Whether you’ve just started your fitness journey or been on it for quite some time now, stepping on the scale can feel like rolling the dice. If you get that number you want, you can feel great about yourself. You can smile, feeling that your goals are more and more achievable. If you don’t get that number you want, your whole day can be ruined. You’ll feel like you aren’t working hard enough, like your goals are insurmountable.
It’s just not fair to let a number have that much control over your life. You aren’t your weight. That number doesn’t have any real impact on your health, on your look, on your life. Weight is how deep your footprints go in snow or mud, not an indication of your worth.
Your weight can fluctuate for a variety of reasons. The two biggest culprits of a surprising pound (or five) can be two of the things that help you lose weight– water and exercise.
Being properly hydrated means that you weigh more during the day than you do when you first wake up. Why? When you wake up (and presumably visit the bathroom), that’s typically the lightest you are all day because you’re at your lowest hydration level. As you eat and hydrate throughout the day, your body retains water, which is a good thing. That water retention, though, does impact those numbers on the scale.
As for working out, you (should) hydrate as you run, lift or stretch at our gyms in Burlington County, NJ. But also, if you’ve ever experienced a muscle pump after a workout, you know that your muscles get larger. That increased vascularity and muscle volume comes as a result of blood pumping harder, necessitating even more water retention and leading to increased weight.
A lower or higher number on a scale doesn’t have anything to do with your health.
There are, however, other factors to consider when trying to achieve fitness goals.
How do your clothes fit?
Do you feel good about your body?
Do you have more energy?
Do you tend to look healthier in pictures lately?
If the scale has you on a rollercoaster ride, the medical professionals at our gym in Mt. Laurel and five other locations can measure much more important factors like Basal Metabolic Rate, measurements, and body fat percentage, so you can know that you’re headed in the right direction. Stop in and see them today!