You know the drill. You step on the scale, and it tells you that you gained weight today. This leads to a feeling of discouragement and disappointment because your goal was to lose weight, not gain it.
This number can be deceiving if you're just getting started with a new exercise routine or personal training for women sessions with your fitness coach.
The numbers don't lie...
True. But they don't tell the whole story either, and the scale doesn't tell you what kind of weight you are gaining. Is it fat? Muscle? Water retention from the proteins in your diet?
The number on the scale can fluctuate for many reasons that have nothing to do with how much body fat has been gained or lost, but if people only track their weight, they will get discouraged when they see that number going up instead of down.
The truth is that if you are just getting started working out or have recently changed your diet, it is normal for the scale to not change much at first. The scale can be a great way to track progress after several weeks of consistent workouts and healthy choices.
Losing fat takes time—time that many people don't want to give themselves—but there are upping the number of workouts you do and eating more protein, which will help your body build muscle.
And if it's the fat loss you're after, keep in mind that most people who lose weight on a diet gain back all but about six pounds within two years or less.
The best way to combat this phenomenon is by exercising regularly and making sure your diet is healthy.
Your journey is more than just about numbers.
Personal training for women at MPower Fitness Coaching is both a journey and an experience. Our trainers will work with you to walk the path of fitness and health.
The journey is about much more than numbers on a scale or other measurements, but those things can be important milestones along this path if they're tracked correctly.
If you've been working out for a while and have noticed positive changes in your body composition and greatly improved health, don't let yourself get bogged down by one number on the scale.
This is especially true if you've had a baby or are in your 40s and 50s—two times when women tend to retain more water than usual due to hormonal changes.
If this happens, just remember that your weight may not be an essential aspect of your progress, but it is certainly one factor. Having a specific weight on the scale might be appealing, but it can't tell you how healthy you are or how much muscle you have. When you complete all of your weekly exercises, your scale isn't going to applaud you —but we, your MPower Fitness coaches, will!
We believe that if stepping on that scale makes you feel good about yourself and it keeps you wanting to go back to train the next day, go ahead and do it.
However, if the number on the scale makes you feel terrible, it may be time to experiment with something different, such as quitting your weight loss crusade, ditching the scale, or measuring your body fat.
Getting Past the Hump
The only thing more annoying than not losing weight is seeing your efforts come to a halt after making steady progress. You're working out and counting every calorie, you're this close to your goal, and then everything grinds to a halt. It's more about making minor adjustments to fine-tune what you're doing than pushing yourself too hard with your diet or exercise program when you hit a plateau.
Here's an effective workaround:
- Change Your Workouts - Your body gets used to certain types of exercises. As a result, your weight loss can stall even though you're still following the same diet plan because you aren't working out enough different muscle groups or training with weights frequently enough.
- Change Your Diet - Attempting to lose weight by making only small changes in your portions and frequency may be all your body needs to start burning more calories.
- Change Your Mindset - If you're expecting quick results, it's easy to become discouraged when your progress stalls or slows down—and it happens to everyone at some point on the journey. When this happens, focus on how far you've come rather than feeling like a failure because of one small setback.
- Add More Activity - Adding more activity into your daily routine can help you break through a plateau, especially if you're not doing enough strength training.
- Get personal training for women - A personal trainer can help you identify what's going wrong and how to fix it. At MPower Fitness coaching, your program will be specifically designed to suit your needs and goals.
Even if you only lose a pound or two each week, you'll still be on track to achieve your objectives as long as you continue making progress—and the sense of accomplishment is always greater than the number on the scale!
Personal Training for Women is Beyond Just Losing Weight
Weight loss should never be the end goal, and it's about overall health, energy levels, and quality of life.
Shifting your aim to something concrete, visible, tangible, and/or touchable daily might be just what you need to achieve the results you want.
At MPower Fitness coaching, our personal training for women also educates clients on the importance of the following:
The value of health:
Cheer yourself on if you're no longer huffing and puffing after climbing a flight of stairs. If you have a medical condition like diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol and your tests are now better than when you first signed up for membership, that's a huge reason to celebrate. It isn't always how many pant sizes you've dropped, but how healthy you are becoming.
Improved strength and endurance:
The more lean muscle you have, the better your body's ability to burn calories. A stronger body also builds confidence and reduces vulnerability for injury.
A few weeks into your personal training for women sessions, you'll build endurance and stamina. It feels great to work out without feeling exhausted afterward or like it takes everything in your power just to get yourself there.
You're eating better and healthier:
Most of our clients come to us with medical conditions that necessitate a change in how they approach food.
Your MPower Fitness coach will also focus on helping you choose healthier foods and improving your habits, so you can incorporate good choices into your daily life without thinking about it constantly. You'll learn how certain foods affect your body and what happens when you eat too many of the wrong foods.
An increased sense of self-awareness:
Most people come to us looking for a change in the way they look on the outside, but we find that our clients are most interested in making changes on the inside first—and then these external factors follow suit.
Your MPower Fitness trainer will teach you about the science of how your body works, why certain foods are better for you than others. You'll also learn about the importance of sleep quality, stress management techniques, and meditation so that even if weight loss is not part of your immediate plan, you can still experience major health benefits.
The only way to truly feel healthy is by combining consistent fitness training with a commitment to making better lifestyle choices.
At MPower Fitness Coaching, we'll help guide you in the right direction while holding you accountable along the way. This way, you won't need to rely on the weighing scale to know that you're doing an awesome job!