Your body weight is just one of many ways you can track your progress. And to be honest, it’s not even the best way to track progress. I’m going to walk you through all of the factors that affect your weight. Then I’ll show you new ways to track your progress toward your health and fitness goals. Make sure you grab your free printable Healthy Habits List and Progress Tracker so you can start feeling like you’ve got control over your body again!
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Tell me if this sounds familiar…
You get on the scale, certain the number HAS to be less than yesterday. The number settles but it’s not what you expected. In fact, it’s higher than yesterday! And it’s not just a little higher – it’s way higher than you expected! Frustration overwhelms you. You’ve been working so hard. It feels like you’ve done everything you possibly can and yet your weight is still fluctuating. You feel like you’re never going to get your weight where you want it to be.
If this sounds familiar, know that you are not alone.
I know I’ve been there – this was my life from my teenage years until my mid-twenties. The scale was a source of immense frustration and created a lot of nasty feelings of guilt and self-loathing. I would stop using it but eventually come back to check my progress. Only to be faced with a number I did not want to see.
One important fact I want to share: Your weight can fluctuate by up to 5 pounds in either direction Every. Single. Day. You might have heard this before. But that doesn’t really matter when you’re still not seeing the scale move in the direction you want. Knowing that fact doesn’t fix the awful frustration I know you’re feeling. But it is a fact you’ll want to keep in mind as you move forward. So file that away and let’s get into the good stuff.
Here’s what you really need to know about your weight and tracking your progress:
Our society attributes a TON to the actual number of our weight (self-worth, beauty, confidence, capability). But ultimately, that number doesn’t mean a thing on its own. It’s time to challenge all the assumptions that you’ve ever been taught about your weight and what it means.
You are NOT less worthy, less beautiful, less capable, or defined in ANY WAY by that dumb number on that scale.
Don’t read this post and feel guilty, or like you’ve been failing your body for not knowing this stuff sooner. Today is the day you get to let go of your frustrations and start taking real, effective steps toward feeling like the confident, beautiful, intelligent and capable person I know you are. It’s ok that you didn’t know this before, or that you hadn’t taken these steps before. And it’s ok if it takes you some time to get the hang of these steps.
It took me years of trial, error and frustration to figure this stuff out. I hope this will help you figure it all out faster and end your frustration so you can start loving yourself asap. Because it wasn’t until I learned how to listen to my body, found the healthy habits that were right for my body, and found different ways to track my progress that I finally found my ideal weight. Read on so I can show you how.
What does your weight really mean?
Your weight is just one of many sources of feedback your body gives you to let you know how it is responding to its environment. The number doesn’t mean anything on its own. To give it meaning, you have to decode what your body is telling you.
What factors affect your weight?
1. Food
It’s not just about calories and portion size. In fact, counting calories is really inaccurate. The quality of your food, or how many nutrients you’re getting, matters. How your body responds to the foods you eat matters too. If your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs and it is reacting to certain food groups, no amount of caloric restriction is going to get you to your ideal weight.
Read More:
How a Healthy Gut and Healthy Food Make a Healthy Body
2. Hydration Status
Chronic dehydration will wreak havoc on your body. Your body is almost 60% water. If you don’t give it water, it can’t function.
Read More:
3. Water Retention
Most temporary weight fluctuation occurs from water retention, which – you’ve guessed it – can be caused by a variety of things. Eating food high in salt or sugar, or foods that your body is sensitive to, will cause your body to react by holding onto water. Alcohol and caffeine, hormone fluctuations and medications can also cause bloating from water retention.
4. Activity Level
Low- to moderate-intensity physical activity done throughout the day helps your body regulate itself. This includes your digestive and hormone (endocrine) systems and your weight. But too much high-intensity exercise can create too much stress for your body and throw your body out of whack. It’s also important to know that muscle weighs more than fat. So if you’ve increased your daily exercise and the number on the scale goes up, you might have gained muscle mass. Which is actually really good for you since more muscle means more fat burning and better overall health!
Read More:
5 Minute Sitting Break to Reduce Stress and Boost Health
5. Hormones
Hormones are how different parts of your body communicate with each other. Any change in your hormones will affect how your body functions. While women experience the most dramatic hormone fluctuations every month thanks to their menstrual cycles, men are affected by hormones too. For men, changes in testosterone and thyroid hormones can alter their metabolism and lead to weight gain.
Women will naturally experience more weight fluctuation than men each month because of their menstrual cycles. It is completely normal for women to be hungrier, retain more water, or have less energy at certain times during their cycle. But being aware of when these changes happen for you will enable you to take steps to minimize their impact!
Learn more at FloLiving.com
6. Medication
Have you ever looked at the side effects on a medication label? While medications absolutely have their purpose, every body responds to and processes medications differently. This can include the side effects listed, but it may also include things like weight gain, altered metabolism, water retention, changes to the health of your gut, and changes in your mood or energy.
If you don’t like how your body responds to a medication, there are plenty of other options out there. Both pharmaceutical and otherwise. Don’t be afraid to talk with your doctor if you don’t like how your body is responding to a medication.
7. Stress
Some stress is good but it has to be balanced with rest and relaxation. Our society values being constantly busy which translates to chronic stress on our bodies. Chronic stress wreaks havoc on every system in our bodies. It changes your gut, alters your hormones, negatively impacts your brain function, mood, and energy. And if all these systems are out of whack you can guarantee your weight is not going to be ideal.
Read More:
Why Rest is More Important Than Your Workout
8. Illness
I’m talking about both your standard head cold/flu bug as well as chronic illness and disease. These are both forms of stress on your body. A head cold or flu usually only temporarily affects your weight due to decreased appetite and dehydration. On the other hand, a chronic illness will affect many of your body’s systems long-term. This often requires being more sensitive to your body’s needs and making lifestyle changes to better support your body.
Why you shouldn’t just weigh yourself to track progress
All of these factors interact with each other. Which is why you might closely track your calories, bust your butt in the gym, and on paper you *should* be losing weight. But you’re not.
If your hormones are out of whack, or your stress level is out of control, or you sleep horribly, or you aren’t moving your body throughout the day, your body won’t be willing to let go of the excess weight. It might even slow your metabolism so it can hold onto the calories you’re eating to protect itself from stress.
Because, believe it or not, fat storage is a defense mechanism that makes your body feel safe.
For our ancestors, stress usually included starvation. So our bodies store fat to make sure we have energy to get us through stressful times. But nowadays, stress doesn’t always involve starvation.
So we need to make our bodies feel safe by figuring out which of those 8 factors need to be addressed. If these factors aren’t being sorted out, your weight will continue to be high or fluctuate all over the map. Which is why you shouldn’t just weigh yourself to track your progress.
So what should you be working on? And how can you track your progress if the scale is being a serious pain in the you-know-what?
2 things need to happen:
1. Learn to listen to your body
You need to decode what it is trying to tell you. Let go of your frustration with your body. It’s not trying to frustrate you. Your poor body is just trying to communicate with you. Are you ready to show your body some love? Go to the next step to start learning this skill.
2. Choose 1 habit that will address one of the 8 factors that affect your weight
Look over the list of factors that affect your weight. Honestly ask yourself which of these you need to work on. Does one pop out at you? THAT’S what you’ll want to work on and build your goals around. Then you’ll track your progress working toward that goal.
So, if your goal was to lose weight, you need to decide which habits will get you there. Are you going to learn how your body is actually responding to the foods you’re eating? Will you track your water intake to learn if you’re staying hydrated? Will you commit to moving your body throughout the day or taking steps to managing your stress? How you track your progress will depend on which of these you want to focus on.
The big takeaway on how to track your progress:
Any habits that create a healthier, calmer environment for your body will get you to your weight loss goal. When you become aware of how your body is responding to the environment you’re creating for it and really learn to listen to your body to meet its needs, your body will be able to regulate itself and find its ideal weight. Then you’ll find that weighing yourself becomes a useful tool to check in with how well you’re meeting your body’s needs. And you may find you don’t need to weigh yourself as often anymore.
Ok, I know I just threw a ton of information at you.
I’m asking you to learn a completely new skill: listening to your body. And I’m asking you to make a pretty significant mindset shift: to go from being frustrated with your lack of progress to believing that working on simple habits like sleep, hydration, stress management and low- to moderate-intensity movement will actually be the game changer you’re looking for.
You don’t have to do all this alone. Small steps, my friend. Simplify this whole process by grabbing this Healthy Habits Printable you can choose from + my Habit Tracker. Then read on for your next steps.
How to successfully track your progress:
- Choose just 1 habit to work on for the week.
- Track what you do. Write down what you did, when you did it, HOW YOU FELT AFTER DOING IT and what went well or what you learned that you can do differently. If you consistently feel crummy after doing something, that’s your cue to make a change or stop doing it! (High intensity workouts and crash diets or detoxes – I’m looking at you!)
- Change your mindset: If you miss the habit on one day, don’t look at it as a failure! Get out your habit tracker and write down what happened. Then decide what needs to happen to make it easier and ensure your success tomorrow.
- Set attainable goals that you’re 90-100% confident you can do. Instead of expecting the perfection of doing a new habit Every. Single. Day, set a goal to do it 4 out of 7 days this week. Then you won’t feel like a failure if you miss a day or 2. And you’ll be tracking what you’re doing so you can see that you are CONSISTENTLY working on this habit!
- Consistency and tracking your progress are KEY! It can be so easy to get frustrated when you don’t see results right away. Usually the biggest culprit is not being consistent enough for long enough he scale instead of tracking what you’re doing and how you’re feeling.
- Take a global perspective each week to check in with your body. You’ll gain a whole new perspective when you look back over a week or a month of tracking your progress daily. Looking back on your progress tracker will show you where your small daily steps have led you.
Make sure you grab my free Habit Tracker where I show you how to use the same super-fast check-in process I use for my clients!
Are you ready to decode what your body is really trying to tell you and spend your time and energy tracking your progress on habits that will get you the healthy, happy body you’ve been wanting? You’ve got this. I believe in you, amazing person. Let me know how this goes for you!