The scales went up. Don’t panic.
Many people who get in touch with me want to lose weight, and they often tell me a familiar story.
They’ve been eating well. Exercising. Doing what they said they’d do. The things that ‘used to work’.
Then they step on the scales… and they’ve gained weight.
What?! It can be heartbreaking, can’t it? All that effort… and it seems to have got worse!
Before you decide you’ve “blown it”, remember that body weight isn’t the same as body fat.
Water, salt, hormones, stress, poor sleep and digestion can all move the number from day to day. You can be losing body fat even when the scales go up.
This picture is typical for one of my clients on a weight loss journey. The red line is what people expect. The blue line is what actually happens. Messy, with ups, downs and the odd flat patch, but the overall trend tells the real story.
One weigh-in isn’t a verdict. It’s one piece of information. If you respond by eating less and being ‘stricter’, you can turn a normal fluctuation into another boom-and-bust cycle.
Let’s make healthy simple.
Next time the scales go up:
Don’t panic. One weigh-in tells you very little.
Zoom out and look at the trend, not today versus yesterday.
Ask what else could be affecting it: sleep, stress, hormones, salt, water?
Carry on with your plan for two weeks before deciding whether anything needs to change.
P.S. Trying to lose weight and struggling to stay the course? Let’s chat through what’s keeping you stuck.