We hear (overhear, maybe?) many of you make comments about “the scale,” “where my weight is at right now,” “that dreaded number” and we are perplexed. Are you talking about the number on the scale? And if so, why?
That is a worthless and baseless number. And so many of you are giving it time and power and precious space in your daily thoughts. And again, why??
Let’s dive into what “your weight” means. Your weight, as shown by the number on a scale, the amount of mass that gravity pulls to hold you to the earth. It tells nothing of your skeletal makeup. Your fitness level. Your genetic predisposition. How well your ticker is ticking. And yet we hear it over and over that some of you are very (overly) concerned with this number.
Friends, if you find that there are things on here that you deem “garbage” please know that you giving any thought or energy to the number on the scale is what we categorize as “garbage.”
But… but, but… how do I know how much I need to lose if I don’t know my number? Okay, let’s get behind this question. First off - you are making the decision that you need or want to lose some weight? Okay, great. Is your doc behind this decision too? Awesome. Onto step two. Next step, let’s get some real data, shall we? Let’s stop taking one number and using it as the end-all-be-all gauge by which we measure ourselves. Instead let’s look at what you’ve really got going on. Step two let’s get the data off of the Omron scale.
What’s the Omron scale? I want one.
You don’t need one. We have one and you can use it for free. And it is a scale that will give us some REAL info. This scale will measure your weight (cuz goodness knows some of you would discredit it immediately if you didn’t have that piece of info) and then it will break that down into categories.
Ahhhh, now we’re talking.
From this scale you will know what your body fat percentage is, but also what percentage of muscle mass you have. You will learn where your Visceral fat number lies and how many calories your body uses in an average day to function. It will also give you your Body Age number. As in, how old it thinks your body is in comparison to your birth age. And once we have this data - now we’re cooking with gas, baby.
Now you can start to make some educated decisions based on actual numbers. (Plural. Numbers, with an s.) Now that you know how many calories your body needs in a single day you can get into what the number of calories is that you want to make as a target each day, creating that deficit if weight loss is your choice.
Now that you know what percentage of you is muscle v. body fat you can work on increasing the former while trying to decrease the latter. And if the next time you use the scale, the weight doesn’t change or (gasp!) goes up, well - knowing that muscle percentage number might give you an answer as to what’s going on. Basically, it’s going to give you answers on your journey.
And now that you know you could have all of that data at your fingertips, doesn’t only knowing your weight and trying to make a change based only on that seem a little… incomplete??
We think so too. Be data-fueled in your decisions.