A free chapter from The Vital Way
The scale is measuring the wrong thing.
Chapter 12 of my book, yours to read for nothing. Why the number on the bathroom floor can go up while your body is quietly getting better, and the seven things worth measuring instead.
Chapter 12
The Scale Is Not Your Health
7 things
worth measuring instead
30 years
coaching women through this
Free
straight to your inbox
You already know this feeling.
You have eaten well all week. You walked. You drank the water. You step on the scales on Tuesday morning, hold your breath, look down, and the number is 600 grams higher than it was on Monday.
Within seconds your mood changes. Everything else you did that week somehow stops counting. Your clothes are looser, you are sleeping better, you lifted heavier on Thursday, and none of it survives one number on a bathroom floor.
I have watched that happen to women for more than 30 years. This chapter is how we stop it.
What you will read
Six ideas, written the way I would say them to you across a kitchen table. No jargon, no shame, and nothing you need a science degree to follow.
What the scale is actually telling you
Your bathroom scales tell you how much your body weighs at that moment. That is the whole job. They cannot tell you what you have lost, what you have built, or whether your waist has changed.
The handbag test
Put your handbag on the scales. Four kilograms. Now tell me what is inside it. You cannot, and neither can the scales when you stand on them. They know the total, never what makes up the total.
Losing weight and losing fat are not the same thing
Two women, two very different roads. One lost ten kilos on very few calories and felt worse than when she started. One lost around seven, kept her muscle, and looked like she had lost far more.
Why the number can go up when nothing has gone wrong
A salty dinner. More carbohydrate than usual. A hard training session your muscles are still recovering from. Food and fluid still moving through you. None of that is fat, and all of it moves the number.
Seven better things to measure
Your waist, your clothes, your strength, your fitness, your energy, your sleep and your habits. Together they tell you the truth. One number on its own never will.
Stop chasing your 25-year-old number
Why should the weight you were before children be the correct weight for the body you have now? Take a four-week view, look at the trend, and build the healthiest body you can today.
The line I want you to keep
Your body weight can change without your body fat changing.
And your body fat can change without the scale telling the whole story. Once you understand that, the number loses most of its power over you. Here is what I would rather you watched.
- Your waist, gradually changing
- Your clothes, fitting differently
- Your strength, going up
- Your fitness, stairs and hills getting easier
- Your energy, all the way through the afternoon
- Your sleep, and how you recover
- Your habits, done consistently
Send me the chapter
Your first name and your email, and Chapter 12 is on its way. Read it with a cup of tea. It will change how you weigh yourself on Monday.
The Vital Way is not published yet. The chapter is free either way, and I will let you know when the book is out. Unsubscribe any time.
About The Vital Way
The Vital Way: Build a Body That Lets You Live Your Life is the book I have been writing for the woman who has been told her body is just doing what bodies do after 50, and who is not willing to accept that.
Seventeen chapters: protein, building strength, training your heart, your core, mobility, rest and repair, why you eat when you are not hungry, mindset, and the ten years in front of you. It is the method behind everything I teach.
It is not out yet. Chapter 12 is one of the chapters I am proudest of, so I would rather you had it now than waited.
Before you ask
Is the chapter really free?
Yes. Give me your first name and your email and Chapter 12 lands in your inbox. There is nothing to buy and no card to enter.
Can I read it if I have not bought the book?
You can. The Vital Way is not published yet, so nobody has bought it. This chapter stands on its own, and reading it will not cost you anything now or later.
When is the book out?
I do not have a date to give you yet, and I would rather tell you that than make one up. Ask for the chapter and you will be among the first to hear when it is ready.
I stopped weighing myself years ago. Is this still for me?
Very much so. Half of this chapter is about what to pay attention to instead, and that part matters whether or not there are scales in your bathroom.
What else will you send me?
The occasional email about training, food and looking after yourself in your 50s and 60s. If it stops being useful, unsubscribe in one click.
Not sure where to start?
The chapter tells you what to stop measuring. The free two-minute Starting Line quiz tells you what to do first, based on where you actually are today.
Or read more from me on the blog.