I'm not gonna lie seeing the number going down on the scales has to be one of the best feelings known to man when you're on a health kick. After all most people venture out into the area of "diet" and "weight loss" wanting to lose weight and this is what the scales show - therefore it is easy to "befriend" them. However, the scale may not always be the friend that you think it is when it comes to the tracking of your progress. In fact the scales are better at helping you in the maintaining stage if anything. Today's post is going to show you why weight loss isn't always about the scales with the following:
Body Composition: Whilst the amount of weight that you carry is important, what is even more important is the amount of muscle you have. Muscle takes up less space than fat, making you look slimmer, more toned and it's more metabolically active (the more muscle you have the more fat you burn). When you exercise you gain muscle, raise your metabolism and lose fat - but the fat loss won't show up on the scales. Where it will show up in measurements, how clothes fit and how your body looks. All this can happen without the scale moving.
Changes on the Inside: What happens on the inside may not neccessarily interests you (after all people will only see what the outside product looks like) however what happens on the inside definitely effects the outer shell. Exercise teaches your body how to release more fat-burning molecules. The fitter you are, the more fat you burn (a cycle which repeats) and the leaner you look - again this is something that won't show itself on the scales.
More Strength and Endurance: Regular exercise is important, there's no doubt about it. It keeps our organs in working order as well as us a little trimmer. If you exercise regularly, you’ll be able to do more and more each time. Whilst you may start out exercising for a few minutes at a time or lifting light weights but, after a few workouts, your body adapts, allowing you to lift heavier and go longer. That strength and endurance means you’re making progress, but if the scale isn’t moving, you may not pay attention to how fit you’re getting (even though this can be considered key in the long term regarding weight and maintain).
Weight is just one aspect on a wheel of many different aspects. In many cases it's not even the most important factor. However for many the number on the scale is the determining factor in whether or not success or failure has occurred.What I'm trying to say is as humans it's easy to be hard on ourselves - yes, having your weight at a certain number might be nice, but the scale can't tell you how fit you are, how much muscle you have etc... Your scale doesn't give you the motivation to push through another 1km on the treadmill, or lift that extra kg in weight. Relying on the scale may even make you feel that those above things mentioned, those milestones, aren't as important as they are. It may make your think that any progress created in other areas is a waste of time when in fact each baby step created elsewhere has helped and made you burn those extra few calories, get that little bit stronger and more importantly protect your body from diseases and make you more fit than you were before.
Like age, weight is just a number. Don't let it tie you down. Don't let it control you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment