Is Your Scale a Liar or Just Kinda Dumb?

You wake up. Pee.  Take off every possible article of clothing because ya know…your underwear apparently weighs 7 pounds.  Step on the scale.

156.2.  Cool.

The next morning: 159.6

Excuse me??

So naturally, you step off.  Move the scale 2 inches.  Step back on.

Still 159.6.

Maybe the floor is uneven, or the batteries are dying or maybe we need to just try the other bathroom.

Here’s the problem:  your scale is actually pretty good at its job.  It tells you how much you weigh at that exact moment.

What it can’t tell you is why.

It doesn’t know you ate more carbs yesterday or that dinner was salty.  It has no clue that you’re about to start your period, trained legs, haven’t pooped in 2 days and that there is half a burrito making its way through your digestive tract.

It just says 159.6.  You heard, “Wow, you’ve really let yourself go.”

First of All, You’re Full of...Stuff

Everything you eat and drink has mass.  If you drink 32 ounces of water, you just put roughly two pounds of water into your body.  That doesn’t mean you gained two pounds of fat.  There are simply two pounds of water currently inside you.

Food works the same way.  Until your body digests, absorbs and eliminates what you’ve eaten, some of it is quite literally still in there.

Which brings us to poop.  Yes, poop counts.  Your scale does not know that you haven’t pooped since Tuesday.  Frankly, it could care less.  It weighs all of you.  This is also why weighing yourself first thing in the morning and then again after dinner is a family useless experiment unless you just like being mad.

Sooooo…About That Pasta Last Night

Your body stores carbohydrates as glycogen in your muscles and liver, and glycogen is stored along with water.  A commonly cited estimate is roughly 3 grams of water stored with each gram of glycogen.  So if ya eat more carbs than usual, especially after eating fewer carbs for a while, the scale may go up as your glycogen stores refill.  That is not a bad thing.  Glycogen is fuel your muscles actually use.  Your pasta did not attach itself directly to your ass while you slept.  It’s water.  We can all stand down.

And Then There’s Salt

Ever weigh yourself the morning after restaurant food, sushi, pizza or Mexican and wonder what the hell happened??  Higher sodium intake can cause your body to temporarily hold onto more water.  Add in more carbs than usual, a later meal and the fact that some of that food is still physically inside you, and suddenly the scale is up a few pounds.  Nobody sees that number and thinks, “Hmm…probably sodium and water.”  We immediately assume we gained 3 pounds of fats somewhere between the appetizer and the check.

We did not.

You Worked Out.  Congratulations, You Might Weigh More.

This one really pisses people off.

You start working out harder.  You’re doing everything “right.”  Then the goddamn scale goes up.

WTF.

Hard or unfamiliar training creates microscopic muscle damage and an inflammatory response as your body repairs itself.  That process can come with temporary fluid retention.  So yes, you can have a great week of training and temporarily gain more weight because of it.  You didn’t gain 2 pounds of fat from squats.

Hard or unfamiliar training creates microscopic muscle damage and an inflammatory response as your body repairs itself. That process can come with temporary fluid retention.

So yes, you can have a great week of training and temporarily weigh more because of it.

You didn’t gain two pounds of fat from squats.

If You Have a Menstrual Cycle, There’s Another Variable

Hormonal changes throughout your cycle can affect fluid retention, digestion and appetite, all of which can show up on the scale.  And if you’re in perimenopause and your cycle has decided calendars are merely suggestions, predicting those fluctuations can get even more entertaining.  So if your weight randomly jumps and your period is coming, maybe don’t jump all over yesterday’s lunch just yet….give it a minute.

Please Stop Comparing Morning Weight to Night Weight

Your morning weight is usually taken after several hours without eating or drinking and ideally, after using the bathroom.  Your nighttime weigh is after breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, water, coffee and whatever else happened that day.  NOT THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES.

You cannot drink 80 ounces of water, eat 3 meals and then take offense that it all has mass.  If you want your scale data to actually mean something, weight under similar conditions and then look at the trends over time.  Not Tuesday at 6:12a.m. versus Tuesday at 8:47p.m.  Again….NOT THE SAME.

Did You Actually Gain 4 Pounds of Fat?

Almost certainly not overnight.  Body fat increases when you consistently take in more energy than your body uses over time.  You’ve probably heard the old estimate that 1 pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories.  Human metabolism is more complicated than that, so it’s not a perfect equation, but it doesn’t help put an overnight 4-pound gain into perspective.

Several pounds of actual body fat would require a very large sustained calorie surplus.  Meanwhile, water, glycogen, sodium, food in you digestive system, hormones, inflammation and bowel movements can move your body weight around pretty easily.

You gained 4 pounds of weight.  That is not the same thing as gaining 4 pounds of fat.  And knowing that distinction, would save people a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit.

So Should You Get Rid of the Scale?

Not necessarily.  The scale can be useful data if you can look at it like data instead of daily performance review.  Use similar conditions.  Look at averages and trends.  Pay attention to what’s happening over weeks, not what happened over the last 12 hours.

And if you’re stepping on it multiple times a day, changing what you eat because of a random number, adding cardio because you’re up 2 pounds, or letting it decide whether today is a good day….

Ya’ll.  Get off the scale.

It’s a measurement, not an explanation.