Fit Is Not About Fat

I think the biggest mistake people make when they decide to improve their appearance and fitness is to think it's about weight, meaning, FAT. They either think they need less fat to weigh less, or that they are too thin, and thus need more fat and more weight.

Throughout most of history nobody knew how much they weighed. Even when scales were invented, they weren't the kind one could weigh oneself on. Bathroom and doctor's office scales are a recent invention. Doctor's offices had scales long before homes were routinely equipped with bathroom scales. It was important for a medical doctor to know if someone was losing or gaining weight precipitously.

When inexpensive home scales became available, increasingly, consumers became focused on how much they weighed. But, what one weighs doesn't tell what one needs to know, it simply makes one fixated on the numbers on the scale and try to make them go up or down by the quickest and easiest means. As in, crash dieting, goofy dieting, and deprivation.

I remember an extended family member who was very pleased with her weight loss. She'd reached her goal of losing X number of pounds. But, she'd short changed her body to get there. She looked really bad, gaunt, dark circles under her eyes. She looked anything but healthy.

You probably do not need to weigh at all, and can ignore or discard your scale. If you want to monitor your rate of becoming more fit, and more the shape and size you want to be, then what you need is not a scale but a tape measure.  For a long time along the fitness trail you'll be replacing fat with muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat. So the scale will be no help at all. But, the tape measure will tell you how you're doing, as will attempting to put on those pants you used to wear but that are too tight now.

I have a pair of pants like that. Several years ago those jeans were kind of loose on me, now they can be buttoned and zipped up, but only by me lying down to put them on. To wear them would be very uncomfortable, never mind how bad I'd look with them on.

When those pants feel right on me, when I look in the mirror in my underwear and I see flat places that are too rounded now, when I can walk longer distances and come back without being tired, when I feel the way I felt when I was in the shape I want to be in, then I'll know. And you will know too, all without a scale.

Set out on your six month journey to fitness, and excess fat will gradually fall away. When you feel right, look right, then you can weigh and see what your weight is when you're just right. Then you'll know.