Weight Class

Weight is intertwined with notions of fitness.  The scale is not only an icon of justice, it is an image of wellness and a symbol of health.  This is because, unlike justice, weight is easy and objective to measure.  That's all, weight is easy to find out, it is not linear, and it doesn't it measure body composition, strength or aesthetics.  Using weight as your only barometer of success is archaic and unproductive unless your are in a weight class sport.  Before delving into more effective assessments, you must first understand what your weight is comprised of and what affects it.

Skin and Bones
Your weight is made up of the following, in order of hardest to change to easiest:

• Essential Body Mass--weight of organs, glands, bones, hair, etc.
• Visceral Fat--fat stored around your organs for protection and hormonal balance, this fat is essential and doesn't fluctuate in non-extreme cases.
• Subcutaneous Fat--fat stored right under your skin, this is usually the fat lost or gained.
• Muscle--some muscle is essential for movement and structural integrity, the rest can be hypertrophied or atrophied based upon movement stimulus, protein and calorie levels, stress and more.
• Water--your body is more than 60% water in weight and volume.  Muscle is 75% water, blood is  92% and fat cells are about 25%.  Water is easy to manipulate in the body, a lot of scale weight lost or gained is water weight.  Most people in weight class sports manipulate the water in their body to change their weight without affecting performance.

Your weight is a snowflake

Each time you weigh yourself, different factors add up to produce the outcome.  No two weights are made of the same components, even in the same person.  The following influence your daily weight and scale fluctuations:

• Food or waste weight--the weight of how much food or excrement you have in your body.  If you eat a 5 lb sandwich, you now weigh 5 lbs more.  One time a client weighed in 3 lbs lighter after weeks of no change, I asked her what she did differently.  She responded "I wasn't lying to you about what I ate, but I guess I was still full of crap."  You get it.
• Glycogen storage--carbohydrates are broken down into a molecule called glycogen.  Glycogen is stored in your liver and muscles and accounts for some of their weight.  Every gram of glycogen stored carries 3 grams of water.  If you tap into your stored glycogen through exercise or restricting carbohydrates, you can lose pounds of scale weight.  Conversely, if you eat a whole lot of carbohydrates or don't exercise for a week, your glycogen stores will increase and you will gain weight.  Glycogen is the number one reason you associate short term 'good' or 'bad' behavior with weight loss or gain.
• Alcohol consumption-- makes your retain water.
• Fluid Loss--gastrointestinal illness, sweating or the use of diuretics cause fluid (weight) loss.
• Electrolyte imbalances--not having balanced ratios of sodium, potassium, magnesium and zinc because of diet, illness or exercise make you retain water.  Excessive sodium consumption gets blamed for this phenomenon.  Sodium does have hydrophilic (water binding) properties, it is also the easiest electrolyte to consume in excess.  Any imbalance of electrolytes will make you retain water and temporarily gain weight.
• Post Exercise or feeding edema--temporary inflammation follows exercise and eating. This is a normal occurrence and affects weight.
• Hormonal Fluctuations and stress--in addition to cyclical hormonal changes in women and men (yes, men's hormonal levels go through cycles as well), lack of sleep or proper nutrition and increased external and internal stress cause hormones to become imbalanced.  Hormones are regulators, they moderate fluid balance, inflammation, even fat loss.

Note that muscle gain and fat loss are not on this list.  This is because muscle gain and fat loss, the stuff you care about, are not fluctuations.  It takes two weeks minimum to notice a measurable change in fat loss.  Muscle gain takes about four weeks of hard work before a change is perceived.  If you weigh yourself every day you're getting more information about your bowels than you are about your fat.  So, what should you do instead of weighing all the time?

Mirror, mirror

The best ways to measure progress for an aesthetic goal are: be vain and go shopping (in your own closet).  If your goal is to look better or have clothes fit better, look in the mirror, take some selfies and try on your clothes.  If you like the way you are looking and your clothes are fitting better, who cares what your weight is?  Would you rather: have your dream body and be 10 lbs heavier, or look your worst and be 10 lbs lighter?  Sometimes your dream body doesn't always come with the dream weight you expected.  Gaining muscle and losing fat can result in smaller changes in scale weight than flat out losing weight with no increase in lean body mass.

Get pinched

I measure most of my client's body fat with skinfold calipers every two weeks.  Skinfold measurements are the most accurate of the cost effective body fat assessments when done by the same person.  These measurements tell me how well what we are doing is working.  Body fat percentage is an objective measurement that can be supplemental to subjective data like mirror checks or photos.  For example, a client may say, "ah, when my stomach looks the way I want it to, my body fat is 17%, and I have to do X, Y, and Z to maintain it."  Or, if a client is not losing body fat, I will address which of their 4 burners needs to be turned up.
 In order to contextualize body fat, you must be weighed, body fat is measured as a percentage of weight.  If your body fat goes down and weight stays the same, you've still lost fat.  This is a time when the scale is appropriate.
*Note: if you do not have a trusted body fat taker, you may use circumference measurements.  Measure around the smallest part of your waist and fullest part of your hips (butt) to track fat loss.  You may also keep track of the circumference of your chest, arms, thighs, thorax, or neck if these areas are relative to your goal.

How do you feel and how do you do?

Are you feeling better, less out of breath, more mobile and strong?  Are you lifting heavier weights, moving your body in new ways and generating more power?  If so, your athletic performance is improving.  The scale may fluctuate as you gain muscle and lose fat, but you can cherish performance increases forever.  You'll never forget the day you first deadlifted double body weight, or got your first pull-up.  I bet you can't remember the day you weighed x amount of perfect weight at all.

Stop Scale Shaming
The scale is just a tool, sometimes it is useful and necessary.  I have some clients who are very overweight, they get weighed weekly.  I don't care what kind of weight they lose, for a while, they need to lose any weight they can to be healthier.  I do weigh most of my other clients every two weeks, to contextualize their body fat percentage.  In the long run, if you have a fat loss goal, the scale should be moving down, if you want to gain mass, the scale should be moving up.  It's daily weighing that can get you bogged down.  Establish what information you want out of the scale, determine if it can give you that information, and use it for that purpose only.  Once again, don't hate the player (the scale), hate the game (the unproductive ways in which people use scales).