Can you weigh more and look leaner?

On Ep. 139 and Ep. 89, Nikkiey clears up the muscle-versus-fat confusion: a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same, but muscle is much denser and smaller. Her picture is the dense books in a kid's backpack next to a fluffy teddy bear. (On Ep. 334 and Ep. 6 she phrases it as muscle being heavier than fat by volume, which is the same point about density.) So as you lose fat and gain muscle, your body can shrink and tighten while total weight barely moves, or even climbs. On Ep. 334 she reminds you that the scale measures everything at once: fat, muscle, organs, bone, water, stored carbohydrate and food in your gut. It cannot tell fat from muscle.

On Ep. 180 she adds that two women at 150 pounds with similar height and frame can look completely different because of body composition, the relative proportion of fat, muscle and bone. Height matters too: 150 pounds at 5'6" looks very different from 150 pounds at 5'2".

The catch is how you get there. Nikkiey explains that chasing weight loss alone costs you muscle and leaves you a skinnier, fatter version of yourself, which is how she ended up skinny fat at 140. Fat loss, with enough protein and strength training, preserves muscle. On Ep. 332 she says recomp, building muscle while losing fat, is what most women should do first, especially after 40, and that if you want a toned, fit look, the scale staying the same or going up is likely.

That is why she asks you to stop letting the scale grade you. If your strength is going up, she doesn't care what the scale says. Take progress photos and measurements, because they show the change the scale hides. Gaining two pounds while lifting isn't regression. It may be exactly the result you asked for.