Forget The !@#$% Scale!

Prepare for a rant.

This morning, on a private forum I belong to, I saw a post from a woman upset by the fact that she's only lost 2 1/2 pounds a month even though she's been been faithfully following the exercise and nutrition program she's on.

It's understandable that someone who is only eating 1500 calories of healthy food and regularly engaging in challenging workouts would be frustrated at those results, if that were the whole story.

But it's not.

The poster also reported that...

* she's gone down 2 dress sizes

* her body shape has changed and she's lost lots of inches

* loads of people are commenting on her new body

She used the words frustrated, despair, fed up, and despondent to describe her feelings about the number on the scale. She went on to say that she was sure that she could have lost the same amount of weight by sitting on her butt and just dieting.

She probably could have lost 2 1/2 pounds in a month just through eating right. I'm the first person to remind members, clients and anyone else who will listen that you can't out-train a bad diet but there's no way her body would look as good as it currently does had she skipped the exercise. (And that's not even going into the other mental, physical and emotional benefits of regular workouts.)

I honestly don't understand why women insist on getting hung up on the scale.

If you're overweight, isn't your bottom line goal to get smaller? To improve your body composition (less fat, more muscle)? To fit into clothes you haven't worn in a while? To take pressure off your joints and internal organs? To comfortably sit in theater and airplane seats, etc.

If that's happening, why obsess over the number on the scale?

This woman is doing great.

She's down 2 sizes and lots of inches!

Loads of people are noticing her improvements!

Why would she possibly be "despondent"?

Although it may sound like it, I'm writing this not just to beat up on this forum member. I hear the same thing from people far too often and it frustrates and confuses me.

When you get down to it, would you rather be a size 18 and weigh 125 lbs. or a size 6 and weigh 140?

Forget the scale.