Episode 149: 3 Things You Need to Know About the Scale in Menopause

The scale is the downfall of many-a-health journey. When we understand what it is (and isn't), we take away its power, and set ourselves up for long term success.

Here are the top 3 things you need to know about the scale in menopause. 

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Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 149: 3 Things You Need to Know About the Scale in Menopause

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Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where we like to say, we give you the keys to the kingdom. We're not just going to heal your metabolism. We are going to teach you how to be in the driver's seat so on the other side, you don't need us or anyone else. Today, we are talking about one of, I believe, the most important conversations we can have, because for so many of us, we have grown up in a lifetime of diet culture, and at the foundation of that diet culture has

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been the scale,

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and I have seen more women than I can account over the past decade who are doing everything right. They will see results with time and consistency, but are so hyper focused on the scale, and it makes sense, why? Because we've been brainwashed that way. But they are so hyper focused on the scale that it's almost becoming self sabotage. It's is this working? Why am I working so hard if I'm not seeing results, when in reality, they are seeing results, and results does not always mean it's going to be reflected on the scale. So today we are diving into the three things you need to know about the scale, especially in a menopausal body. Check it out.

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Welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong and we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals, I promise you it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll.

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All right, so we're diving into the three things you need to know

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about the scale, especially

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in a menopausal body, and I'm going

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to give you a cliffhanger right off the bat. Number three is the single most important one that we're going to talk about today.

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But let's start at the beginning with number one.

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Number one. I have a very old podcast. If you go back in the top probably 21st episodes, there's an episode called the scale, maybe even top 10. And this is a topic that that that is the primary focus of that episode, is that even if you were doing this perfectly, and if you can't, if you're watching, listening instead of watching perfectly, is in air quotes here. And I'm putting that in air quotes because there's no such thing as perfectly in this world, there's you hear me talk a lot about the statistic that nutrition labels themselves can be up to 25% inaccurate. So if we are driving ourselves bananas trying to make sure that we're hitting our macros perfectly every day, guess what? You're not

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because nutrition labels themselves can be up to 25% inaccurate, and that's great news for us, because even if we think we're doing it perfectly, and we're not, it still works. Now back to the original topic, where my air quotes are, even if you did this perfectly, this scale is always going to fluctuate one to six pounds. And this is point number one, where I see women drives themselves crazy. They're like, I'm hitting my macros perfectly. I'm doing my workouts. I'm doing all the things I quote, unquote, should be doing. And I woke up this morning and the scale went up three pounds, and it's like, well, let's talk about yesterday. You said you did a intense workout, right? Well, sometimes when we do intense workouts, there can be inflammation in the body. Maybe if we didn't drink enough water afterwards, our body's holding water weight, maybe after that workout, you went out to dinner and there's more salt in your body right now. These are not just things we tell ourselves to feel better. These are real things if you're on your cycle, if your cycle just ended, all of these things make the scale fluctuate, and that is capital T truth. So if we're getting on the scale every day, and that's the thing, determining if I have a good day or bad day, if this is working or I'm wasting my time, we're never going to stick with it, right? Humans are pleasure seeking creatures. And if every time we're getting on a scale, it's driving us crazy and we feel like garbage, who's going to stay with that? We're not. And this is why you heard me say in the intro, I see so many women unknowingly self sabotage. They're on the path right. You keep walking down that path. The pot of gold's at the other end. But they're like, Well, I can't see the gold yet, so I'm dipping out. It's like, oh, just keep walking. You're right there. The measure of success cannot be is the scale fluctuating day to day and. To save you a lot of heartache, it's going to again. Even if you do this, air quotes perfectly, it is going to fluctuate. There's a few things we can do about that. Number one, throw your scale out. I literally have not owned a scale for probably about eight to 10 years at this point, because I know biology is always going to biology, and science is always going to science. So as long as I'm following my plan, there's no world in which it doesn't work. You can take measurements, you can go buy hair, your clothes fit. You don't need to scale. If that doesn't feel good for you, then you can do it once a week, right again, even once a week. We are looking for long term trends. If I go on this Monday and then I go on Monday a month from now, I want to know that I'm trending in the right direction. If you are someone I'm not telling you not to go on every day. Some people do, and we have to have a mindset shift if we want to stick with it right? The people who are successful with going on the scale every day their inner monolog are things like interesting. The scale went up two pounds today. Oh, that makes sense, because I had a salty dinner last night when we can use it as data instead of the be all, end all. That's the only time that I that I in my experience, I've seen people get on the scale every day successfully. So thing number one is that even if you do this air quotes perfectly, the scale is going to fluctuate one to six pounds every single day your life. Thing number two, and again, number three is the big one, so hang tight. But this one's important. If you are a worker, outer you are someone who's really into the workout part, specifically weight training, specifically progressive overload, your scale may never move. Your scale may move in the opposite direction. Again, under the topics of these are not things we just tell ourselves to feel better. This is capital D truth. This is science. It is true that muscle weighs more than fat. It is true that when you do a big workout, your body has some inflammation. It holds on to water as well. So if you are someone who's an avid worker, outer that scale, if we don't do this mindset work is going to drive us bananas. In my first few years, where I got really into lifting, the scale didn't just go up a few pounds, like in my first three years, it went up significantly. And if I didn't, hadn't done this work, if I didn't understand the science behind it, I would have freaked out. I would have gone back to being a cardio bunny, or whatever they call it, which is crazy to think about, because you know how I feel about cardio. Now we have to understand that it is a truth of the human body that muscle may weighs more than fat, and I've seen women go through our program. I've talked to 1000s of plus at this point who are super into the gym part, and I hear the Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but the scale is not moving, yeah. My body's changing. Yeah. I have more energy. Yeah, my workouts are more fueled. But the scale is not changing. And because I'm not a sugar go person, I tell them, Listen, it may never change, never, ever, ever. It may go in the opposite direction. Some of my favorite before and after pictures, if you go on the mind strong website, we have a before and after page you could get lost on there for a month. And some of my favorite pictures on there are people who are super athletic, and what you don't know is behind their journey. For some of them, not all of them, but for some of them, I would venture to say a lot, there was a lot of mindset work going on, because every week it was, yeah, but the scale is not moving, yeah. I'm feeling better, yeah. But my workouts, yeah, but the scale, and it was like, there's this moment where there's a light bulb moment, and they it's always comes with a progress picture. There's always a day they're in the gym, usually someone else snaps the pictures, and they finally

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see, like, their arms the way someone else sees it. And they're like, holy cow, whose arms are those? I look like an athlete. And we're like, there it is. There's the light bulb moment. If you are someone who's super into working out, the scale may never go down. In fact, it may go up. The The sooner we can pun intended digest that, the happier we're going to be. The scale is never the measure of success, especially if you're an avid worker outer I'm going to interrupt this episode real quickly to ask a 32nd favor if you are loving the podcast, if you can tap that Five Star Review button above, maybe even leave a few nice words, it is the biggest help to getting the podcast out there. As the time I'm recording this, we don't advertise the podcast, so we rely on our old friend the algorithm to help get it in the hands of other women. Leaving a review is the absolute number one way to help us do that. Thank you in advance. Thank you. Thank you. Now, let's get back to the episode number three. Drum roll, please. Very similar to number two, but I'm going to speak to all menopausal women. There are some people who go through what we call here the weight loss cycle, right? They go through their healing stage. They get their metabolism back online. If these words are new to you, go back and listen to 100 of my past episodes where we talk a lot about the weight loss cycle, particularly the healing stage and the weight loss stage and maintenance are the three parts. There are lots of people who go through the healing stage, stay at maintenance like they're quote, unquote supposed to get into a weight. Loss stage and lose a significant amount of weight. I mean, we've had people go through this program lose 50 pounds, 120 pounds, 20 pounds, 15 pounds, whatever it is. There are some women that in a weight loss stage, after they do a healing stage, capital C, correctly, that their their results are reflected on the scale for many, many, many women in menopause, the the reflection of success will never come on the scale. Here's what I mean by that. A lot of women in menopause, our body does what's called a recomposition. You'll hear it called a recomp. For short, what that means is exactly what it sounds like. It means your body is going to change its shape. So in menopause, one of the big themes, if you've listened to podcasts, you hear me talk about this, is that we naturally lose bone density and lean muscle mass, which is why it's not just like, Oh, I feel like I'm gaining weight in my lower belly, or wherever your trouble spot is. I also just feel like I'm kind of getting flabber all around. And the answer, to be blunt is you might be because we are losing lean muscle mass if we're not proactively pushing back against that. How do we push back against that making sure our nutrition is in check, which does not just mean protein, it means carbs and fat and total calories. And icing on the cake, the other thing we can add to that is progressive overload weight training, pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. So for a lot of women in menopause, when we're doing these capital C correct things to counteract the muscle loss, our body starts to change its shape. So instead of feeling flabbier, we start to feel more tightened and toned, right? For a lot of women, it's the lower belly, because we have a lot of cortisol receptors there. For most of us, that's the last place where this starts to get better, for lack of a better word, but we start to see, you know, our body has more of a shape, and things are starting to flatten out, and maybe our butt lifts a little bit, right, and we can feel that little bicep bump. Those are real measures of success. And again, this is where the Yeah, but it like, Rachel, I'm sleeping better. My energy is through the roof. My hunger is coming back online, which is huge in our world. I can feel these little bicep bombs. I can look in the mirror and I can see my progress, but the scale is not moving. And again, I laugh because I get it like, this is what diet culture has has done to us. But the amount of time and energy that I that my coaches, that all of us in this world, it's not just Mind, Strong, Pacific, specific. If you work in this world of health and fitness,

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I'm going to venture to say 75% of our work is a mindset shift around what the scale is or isn't. Because usually what I do when I'm having these conversations is I'll just reflect back. Okay, so energy, yeah, night and day, sleep. Well, when you came to us, You weren't sleeping through the night. It was like four or five hours. We're getting seven eight that. That's a big change, right? Hunger, you were eating 1000 calories a day. Didn't have any hunger. We're up to 1800 calories a day, and hunger is back online. That's decent. You're working out three days a week for 20 minutes. You feel incredible. You're feeling a bicep bump, okay? But the scale didn't move. Tell me why we care about that, right? And at that point, it's like, I don't know, because Isn't it supposed to be moving? And there's the, there's the magic bullet supposed to, right? The shoulds the supposed to so let me save you a lot of heartache. No, the answer is no. Is the scale supposed to be moving No, and I'm saying that like aggressively, to make a point here, there are some people where it continues to right. It really it depends on your lifestyle. If you're someone who's not working out at all, the scale is more apt to move in. And for some people, that's not the blanket statement. So my point in this, even though I'm being dramatic and saying bluntly, no, my point in this is this scale is not the be all, end all. This is the point. Because I know there's gonna be people that message and say, well, that's confusing, because how do I know if that's the measure of success or not? For me, I'm gonna answer that right now, when you can make a mental checklist or make a physical checklist, write it down, and you can see progress, it is working. What does progress look like? Progress looks like energy. That's my absolute favorite one of these. You put gas in a Ferrari, it's going to run a lot better than if you're trying to slam on that pedal and there's no gas in the car. Life is about energy. What we attract back is what we put in. That is quantum physics. When we start fueling our body capital C correctly, your whole life levels up. Energy is a massive neon sign that this is working sleep. It is very difficult to lose weight if you are not sleeping because your cortisol is sky high. Most of the women we work with are not sleeping very well because there's cortisol issues. If your sleep is starting to improve, that is a massive win. How our clothes fit. This is the one I use. You heard me say, I don't have I haven't had a scale in eight to 1210, years. I know when things are getting a little off the rails, because I feel it in my clothes, right? You could use measurements as. Well. So I won't go through a comprehensive list, but all the things that we talk about here, when, if, if, when you can say all of these things are changing. Typically, how that sentence ends is but, but the scale hasn't moved. The point of this episode. What I'm encouraging you to do is remove the but take out the butt. These are all real measures of success, and if you are someone that the scale is reflecting your growth, fantastic. I'm not telling you to belittle that or discount that. Right. When we've had people go through and lose 50 pounds, how did they know it's 50? Because they are someone where it's being reflected on the scale, those people also tend to not do the workout part. They have a larger amount of weight to lose. That's usually a huge part of it for I would venture to say 70% of our women. That's not an exact quote, don't, don't, don't, quote me on it, but off the top of my head, probably about 70% of our women, the measure of success is the sentence before the butt. Now if you're months into your journey, let's say you come to us eating 1000 calories a day and four months well, I'm not going to use us, because that would never be the case. We would never let it be months in and you're still there. Let's say you're doing a healing stage on your own, and you see you're currently eating 1000 calories a day, and three months later, you're eating 1100 calories a day, and not much has changed. Now there's a problem. Now, we're not traveling down the road towards the the gold, the pot of gold at the end, right? We're not making progress. But if you're at 1000 calories a day, and three months later, you're at 1700 1750 1800 and your sleep is better, and your energy is better, and you can start to feel changes in your clothes, and you're noticing differences in your sleep. You are on the path. And if the scale is not moving, which, by the way, it will not in a healing stage. A healing stage is not a weight loss stage. Again, lots of past episodes about that, the only way to get to the pot of gold, to stick with this analogy that we're now invested in,

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invested in is to

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keep walking. So I'm repeating myself a lot in this episode, because, man, oh, man, this is where I see so many people give up one of my favorite memes of all time. It shows a guy digging in a mine, and you can see the wall like the the tunnel he's digging in, and the gold is right there, like five more strikes, and the gold is there, and one of the guys, it's a split screen, so the guy on top, he's still going, the other guy is like exhausted, defeated, and walks away. And that, that is the image that always stays with me when it comes to this journey that can feel slow and tedious, and especially when it comes to the scale, we need to shift our focus, right? What is a measure of success? And nowhere in that conversation for the vast majority of menopausal women, is the answer going to be the scale.

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For more information on mind strong fitness or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team. Visit www dot mindstrong fitness.com, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai