Scale Not Moving? 5 Better Ways to Track Fat Loss

Nikkiey: I weigh more now than I did when I first started my fitness journey. Do you know how much of a mind-eff that is for somebody that may be listening to me that hasn't been on the journey that I've been on? For you to go on a journey and be like, yeah, I'm going to gain weight, I'm going to be heavier than I am now when I complete my transformation. Ain't no woman saying that. But if you want to build muscle and you want to have that toned, fit look, that's probably what is going to happen.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I'm your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 332.

In today's episode, we're talking about something that, and I'm sure you guys can resonate with this, has ruined more women's progress than the wine that you drink occasionally, or the carbs that you eat, or the vacations, or the holidays.

I've talked about this topic before, but I think it's a good time to bring it back because we are closing out January and walking into the second month of the new year. Maybe some of you guys are getting discouraged because of this particular tool that women use on their journey. For some of you guys, this may just be a good reminder of why the scale can't run the show on your fitness journey. Some of you guys will probably need to hear some of these reminders. Some of them are going to be really good.

And maybe you're somebody that still allows that scale to run the show entirely, and you just need to hear what I'm going to say in this episode. So whether you don't use the scale every single day, or maybe you do occasionally and sometimes you can feel that trigger of emotion that it gives you, this episode is for you. Or if you are somebody that allows that thing to run the show, this episode is for you. All right?

So let me just remind you guys, broadly speaking, the scale is not your enemy. But it is definitely one of the biggest liars when you are on your fitness journey. Because that scale can go up even when you're doing everything right. The scale can stay the same even while your body is changing. The scale can go down while you're actually losing muscle and wrecking your metabolism. You guys could be losing weight and not eating enough, and not be aware that those things are happening, but you're just so elated because the scale is going down.

So even if you've been feeling frustrated, or you've been feeling discouraged, especially being one month into the new year, and maybe you're not quite where you thought you would be with seeing a number on the scale, you're probably like, I don't know, what's the point? This is where a lot of people start to give up. I hope this episode changes the way that you measure your progress forever, because the scale does not have to run the show.

I'm going to give you guys five specific metrics that will help you predict fat loss far more than the scale will. Meaning if these metrics are improving, you are winning. Okay? Even if that scale is not moving the way you thought it should or would, or by now you thought you'd be down 10 pounds. And if you start paying attention to these five things I'm going to share, instead of obsessing over that number on the scale, you will enjoy your journey so much more, and you will stop starting over. I promise you that. All right, let's get into it.

Let me first just talk about why the scale is such a terrible measure of real progress, especially for the woman that is so attached to the number and hasn't yet formed a relationship with the scale. A relationship that's not an attachment. It's not, I need the scale to tell me and dictate how my feelings are, right? There's a different level of relationship you can have with the scale. I don't even measure myself anymore. I think I stepped on the scale once in the last year, and I just go solely off of how I feel and the metrics I'm going to share with you guys. And especially as you get older and older, if you start relying on the number on the scale with that particular attachment to it, it's just a terrible way of measuring your progress.

Because this is the thing. The scale is measuring your total body mass. It's not measuring fat loss. Okay? And again, remember, there's a difference between weight loss and fat loss. What I mean when I say it's measuring your total body mass is that it's measuring water retention, it's measuring sodium, it's measuring carbs or glycogen, it's measuring inflammation, it's measuring the food volume, especially if you're somebody that weighs yourself at the end of the day. I do not do that, because it's measuring these even more because of the whole day that you just consumed. It includes things like stress hormone shifts. It includes menstrual cycle shifts. It includes sleep quality. It includes soreness from training. It includes you being constipated. These are all the things in that number; that's what I mean by total body mass. It includes travel. Boys, girls, ladies, if I jumped on the scale right now, that thing would definitely be up from all the travel I've had in the last two weeks.

So it includes all of that. Women step on the scale after having a late night out, a salty meal, a hard day of lifting, if you did back or you did legs, or you had a stressful week, or you had a weekend out with your girlfriends, or you were inconsistent with your water and your hydration, or even if you've been doing the right thing, like strength training. And when women step on the scale after any one of those things and they see two pounds up on the scale: panic mode. And then they do what a lot of women do when they panic, which is start to spiral. They cut their calories. They cut carbs. They do more cardio. They go to extremes, or they just say F it and start over on Monday.

And that is why women get stuck for years, because the scale makes them react emotionally instead of responding strategically. The scale is not measuring your commitment. It's not measuring your consistency. It's not measuring your fat loss. It's measuring overall weight. And let me just remind you, weight can change for 30 reasons that have nothing to do with fat.

So let's dive into the first metric that I want to talk about. And remember, there's going to be five. They're all so valuable in so many ways. The first one is how your clothes fit and how your waist is changing. This is the most underrated progress tracker ever, because it's really hard to track. Your waist doesn't lie the way the scale does. Unless you want to measure yourself with a measuring tape every day, which sounds like a lot of work compared to just stepping on a scale, right? Or your clothes could fit differently every single day.

But if it's on a trajectory of your clothes fitting better, you're not sucking in as much, your waist looks tighter in the mirror, and it's on that slow path down, and I say slow because it's not going to happen every single day and it's not going to happen every single week, but maybe by week four, which a lot of people don't want to wait for, like where we're at right now in January, they give up, right? But if your trajectory is going down, your clothes are fitting better, you're not sucking in as much, and you're looking better in the mirror, you are losing fat, even if the scale number stays the same.

A lot of you will literally be down like two inches. I have seen this probably a thousand times by now within the WarriorBabes of our community. They will go down in inches, but that scale hasn't budged at all. There have been pictures I've seen where women have lost a total of three pounds in their before and after, yet they look drastically different. It looks like they've lost 20 pounds. This is why the scale will play tricks on your mind, and why a lot of people rely on that thing so much. You could be down two inches and the scale not move because of multiple variables. It could be because you gained muscle, or your carbs are being stored in your muscle as glycogen, or you are lowering your inflammation and you've improved your digestion.

So let me say that clearly. Fat loss is a visual and measurement change before it's a scale change, especially if you are strength training. So what I would recommend, and you do it consistently and start to adopt this new habit in place of the scale, is take a waist measurement once per week. Same day, same time. First thing in the morning after you've gone to the bathroom, take it. That's the best time to do it. Not midday, not at the end of the day. And pay attention to your clothing: how the waistband feels, how the leggings are fitting, how the bra band is fitting, how the bloating reduction feels when you put on your jeans. If your waist is trending down, then you are winning. These are ways to track that, okay? And you want to do it consistently, especially the tracking of the waist.

The second thing, metric number two, is your strength progression. This is a big one. This is big because muscle is your metabolism, and women hate hearing this because they want fat loss. They wanted it yesterday.

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But muscle is what changes your body forever. So if you're getting stronger, if you're lifting heavier, if you're doing more reps, if you're improving your form, if you're recovering faster, if you're not getting winded as quickly, if you're building endurance, your body is changing, because strength progression equals you building muscle and retaining muscle. And that means you are creating a better environment for your metabolism. You are creating better insulin sensitivity. You are creating a better composition of your body. You are better supporting your hormones. You're creating that more fit look. You're becoming less skinny fat because you're building this muscle, and it's easier for you to lose fat. And this is why scale weight can stay the same, but you can look tighter and leaner.

I've shared this story with you guys so many times, but I'll share it as a reminder. When I first started my journey, I weighed 140 pounds. Skinny fat. I did bodybuilding competitions for three years, and my lowest weight was 123 pounds. That was my stage weight. Guys, I weighed 140 starting, let me remind you. I now weigh 145 to 150 pounds, yet I look drastically different. I weigh more now than I did when I first started my fitness journey. Do you know how much of a mind-eff that is for somebody that may be listening to me that hasn't been on the journey yet that I've been on? For you to go on a journey and be like, yeah, I'm going to gain weight, I'm going to be heavier than I am now when I complete my transformation. Ain't no woman saying that. But if you want to build muscle and you want to have that toned, fit look, that's probably what is going to happen. Okay?

Recomp is what most women should be doing first. Building muscle on your body and recomping your body is what you should be doing, especially if you are post-40.

Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat, and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me.

Here's some tough love for you guys. If your strength is going up, I don't care what the scale says. You're becoming the woman who is building upon the results that you say you want. There are so many women that come to us saying, I want to be toned, I want to be fit. And then we go through all of these resources and tools and methodologies that I'm pretty much describing here, where I want you guys to gain muscle, and the second they step on the scale... I was actually just reading something in our Facebook community the other day where a person feels like they are regressing because they gained two pounds. Again, it goes back to the scale being a liar on your journey, especially if you are indulging and doing strength training.

And it goes back to that statement I just made. The majority of you guys want to lose weight. I love that. But if you just lose weight, you're focusing on becoming a skinnier, fatter version of yourself. You're focusing on losing muscle weight. Your organs get smaller. You're focusing on losing a total encompassment of everything. It involves everything when you lose weight. When you lose fat, you're focusing on preserving the muscle that you have in your body, because you're eating the right way to sustain the muscle, aka you're getting enough protein in your nutritional intake on a daily basis. So that protein is holding onto the muscle, and you're decreasing the body fat around the muscle. That's what losing fat means, broadly speaking. I just broke it down.

There's a really good episode that I recorded early, maybe within the first 10 episodes, about the difference between weight loss and fat loss. I'm going to have to bring it back. I'm pretty sure there's probably another one later on. But anyway, you should be focusing on your strength going up and meeting this metric number two, because overall it's going to support so many things and improve so many things that losing weight can't do. Losing weight is going to tank your metabolism. You're going to get more insulin resistant. You're going to get a worse body composition. You're going to look skinny fat. You're not going to be toned, because you're losing muscle if you're losing weight. Your hormones are going to go out of whack, and fat loss is going to be harder.

When you focus on building muscle, when you focus on strength progression, the opposite of everything that I just said happens. But you've got to be okay with either your weight staying the same or gaining weight according to the scale. When you gain weight according to the scale, though, and you're doing everything I'm saying, you are gaining muscle. Isn't that what you all want? Yeah. Okay, so sometimes you have to be okay with gaining weight, especially on this journey. So, strength progression: obviously paying attention to how many more reps you're doing, your strength improvement, the weight that you're increasing. Those are all really good metrics that you are getting stronger and building muscle.

The third thing that I want to talk about is a big one. This is one of the clearest signs that your metabolism is improving: you having hunger cues again, and your cravings being stable. This is the thing. Women who are stuck in this chronic dieting cycle are often hungry all the time. They're craving sugar at night. They're thinking about food constantly. They are more prone to binging. They are snacky. They never feel satisfied. And then they blame themselves, because they're like, oh, I have no self-control. Because at the end of the day, when they don't give their body what it needs, they spiral and they crave sugar and they crave all the things once they start eating their dinner. They want everything afterwards.

It's not that you don't have self-control. You have dysregulated hunger hormones, and you're under-fueling yourself. You're under-feeding yourself. You're under-muscled, as Dr. Gabrielle Lyon would say. When you start eating appropriately and you start prioritizing your fiber and your protein and you eat more balanced nutritional meals, you know what happens immediately, especially when you start adding protein into your day? Your cravings calm down. Your hunger becomes more predictable. You can feel those hunger cues coming on. The food noise lowers. It's not as loud as it is when you're not fueling yourself. And you stop thinking about your next meal 24/7.

That is metabolic progress, because fat loss isn't just eat less. Fat loss is eat enough to be consistent. If you're eating less, you get everything that I just said: you're thinking about food, you're never satisfied, you're snacky, you're binging, you're hungry all the time, you're craving sugar. That is the opposite of being consistent, because you're going to be inconsistent all the time. You're maybe good one day, bad one day, bad three days, good two days. Eating enough to fuel your body, you will be way more consistent, because you're going to feel the positive effects of it.

If your cravings are decreasing, your metabolism is stabilizing. If your hunger is more controlled, your body is feeling safer. And when your body feels safe, it stops clinging on to thinking about or wanting food 24/7 or craving all these things. When you focus on feeling this stability, that's a really good sign. And the scale isn't going to tell you that. It's going to be more of a feeling internally with your body.

The fourth thing is focusing on your sleep, your mood, stress, and your energy response. I've said this probably over and over again in multiple episodes, but this is where women get results they didn't even realize they needed, because most of you don't just want to be smaller, right? You don't want to just lose weight. What you want is to feel lighter, you want to feel clearer, you want to feel more confident, you want to feel less inflamed, you want to feel less exhausted, you want to feel less reactive to things, you want to be more stable.

When you're truly making progress, you are going to notice that you're waking up less groggy, you crash less midday, you don't need caffeine to survive, your mood stabilizes, your irritability drops, you recover faster, your anxiety decreases, your sleep gets better. And this matters because if you are constantly in high stress plus you're having poor sleep, that literally makes fat loss so much harder, because your cortisol shifts fluid retention, it decreases appetite regulation, it decreases your recovery, and it decreases your ability to adhere to the program.

So if you're sleeping better and feeling better, your body is moving in the right direction. You're going to have more energy, you're going to be more stabilized, your mood is going to be better, your digestion is going to be better, you're not going to be getting these cravings throughout the day. Your body is moving the way it should be, even if the scale is taking its sweet time. So you could be feeling all of these things. Again, number four is a feeling, like number three is. If the scale is going up but you feel these things, that means your body's moving in the right direction, okay?

And the last thing that I want to talk with you guys about is being consistent. This is the metric women avoid, because it's one that requires you to be honest with yourself. Because the real truth is that most women aren't stuck because of a bad plan. They're stuck because their execution is inconsistent. And I say that with love. You don't need a better macro plan. You don't need a more intense workout. You don't need to spend more hours inside the gym. You don't need a detox. You don't need a cleanse, or to, quote unquote, lock in harder. You need a system that you can actually repeat and that's sustainable with the lifestyle that you lead.

Here's a powerful question I want you guys to ask: How consistent were my inputs this week? Inputs like: you hit your protein goal five out of seven days. You got your steps in four to six days. You lifted three to four times. You drank your water. You slept seven or more hours. You tracked honestly. You didn't spiral when you were imperfect and messed up one day. I've said it over and over again. Consistency doesn't mean that you need to be perfect. It means you don't disappear when you're not perfect. Because the scale doesn't respond to your best day. It responds to your average week. And if your average week improves, then results are going to be inevitable.

So you don't need to beat yourself up. I'm going to say it again because I love you guys. You don't need to start hopping from plan to plan to plan. These aren't bad plans. It's because your execution is inconsistent. It's probably because they're hard things to follow, because you're cutting your calories and then you feel even more hungry, or you're overtraining or not recovering, so you're sore. That's what I mean. You need a system. You need a plan that can actually be sustainable with your life.

That's why I love to talk about the VIP program, guys. You're working with a coach that meets you face to face in an onboarding call, and they get to know you and meet you where you're at. So they're not just going to give you some hocus-pocus plan to follow and hope that you do, and make it hard for you to follow if it's unrealistic for your lifestyle. They get to know where you're at, they meet you where you're at, and they build off of that. It may not look like you're tracking your macros the first week, because you don't know what macros are, and that's okay. But we can build you up. I always say that macros are the North Star. So maybe we just need to start with getting you to know what a macro is.

I walked up to a woman in Miami and I asked her if she knew what macronutrients were, and she said, yeah. And I was like, oh, cool, what are they then? And she was like, oh, they're those things that you put in and shake up into your drink. And I was like, okay. There's room for education. You're not wrong, but those are micronutrients, not macronutrients. Macronutrients are protein, fats, and carbs. So with that woman, and this is at least what our coaches have learned to do, I would not be like, you need to go hit 140 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, and 70 grams of fat tomorrow. No, that's not a system that you can actually repeat. That person will feel overwhelmed and give up immediately. So we'll just focus on, let's actually see what you eat in a day. And this is what the coaches do with you.

So again, I didn't mean to sidetrack, but you need a system. That's what's going to help you be consistent: a plan that you can actually repeat. And then if you can do that, and you can learn and be educated on so many of these other metrics to pay attention to and not just the scale, you're going to start to win. You're going to start to enjoy the journey you're on, because that scale isn't dictating your emotions every single day. So that's the last thing. The fifth one is consistency.

So just to repeat. The first one we talked about was how your clothes are fitting, as a metric to pay attention to, and measuring your waist. The second thing was strength progression. Are you improving? Are you lifting heavier? Are you doing more reps? Are you improving your form? Are you recovering faster? Those things are a sign that you are improving not just physically, but also internally: better hormone support, better insulin sensitivity, better metabolism. And then the look that you want to see is going to appear so much more externally. And maybe the scale doesn't budge. It might not. And that's okay.

The third thing was you're going to feel more of your hunger cues, and your cravings are being stabilized. When that happens and you're not thinking about food 24/7 or craving things, that's metabolic progress. The scale may not be improving, but you may be feeling these things, and that's good. Same thing with the fourth: your energy improves, your sleep is getting better, your mood is not as irritable, your stress is lowering. Those are all things the scale won't tell you that you're improving.

And the last thing was you being consistent. Again, you may be following a hard plan, not a bad plan. Maybe you're inconsistent because the plans are unreliable and not sustainable. But think about it like this: if you had something that you could follow sustainably and it was reality-based for your lifestyle, you would be way more consistent with that. Okay?

Now I want to talk about how you use the scale properly, because it can be a tool. I'm not saying never weigh yourself. But I need you guys to recognize that in this relationship with the scale, it is a data point. I'm saying stop letting it lead you emotionally. For those of you guys that step on the scale and get elated if it goes down, you're being led emotionally. If you step on the scale and it goes up and you get pissed and you're like, I'm just going to eat whatever I want today, you're being led emotionally. The scale is a data point. It's not a verdict. It's not a moral grade. It's not an identity statement. Okay?

So here's how I would recommend you weigh. Now I don't even worry about the scale. I don't even care. But there was a point where I had to start to break my relationship with it emotionally. This is how to use it as a grown woman who only looks at it as a data point and doesn't allow emotion to get involved. Weigh daily if you can stay neutral with it. Or weigh two to three times a week if daily triggers you.

What I have taught women who see it as just a data point is that it's good if you do weigh yourself daily, because you can take the average of the week, and if the weekly averages over four weeks are going down, then we're seeing some progress. Now, it's not going to go down literally the whole time. Weight loss is like this: it's up, down, up, down, up, down. But if the overall trend is going down, that's great. You compare weekly averages, not single days.

Never weigh after a high-sodium night, because you could spiral. Never weigh after a leg day or a back day, because that could spiral. Never weigh after a bad night's sleep or traveling, because that scale will be louder emotionally if you do. So my biggest take is, if you can see it as a data point, never weigh yourself around those things, and see what an average looks like on a weekly basis. When you can do that and be neutral emotionally, you're winning.

The truth is in the trends, not in the single days. Not in waking up after a high-sodium meal, getting on the scale, and allowing it to dictate whether you've actually lost weight or gained weight. That's not true. It shows up in trends, and that's data. But if you're still allowing yourself to get emotionally attached to it, a deeper reflection on how or why needs to be had with that scale, and maybe it just needs to be pushed off to the side for a little bit.

Okay, so if you take nothing else from this episode, take this: the scale doesn't tell you if you are winning. Your habits do. How you show up on a daily basis. And the women who get results for life aren't the women who panic every time the scale changes. They're the women who understand their body, understand that the scale is a data point, and stay consistent long enough for the results to show up.

So instead of stepping on the scale and being emotionally attached to it this week, I want you guys to focus on those five metrics. How your waist is feeling and how your clothes are fitting. Your strength progression. Your hunger cues. Your sleep, energy and mood: are they improving? And then be honest with yourself with that consistency score. Be honest: Did you track honestly? Did you lift three to four times? Did you track five to seven days out of the week? Did you get your protein goal five to seven days out of the week? Did you get your steps in four to six days? Did you drink your water? Did you sleep well? If you are consistent in that, then you're going to start to win. Track those, obsess over those, let those be the scoreboard. Because when those improve, fat loss is not a question. It will inevitably happen.

All right, that's all I've got for this episode, guys. I love you guys. I hope this helped you in one way or another. If it did, share this with a friend that needs to hear this. If you know a co-worker or a friend that obsesses over the scale and they haven't broken that, maybe because they just don't have the education and knowledge behind it, send it to them. All right, love you guys, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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