You’ve been working hard on your weight loss plan — so why aren’t you seeing results?  Chances are the results are there  — but you are looking for them in the wrong place.  We use the scale as the primary measuring tool because it is easy. That’s the reason we talk about losing weight.  What we should really be concerned about, though, is not losing weight, but losing fat.

The scale can’t tell you if you are losing fat, muscle, or water.  It just shows a drop in the combined total.  We don’t care about losing water and we want to keep and increase as much of our lean muscle as possible. It’s the fat we want to shed.  The fat causes all sorts of health problems, as well as making you look fluffy.

The tape measure may be a better tool for measuring your progress than the scale.  As you exercise, your body will build lean muscle, which actually weighs more than fat.  It is much more compact, though.  As you burn up the fat for fuel and build lean muscle, your body will become tighter and more compact.  Your clothes will fit better and you may find you can fit into those clothes that you’ve been keeping in the back of your closet just in case you could ever wear them again. You may see the smaller numbers on your tape measure rather than on your scale.   And that’s what matters anyway, doesn’t it?  How you feel, how you look, how your clothes fit — isn’t that more important than a number on the scale?

Eating to live and living for Christ
Susan Jordan Brown