Functional Nutrition

The Truth about your Weight…From my friend Betty Rocker

April 17, 2023 /

I just completed the presentation of my new Masterclass Series entitled “Your Path to Wellness”, when this came into my inbox…

I have been a fan of Betty Rocker for a few years, because of her wonderful quirky attitude and delivery, and her well thought out exercise programs for ALL bodies!

During my presentation, one of the MAIN concepts that I was sharing was that your body has to be in what we call a “healing state” in order to be able to focus on a specific end goal, with weight loss being one of those end goals.  We have been conditioned to chain ourselves to a certain predetermined weight in order to feel like we’re doing the “right thing” or are at the “right weight”.  Pish posh!

I thought that Betty did such an excellent job with her message, that I felt it was worth sharing for sure.  So enjoy!  And if you’re looking for a great at home movement program, check out Betty’s Rockin’ program!

 

Hey Anke!

I get a LOT of questions from people about why they aren’t seeing drastic changes in their weight on the scale even though they’ve been doing everything “right” with their training.

I just did a podcast about this, so you can listen in whenever you like.

The scale doesn’t tell the whole story – and if what you see dictates whether you have a good day or a bad day I suggest taking a break from it, and keep reading….

Getting caught up in a certain number to measure your progress is problematic for so many of us because we assign value to ourselves based on the number that we see. I get how weighing yourself can be a helpful check in, but we have to see it in context and not use it as a primary measurement of our health (or worthiness!).

Taking a closer look at your body composition – the ratio of muscle to fat on your body – is much more useful than the “amount you weigh.”

Weight on the scale measures overall body weight, which includes muscle, bone, water at the time of weighing, body fat and all the body tissues combined. These numbers are variable throughout the day (have you eaten, had a bowel movement, how hydrated are you, are you retaining water) and throughout the month depending on your cycle and other factors.

While a pound of muscle and a pound of fat both weigh one pound, the pound of fat takes up more space than the pound of muscle.
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As you focus on strengthening your muscle, you not only become more compact and strong, you also become a more efficient fat burner due to the metabolic properties of muscle tissue.

Meg jokingly says in this post from inside our Rock Your Life private group that “muscle weighs more” because she weighs more on the scale now that she’s leaner and more muscular. The pictures show exactly how true this is. This is one of the many reasons I don’t suggest using your scale weight as your only progress metric.
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I see far too many hard working women piling more stress on top of their already stressful days, beating themselves up for how much they weigh and what they think that means without seeing the big picture or understanding how variable your “weight” alone actually is.

Because if you could sculpt your body the way Meg did, would it really matter how much you “weighed” as a result? Isn’t it more effective to look at your body composition and what’s going on with the body tissue we’re supporting?

My best advice is to stop basing your value and your progress on your scale, start taking some progress pictures or measurements and/or invest in body composition measurements (smart scales, DXA scan, BodPod, etc).

To accomplish fat loss/muscle gain, focus on the big picture of what you surround your workouts with (sleep, nutrition, stress management) and consider your hormone status, both with regular cycle tracking and also regular check ins with your doctor, so you can be assured of having normal levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone for where you are in your life.

These hormones, along with your thyroid and adrenal hormones all play a big role in how your body is able to lose fat and build muscle.

Your sex hormone levels start to change with perimenopause and of course with menopause, and they will impact your ability to build muscle and burn fat, requiring more specific strategies which I’ve written several articles about on my blog.

Keep tabs on your daily energy levels and sleep balance which are important health metrics as well and can show us if we are under stress and need to spend some time caring for ourselves, or working with a health care practitioner.

Finally, remember your overall happiness is one of the most important metrics you have in your health.

Don’t forget to put all this pursuit of progress into perspective and so you can be happy now, not just happy “when you lose 10 lbs” or whatever the case may be.

Check out my latest podcast for more info on this topic or talk about it with me in our private group chats in Rock Your Life! ❤️

Stay flawsome!

-Betty Rocker

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