We’ve all been there. You weigh yourself Monday and you’re five pounds more on Wednesday. You didn’t overeat, you exercised, and you’re feeling generally healthy. You can’t blame the scale, can you? Actually, you can.

The Scale Is a Bad Tool

When you’re trying to lose weight, the scale becomes your trusty guide. You give it love every day, and it can be incredibly frustrating to see the numbers go up despite your hard work. The fact is, daily fluctuation is common. Day to day, a 100-pound person can see a two- to three-pound increase or decrease, and a 200-pound person can see a five- to six-pound difference. In the worst cases, some people even see a weekly change of up to 10 pounds.

Here’s the rub. You want to lose body fat, and the scale doesn’t specifically measure that. If you dropped five pounds over two days, you didn’t necessarily lose fat. (Maybe that’s why you still can’t fit into your favorite jeans.) You simply can’t lose that much fat mass in a day or two. So, what did you lose?

The Impact of Water and Inflammation

Dehydration can affect how much you weigh. (Photo via Pixabay)

Sure, calories in/calories out is still a thing, but hydration plays a huge role in determining what side of that equation you come out on. A large fluctuation in weight over a short period is almost always the product of water. Maybe you had a little too much alcohol last night or your lunches have been loaded with salt. Or maybe increased stress levels have been pumping out the hormone aldosterone, which makes your body retain as much liquid as possible. Whatever it is, being dehydrated can easily swing the scale.

Then there’s inflammation—another form of water that’s always the symptom and cause of an underlying issue. That nagging knee injury or food allergy flareup can cause inflammation—which believe it or not—carries weight in pounds (So does that double-cheeseburger sitting in your colon since last night, but that’s preventable poundage.).

So, how can you know for sure what’s causing your weight gain or loss?

Body Composition Tells All

If you’re serious about weight loss or fitness, you can’t trust your scale for accurate tracking. Every time you step on, it’s weighing water, bone, muscle, and fat, with no real specificity. To lose body fat, you must weigh and track body fat. Enter the body composition assessment—the only way to get a true measurement of your progress.

At Twin Cities Metabolism, we use advanced InBody and Fit3D Proscanner technology to scan your body limb by limb to see exactly where your weight resides. This delivers the truest picture of your overall physique, and should be utilized by everyone on a regular basis to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Next week, we’ll take a closer look at this revolutionary technology to show what it can do for you.

Ready to take charge of your weight? We’re ready to guide you. Get in touch.