<Back to Articles

Get Rid of Your Scale!

I am going to make this month "short" and sweet. As you all know, this
country has an obsession with body weight and the scale. As a fitness
professional it is very frustrating and distressing to see clients who work
very hard at their fitness and diet programs, just to feel like they are not
doing anything because the scale is not moving, or not moving as fast as they
would like.

First of all, lets get a few facts straight:

1. To loose 1 LB of fat, you would have to create a 3500 calorie deficit. To
gain a pound of fat, you have to create a 3500 calorie surplus!
2. The human body can fluctuate up to 8 Lb. in one day, due to water
retention, what you eat, how much you exercise, etc.
3. Muscle is 3X as dense as fat, i.e., 1 LB of muscle is 1/3 the size of 1 LB
of Fat!
4. BODY COMPOSITION IS THE ONLY NUMBER THAT MATTERS, IF YOU FOCUS ONLY ON
BODY WEIGHT, YOU WILL BE FRUSTRATED AND UNHAPPY FOR THE REST OF YOUR
LIFE!!!!!!
5. I cannot tell you how many people I have worked with that have used body
weight as their only measure of fitness, and while they maintain the same
weight over the years, their body fat percentage goes up and up. They may
weigh the same, but their bodies look much worse.

Imagine how I feel when a client tells me, "I ate perfectly yesterday, and I
still gained 3 pounds" or, even better, "I ate Mexican food last night, and I
lost 3 pounds!". If these statements were true changes in body composition,
the first person would have had to eat 10,500 extra calories in a day and
the second person would have had to burn 10,500 calories (the equivalent of
walking 105 miles, or doing an Ironman Triathlon!)

Please, get rid of the scales at your house, get you body fat measured every
three months (that is the only time you should weigh, and that is just to
estimate your Lean Body Mass), and judge your fitness by how you feel and how
much better your clothes fit. The happiest and most "successful" clients I
have worked with over the past 9 years do not, and will never again, own a
scale!

Yours in health,

Rami F. Odeh, MS,
Owner
FormWell Personal Fitness Training
Dunwoody Professional Building
5064 Nandina Lane, Ste. D.
Dunwoody, GA 30338
formwell@aol.com
http://www.formulawellness.com/
(404) 628 3184 (24 hour voice mail