body fat is kind of confusing term like it really is like  it’s hard to grasp it’s like what do you mean like i think bottom line is if we stop looking at the  scale and we just look at the entire picture well in the mirror naked oh well that too because our  picture because if we were like damn i look sexy or great or whatever you want to call yourself  that’s what i say all right perfect thank you i mean i use the sexy too right couldn’t help  it so um sometimes i’ll go good because i don’t want to sound too uh conceited to myself  safe space okay that’s good but if you’re in the mirror but even the mirror lies to you too  because we have psychological stuff going on because some days i’ll be like man i look  amazing and other days i’ll be like i look fat like go ahead yeah i do too and it’s  especially when uh not to be graphic but if i haven’t gone number two you’re going to  look a little poofier in that area that’s true bowel movements matter i agree i’m i was  thinking more from a psychological state well that too right because mood changes your your  energy affects all that stuff and so if you’re not feeling it that day you probably don’t feel  great in the mirror as well and that’s why like when you work with a trainer and they measure  your body fat they measure your circumference measurements and they take before and after photos  and i get it everybody hates to do their before photos because let’s face it you’re not coming  to the trainer because you love the way you look right so but it’s extremely valuable as a tool  for you and the trainer to look at the difference between the before and the afters coming along  so weight doesn’t obviously provide that so weight is like think of it as like one tool in  your toolbox so you just have a screwdriver but if you need i don’t think that an analogy  works so let’s just scratch that completely so at the end of the day it’s just one measurement  so you need multiple measurements and also i think when we get a little crazy in our heads it helps  to have those multiple measurements to be like well i guess i am you know 19 body fat right  yes i am you know 10 body fat and so there’s some logical stuff that sometimes allows you to to  help yourself realize like i’m on the right track because and it’s okay to give yourself credit  for the work you’ve achieved but i feel like a lot of times just because you have it but you  haven’t reached where you want to be exactly it’s hard to acknowledge the progress that  you’ve made so that’s a really important thing to remember i yes i think the big challenge is right  when we set a goal to let’s say lose 20 pounds or to get in shape people don’t realize if you  do it right with dieting and adjusting your calories and your macros and all those things and  working out it always takes much longer than we we obviously want it to yeah and to get those last  little pounds off it gets even harder than in the beginning when you have a lot more to lose  right and so what did we learn about the scale are you asking me oh yeah definitely unless  somebody else wants answers well you can leave those comments below yeah definitely  leave comments um the scale doesn’t give a complete picture it’s like you said it’s one  tool and there’s many other tools to go by are you do you feel better mentally are you  stronger how are your clothes fitting are you eating healthier all of those things matter  so you may not see the change on the scale but changes are happening so like he  met like he said you need to use other resources to to get the full picture that includes  what i just mentioned um measurements body fat and you know we can use the scale and also i noticed  your improvements if you’re if you could only do 10 squats before now you can do 20 that’s amazing  you’re getting stronger building more muscle that may not show up on the scale but that does not  mean you’re not getting progress also nadine what are some things that also make the scale fluctuate  um well as i mentioned earl earlier if you use the bathroom or not that’s a huge factor um second  especially for women is hormones hormones fluctuate and so does the weight the amount of  water you’ve had sodium if you had a high sodium day with food or maybe get some frozen foods  you don’t really know about the sodium intake you’ve had enough fiber if you’ve had the amount  of carbs you’ve had the type of carbs you’ve had i mean it goes on and on stress lack of sleep if you  have carbs it has a big component to storing water so obviously if you’re trying to weigh yourself  on the scale and you consume a ton of carbs or for example let’s say you have pizza and a soda  like a liter of coke which hopefully you’re not doing that because it’s not going to help your  fitness journey but let’s just say you do that well the next day your scale weight will be much  higher because of the component of water you store when you consume carbs and it makes you more  fuller and all that great stuff vice versa if you get rid of carbs out of your diet for five  days or you know or longer you’re gonna drop a lot faster on that scale but doesn’t mean your  body fat’s gonna change or any of that stuff so also uh nadine mentioned some stuff about hormones  and all that great stuff so when women go through their menses uh obviously nadine knows more than  that and probably way more appropriate to have her talk about it than myself so um uh let nadine take  it from here yes um it’s no secret that whenever you’re about to start your mental struggle  cycle and also during you can put on between three to seven pounds um so um just of just water  water retention so they’re alone the scale is going to be off and you definitely don’t want to  be weighing yourself during that time so i think that’s your worst enemy obviously and i don’t know  this i’m not a woman i don’t plan my cycle right but you can plan it in c so you know that time of  period if you weighed yourself every day another thing is you should always just use the same  skill you shouldn’t be using your friend scale then using the gym scale then using your scale  always use the same scale so it’s calibrated and it doesn’t change right that’s gonna that’s that’s  gonna cause some issues if you do but you weigh yourself every day as a woman i think around every  other 28 days correct me if i’m wrong roughly yeah yeah that you’re going to see a bump you know  couldn’t be as high as 10 pounds yeah or more but ballpark in that range uh so that would  definitely be your worst enemy if you’re like what happened but scott wait there’s more  there’s more to us you’re kidding me no there’s more because during our menstrual cycle it’s  not uncommon to create carbs so now we have the menstrual cycle and the carb water retention from  the carbs that you’ll want to eat during this time so like if there was ever a time to not weigh  yourself it’s during this week and i think girls know that and they still weigh themselves  because i don’t know the torture for them is enjoyable psychologically if you can handle it go  for it but if you can’t just like hide your scale lock it under a lock and key yeah uh you know make  your spouse significant other whatever partner just steal it from you but then they have to track  it but you can put it in the calendar so they know like that week is just no scale time yeah i don’t  do it i crave a lot of dark chocolate i guess i do it all the time but yeah no totally uh i guess  i crave sweets but at the end of the day like i i always set stupid little rules for myself to  stay healthy so i’m not allowed to have any sweets unless it’s dark chocolate or it doesn’t have  dairy it doesn’t have gluten all those things so it’s rules to limit myself but there are also so  many great options out there nowadays there are great options but i do want to say scott is way  more structured on this than i am i just go ham on all-natural peanut butter and have like three  servings and then it could be dangerous i think i’d eat the whole can i sometimes go go further  than three tablespoons but how many calories are in a tablespoon of peanut butter well i  know a serving’s chewed it’s 200 so and i have at least three so that’s like half by the time  i’m done that’s my calorie intake so just know your math right yeah math 200 times three what  does that need 600 right yeah so 600 calories in just three tablespoons yeah that’s not much peanut  butter folks so be careful i don’t rec i don’t recommend it i’m just saying that’s kind of my  thing just understand everything can affect that scale weight yeah have other measurements have  a support network like nadine a trainer a friend that can kind of speak to you and logic and go  hey your your measurements have gone down your body fat has gone down so don’t get caught up  with the scale right like chill out so remember and that’s easier said than done yeah it is a tool  and just understand it’s a tool just because you fluctuate in weight doesn’t mean the life is  over you should give up on your on your diet and your fitness journey also fitness and health  and dieting to the body fat or weight or whatever you want is going to take time it is going to  take discipline and determination and commitment so just stay committed almost like a crazy person  almost so you can reach your goals i love that i’m here for it awesome uh her link’s in the bottom  below and you can go to her channel follow her you can obviously like and subscribe you can hit  the notification bell then today we appreciate you and hopefully this helps at least someone  out there to become more sane and understand what scale weight means and how it can fluctuate  and like i said we hope that it helps you i hope you guys helped you and we’ll see  you very soon all right take care bye