The scales 🙅🏻‍♀️

I’m going to have to ask you to use your imagination for this one.

I didn’t think I’d still be explaining this in 2022 but from going through the questionnaires of new sign ups to The Furnace, it’s clear to see that many women still have a “goal weight” in mind, or measure progress using the scales.

I want you to imagine a plastic bag sitting on a weighing scales.

It’s almost flat and almost weightless but let’s say it weighs 0.1kg.

Now I want you to imagine 1kg of popcorn. (That’s a lot)

The popcorn fills the bag to the brim and the bag is almost going to burst.

The scales reads 1.1kg.

Now throw out the popcorn. 

I want you to imagine 1kg of peanut butter. It’s in a big jar but fits nicely into the corner of the bag with loads of room to spare.

The scales still reads 1.1kg but the bag has shrunk to fit around the peanut butter.

The 1kg of popcorn (fat) and the 1kg of peanut butter (muscle) both weigh the same.

(although I just realised that peanut butter is mostly fat and probably a poor example, but it just shows how little I plan these emails and just improvise)

But the space they occupy is completely different.

If you were to lose 1kg of fat off your body and gain 1kg of muscle, you would be physically smaller but the scales would stay the same.

If you were to gain 2kg of muscle and lose 1kg of fat, you would probably look a lot leaner but the scales would be up by 1kg.

This is, of course, really simplifying it here - the scales vary hugely for a number of reasons.

Imagine even putting a bottle of water into the bag momentarily. The scales might read 1.5kg but the water is poured out and then its back to 1.1kg. (That’s what happens when you drink water and the scales goes up).

I just don’t want to see women think that they are not seeing progress, just because the scales has not changed.

We even see people think that they are getting leaner, when the scales goes down but it could be a number of different reasons e.g. dehydration, and they haven’t lost any body fat.

If your goal is to get physically smaller, then I would advise to use measurements and photos to assess your progress.

If you want some support on this, you can join The Furnace today, or let reply with any questions you might have.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhan “No idea what I weigh” O’Hagan