11 ways to celebrate fitness without a scale!

Being a Personal trainer myself, I strongly believe fitness is beyond the scale. Only when you have specific goals like weight loss or weight gain, having your daily dose of checking your weight the first thing every morning can be helpful. It is not the ONLY estimate for progress. I have a trainee, Jeraldine. She weighs 55.7 kg and is 152 cm tall. Based on her height she is at her ideal weight. But due to force of habit, she would walk up to the scale every morning and come to class with a frown on days her scale displayed a number higher. Especially women, you need to understand, that we deal with complex hormones. We have water retention during our monthly cycle. The luteal phase also known as the premenstrual phase makes some women gain 5 pounds which the person loses once the net period begins. Weight fluctuations also depend highly on the sleep cycle and the contents of dinner the previous night. You will never gain weight if you eat late/early provided you are eating within your daily calorie needs. A lot of people make poor food choices during dinner which makes them bloaty, and gassy, and leaves a poor digestion cycle. Poor sleep is a massive factor in weight fluctuation or obesity. Research has observed, that people with fewer than 7 hours of sleep at night, that is restful sleep tend to have a disrupted circadian rhythm thus leading to weight changes. Poor sleep is directly proportionate to increased Body Mass Index and weight gain. Your day-to-day weight is going to go up-down all the time. Today you might weigh 6 pounds less, three days later you will weigh 2 pounds more. Water retention and pooping less can do confusing things to your body weight. Mind you all this has nothing to do with fat gain! Best ways to measure your fitness progress: 1. You are feeling lighter from within 2. You have improved moods (your mental health is so much better) 3. The workouts that were a struggle now feel like a breeze 4. You can keep up through the day without extra caffeine intake 5. You feel less stressed and worked up 6. You feel confident in your skin 7. Your skin looks younger and suppler 8. Your clothes fit better 9. You sleep better and deeper 10. You don’t crave junk food or emotionally binge eat 11. For women, your menstrual cycle is normal and around the same date every month. For men, you don’t need a pick-me-up anymore. Also. Weighing yourself after your workout isn’t a great idea because you have just put stress on your muscles which has caused short-term inflammation therefore causing fluid retention. For some, drinking excess water also causes fluctuations because your body is still not used to the big influx of water throughout the day. So if you have just started keeping a count on the no. of glasses you are drinking, hang in there and let your body adjust to this. And lastly, when one is lifting weights, you must remember you are putting on muscle. Depending on the types of exercises you’re doing, you are losing weight while putting on muscle hence the scale is not showing you the number you are dying to see. For example, my trainee Jeraldine lost a total of ONLY 9 pounds in three months because she was losing fat and gaining muscle. One pound of muscle is equal to one pound of fat. It’s just that muscle takes less room in your body than fat. While setting a goal is an important part of the fitness journey, it is important to be realistic. Practice a healthy lifestyle. Add more veggies to your meals. Keep a gap of 4-5 hours between a meal and a snack, keep moving throughout the day (again don’t be a fanatic of the steps, but let the body not be stationary), sleep well and sleep enough, get a dose of sunlight on your skin 10 minutes daily. Instead of fretting on the number on the scale focus on how your body is responding to you based on your daily activity. This will keep you satiated mentally and physiologically.