Ahh, the scale. She is honestly the worst sometimes. You’re busting your butt trying to get the freaking thing to trend down, but NOTHING is helping. What do you do?!

First, I need you to take a breath. 

The scale is just one way to see changes and, honestly, it’s not even the best one. We have put so much value into what the scale says and we HAVE to start changing this. We can’t let the scale tell us everything about our worth as a person, our overall health, or the progress we’re achieving. 

Because here’s the thing…if you are depending on the scale to tell you all of these things right now, you’re going to stress yourself out. Big time. (or you already have….)

Before I tell you what else you should pay more attention to, I do want to speak to some areas that may be contributing to your weight loss plateau. There are 3 actually, so let’s get into it:

#1 Blood Sugar

It might sound a little unrelated, but our blood sugar patterns throughout the day have a huge influence on our ability to burn fat or not. We teach all about this concept at myDietitian, because, yes, it’s that important for weight loss and our metabolism.

Why is this? Well, if you’re eating in a way that causes your blood sugar to have some crazy increases and drops all day long, it requires your body to use insulin all day to help even things out. 

Insulin is not the problem. It’s a hormone that helps bring extra sugar from our blood into our cells for energy or storage (the main thing being that it gets the sugar out of our blood so it can return to a normal range). We need insulin! However, the more we need it because of what we’re eating, it means that our body can’t be in a fat-burning mode. 

In other words, our body can’t focus on fat burn when the body is so focused on storing all this extra sugar or glucose into our cells from the foods we eat. It’s kind of like the body is either in fat-burning mode OR fat-storing mode. 

All this to say, if you’re wondering why the scale isn’t moving and you don’t have good blood sugar control, that’s definitely something to look into.

How do you know if your blood sugar control is not good?

• You’re really tired after meals
• You find yourself crashing in energy at least one point in the day
• You get ravenous for meals even though you only ate like 1 or 2 hours ago
• You find yourself with literally no willpower to say no to sweet treat or carby snacks
• You require caffeine and/or sugar to get through the day

How can you work on balancing your blood sugar? The biggest concept to learn and understand is PHFF. This stands for protein, healthy fat, and fiber, and it is critical that they are present at most of your meals. 

They work together beautifully to balance your blood sugar throughout the day and help keep the body in fat-burning mode!

Check out this blog post to learn more about it. 

#2 Inflammation

Think of inflammation as a mini fire or multiple fires in the body. The body is simply not going to prioritize weight loss if there is an unaddressed fire. It’s just not gonna. 

Think of it like this: would you be worrying about the air conditioning in your house if the upstairs bedroom was on fire? No. You’d be calling the fire department. Who cares about the AC unit.

Inflammation can come from manyyyy root causes, but here are some of the most common:

• Crazy blood sugars all day
• Chronic stress
• Not eating enough
• Overexercising
• Poor gut health / gut pathogens
• Infections
• Unaddressed food intolerances or allergies
• Undiagnosed autoimmune conditions
• Exposure to toxins like mold or industrial chemicals
• Unaddressed past trauma
• Poor circadian rhythm
• Excess intake of omega 6 fatty acids compared to omega 3s (> 2:1 ratio)

It’s really common to stress about not losing weight and focus on those outer changes, but we have to focus on our inner health first. The paint job on the outside of the house doesn’t mean a whole lot if the foundation is crumbling. 

And I get it, it’s hard to pinpoint where exactly inflammation might be coming from. And it can take a long time. Don’t give up! Reach out to an expert. This is exactly why we have Premium options because sometimes we have to dig deep under the hood with further testing.

#3 Energy Balance

If you’re new to the Metabolism Makeover team, you’ll quickly learn that we do not believe that simply eating less is the answer to losing weight. It’s just not! And we know this because I would bet you’ve tried to lose weight by cutting your calories in some way in the past….and it worked until it didn’t.

However, there’s a big difference between drastically cutting your calories and driving your metabolism into the ground vs. supporting a healthy metabolism with an appropriate energy balance for your needs.

If you’re finding yourself unable to get the scale to move, my first questions are always related to, “well, how is your metabolic health right now?” What have you been doing until now? Have you been eating enough? Getting enough sleep? Managing stress? Balancing blood sugar? Because if you aren’t doing these, we have to start here (which is exactly what myDietitian is for).

If you’re doing all the right things to lose weight, it’s probably not an issue of you eating the wrong amount of food, it’s probably a metabolism issue. Your metabolism is simply not going to respond to your efforts until it’s back in a healthy place. 

Shift your focus from energy balance to metabolic health instead and watch things start to fall into place. I dare you.

Ok, back to the scale though.

I really want you to understand that while you can use the scale as some data, it should absolutely not be the only thing you’re looking at. It doesn’t tell us the full story!

I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with that see very minimal changes on the scale, but their clothes fit very differently (in a good way). The differences in pictures are very noticeable because there is more muscle definition. Their labs from their doctor’s visit have improved. They just feel better. The scale can’t tell you any of that. 

If you’re feeling really frustrated and defeated by what the scale is telling you, I really want to encourage you to put it away. Really, just put it away! How is it helping you keep a good mindset right now? Is it really helping you stay consistent when you keep blaming yourself for what it says every morning? I can bet that it’s hurting more than helping. 

And if you can’t just put it away right now, that’s okay. But maybe start to get on it less. Start using other markers of success. Slowly break that hold the scale has on you because I see so many women unable to reach their goals because of it.

You are fully capable of reaching your goals! If you need a sign to do things differently, this is it. Join us at myDietitian.

Coach Elle