How To Not Obsess Over The Scale

YouTube, what's going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to this video. In this video, first off, there's probably a lot of bright colors being thrown at you right now. I got green, I got a lime, very vibrant green, blue, I got orange. I couldn't find my red marker. I was gonna put stop in red, like red means stop, but I couldn't find my red marker, so we're using orange today. Hope you don't mind. But either way, in this video we are talking about how to stop obsessing over the scale, how to stop obsessing, compulsively obsessing over your body weight that you see on that piece of plastic every single morning. And we're going to cover a wide variety of things in this video, so kind of stick with me here and bear with me. Um, number one, I want to cover 2 quick points. I know that a lot of people tell me this all the time, especially people who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and so on. They always tell me, Eric, you're up against a lot. I'm like, well, what do you mean? They're like, you know, we've had 20, 30, 40, 50 years of diet culture just ingrained into our brains that the number on the scale is everything, and if we're not losing weight, we're doing something wrong. Like, I can vividly remember multiple of my clients telling me, like, you know, they would go to Weight Watchers and they would have their weekly weigh-ins, and, you know, if their weight didn't go down they were scolded. Hey, what are you doing wrong? Why? What are you eating? What junk foods are you eating? Why aren't you following the plan? When in reality they were only weighing once anyway, which we'll talk about here in a second. But you know, there's so much bad info that you're trying to relearn right now, and I get it, and it's not, it's not going to happen overnight. But consuming in the same way you consumed content back then, whether it might not be social media content, but whether it was magazines or doctors or articles or whatever the case may be. You're consuming content now to try to rewire your brain. So kind of give yourself some slack first and foremost, because again, if you are, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, and even if you are, you know, 15, 20, 25— I hope you're not worrying about your weight at 15, but it's a sad reality. Either way, um, you know, there's some bad information out there. So now you're here with good information, and we're going to try to rewire that. So that's number one. Number 2, I'm well aware that all the stuff I'm going to talk about here today is not a one-size-fits-all. Um, there are obviously Obviously, many, many, many things that go into somebody's— if you do obsess over the scale and how you feel emotionally and your mental health and so on and so forth. I just want to say I'm going to give you my thoughts, my 2 cents, what I have seen work for a lot of my clients, but I know that everybody's different and there is no one-size-fits-all. Watch the whole video, take what you think might work and hear me out and give me a chance and so on and so forth, but just know I know there's not one Right answer. Because listen, like, again, I don't claim to be a therapist or a mental health expert, which by the way, I strongly encourage you if you've even thought once about going to see a therapist or talk with a therapist or a mental health expert, I would strongly encourage you to do that because I think it's something that is not talked about enough, especially with stuff like this. And now I think oftentimes people think like, ah, I don't need to do that, that's not for me, like I'm stronger, I got this, whatever, whatever. And, um, you know, it can really help. And so I'm really a big fan of that. So With those 2 things being said, let's dive right into the video. First off, the number one thing is going to be get educated. Get educated on what the scale is, how the scale works, what does the scale weigh, what does the scale measure, how does it all work. Like for example, if you go to my channel— actually, I'll probably just link it here above— I've done a video on why would your weight spike up. There's so many, so many reasons why your weight would go up. There's so many reasons why your weight would stall out. There's so many reasons why your weight would go down. There's reasons your weight would go up that has nothing to do with you— excuse me— gaining body fat. There's reasons your scale would go down that has nothing to do with you losing body fat. There's reasons the scale would stay the same while you're actually losing fat and building muscle. So there's reasons— there's so many things that you need to educate yourself on when it comes to the scale, because if you don't get educated on that, You are going to have the emotional response of no, up bad, down good. And the emotional response is what we're trying to kind of combat. And throughout this whole thing, I want to talk about that. I'm never going to tell you not to have emotions because that's not realistic, and it's just not how we work as human beings. That's what makes us human beings. But being able to control that emotional response with a logical response— again, you see, we're going to talk about that here in a second down here as well. But It's really a big picture here. So when you get educated on the scale, again, like, why did the scale go up? Like, you'll understand, oh, I know a night when I go out to eat, I'm probably going to have more sodium than I normally do. I'm probably going to weigh in heavier the next day even if I stick to my calories. My weight's probably going to go up the next day because I had more sodium, and sodium temporarily stores water weight. So the weight's going to go up on the scale. That's totally normal though, you know that. So when it happens, you're not Yeah. You're not freaking out as much. Again, everybody's different. You're not freaking out as much. Or, you know, when you have a really heavy strength training session, you know, your muscles literally get torn apart when you strength train, when you lift weights, when you work out. The next day, you're probably going to have some inflammation in your muscles because that is what your muscles need to start the recovery and repair process to grow stronger, more defined muscles and get you to, get you to that look that you want to have anyway. When you have a heavy strength training session, you are probably going to weigh in heavier the next day. And again, it has nothing to do with you gaining body fat. It just has to do with you have some inflammation in your muscles, which is actually a good thing. So you actually want that. So the scale going up is actually what you want. Weird thing about it, I know, but these are the things I'm talking about. And again, I don't have enough time to go over it all in this video. That's why I've done a whole separate video on why does the scale fluctuate, why does it spike up. And again, like, You know, if you wake up in the morning and you weigh yourself before you use the restroom and you weigh yourself after you use the restroom, you are going to weigh less after you use the restroom. That has nothing to do with you losing extra body fat. You just pooped out something or you just peed. That's it. So understanding and getting educated on the scale as opposed to just like trying to shove it out of your head. Like I often think about like when I was younger, Money for my family, we weren't poor by any means, but it wasn't like we were just swimming in money. And so one of the biggest things for me was when I started working, I never wanted to check my bank account. I think some people can relate to this. I never wanted to check my bank account because I didn't want to see what it was. I was like, ah, there's not enough in there. I don't like what I'm going to see. I'm not going to look. And I think people can relate that to the scale. Like, ah, you know what? I don't want to see, so I'm not going to look. I'm not even going to think about it. And then all these kind of things. Right. Get educated on it. That way you can kind of start to fight this emotional response that you're having with the scale. So that's number one: understand why it goes up, why it goes down, why it fluctuates. Understand the difference between losing weight, losing fat. Understand, and you know I'll say this last but not least, like understand what does the scale measure? Like the scale measures everything in your body. It measures your lean muscle mass. It measures your body fat. It measures your bones. It measures your organs. It measures the food you ate last night. The food you still have in your stomach this morning. Like, it measures all of that. Again, if you drank 16 ounces of water, stepped on the scale, you are going to weigh a pound heavier. Why? You have 16 more ounces inside of your body. The scale doesn't— you have to understand everything that goes into the scale. Get educated on it. So that's number 1. And I'm really— I really encourage you to go watch that video on my channel to Look at that if you have not already. Number 2, we have to, um, do this to yourself. You have to— and again, this is where some people may differ, but I'm a big believer in a lot of people exposing themselves to the scale. And one of my mentors, Jordan Syatt, um, I always hear him talk about this, and I strongly agree. Um, there's something called exposure therapy, and essentially, like, exposure therapy is If you're afraid of something or if something is bothering you, you need to expose yourself to it. I give these 2 examples. Like, imagine a very simple one. Imagine a bully in school. Imagine your son or daughter comes home to you and says, Mom, Dad, there's this person bullying me in school. What should I do? You probably are gonna say something to the effect of, go kick their you-know-what. I'm sure you're gonna use some explicatives that I'm not— I'm trying to use less. And so you're gonna say, hey, go deal with it. Like, stop trying to run away. Like, you need to deal with that issue, right? Or let's say— again, you're not going to tell them to keep running away from it. You're going to say, no, go kick their ass. Number 2, let's say you're afraid of spiders. Raise your hand. I'm afraid of spiders. What exposure therapy would be is you have a spider in this room and you're in this room. So the spider's in 2 different rooms, but you know it's there. And then they bring the spider into the room with you in a cage, locked up, glass, whatever. It's not going to get out. Then they take it out of the cage and put it in a cage that's not glass and boxed up. Then they take it out of the cage and put it all the way across the room. Then they bring it halfway closer. Then they bring it that much closer. Then they put it next to your foot. Then they put it in your hand. Exposing, exposing, exposing yourself to these things slowly but surely over time, exposing yourself. That is what I have seen. I've done— if you follow my podcast, which if you don't, shout out Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. I've done multiple podcasts with my clients, a lot of my clients who talk about— my clients, I'd say 95% weigh themselves every single day. And why is this? We weigh ourselves, and also I have a video on this as well, why you would weigh yourself every single day. If you wanna go more in depth on why I think that is quote unquote the best way to do it, you can go check that video out. But essentially we weigh ourselves every single day because it's just data. You're collecting data. I don't care about what they weigh on Thursday to Saturday morning. That is 100% irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. I don't care what they weigh on Thursday the 27th to next Thursday the 3rd. I don't care what they weigh week to week. What we do is we gather all of the data and look at it over a period of time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months. We don't look at 6 hours or 6 days. We look at 2 months, 3 months. Where is your weight trending? And I'm gonna— I'll put some pictures here of some weight trends of my clients above and you'll see like We weigh ourselves every day and there's ups and downs as you can see right here, but the overall trend line is going down and that is the most important part because once we get all that data, because again, your weight's going to fluctuate. So let's say for example, you only weigh yourself once a week on Mondays. Let's say on Monday your weight was 200 pounds. On Tuesday it was 199.6. On Wednesday it was 199.2. On Thursday it was 199.8. On Friday it was 200.7, on Saturday it was 198.6, and then on Sunday it was 198.5, right? Let's say that was the trend thus far. You weigh in on Monday and on Sunday night you had a meal that was higher in sodium and higher in carbohydrates. That caused you to store more water weight. So you wake up on the next Monday morning and you weigh— you could easily weigh 202 pounds. So on the first Monday you weighed 202, the next month— I'm sorry, 200. The next Monday you weighed 202. if you only weighed once a week, you wouldn't see the entire week you were kind of trending down. And again, this is— again, this is just one week, but multiple weeks you'll see trend lines. You wouldn't see that. You would only see you woke up on Monday morning and you weighed 2 more pounds, and you would just— you'd freak the hell out and you'd be like, this isn't working. You'd be like, I'm gaining fat. And you would just— you'd lose it. And so that's why we weigh ourselves every single day. And again, you can get used to— again, you can go listen to the podcast, but a lot of my clients talk about they truly finally get to understand that Your weight is gonna fluctuate. Your weight is gonna go up, and that's okay. Because let's say again, for example, let's say that same scenario. You went throughout the whole week, you woke up the next Monday and you weighed 202. Most people right there would quit. That's where most people would quit because they think, ah, I'm not doing this right. I'm gaining fat. This is worthless. Why am I even trying? And they would quit. But when you weigh yourself consistently, you'll see very easily the next day, Tuesday morning, you can be right back down to 199. Did you lose three pounds of fat? God no, it's just water weight. But if you kept going, Tuesday you weighed 199, Wednesday 198.6, Thursday 199, Friday 190, 197.8, and you start to see the trend over time, and you'll notice like oh okay when the scale goes up it's going to go up, but it's going to go back down as long as I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing. And that's my thing to you like okay the scale goes up what? You have 2 options. What are you gonna do? You're gonna quit or you're gonna keep going? That's really the only 2 options you have. So if you're gonna quit, I mean, whatever, I guess go ahead and quit. But I don't think you actually want to do that. I think you want to keep going. Quitting is gonna solve nothing for you. So if you quit, you're not gonna see— you're not gonna see the progress you want to see. You're not gonna see your trend line down. But if you just keep going, you're gonna see yourself trend down over a period of time and you'll understand, oh, Okay, I understand my weight's gonna fluctuate. I understand things are not gonna be just straight line down. Like, you're not gonna lose weight every single day. If you did, you're like a robot. It's not real life. It's not— please do not expect that. Another thing to this is having proper expectations, which we could talk about as well. But weighing yourself every single day, exposing yourself to it, that will help you again get over the emotional versus the logical response. Because when you first see the scale spike up, of course you're gonna have an emotional response. I mean, who wouldn't? Nobody wants to see the scale go up. But over time, you're gonna understand, ah, that strength training session, I'm gonna weigh in heavier the next day. And you'll get— you'll start to know, like, oh, yep, I'm gonna weigh in heavier the next day. And it's whatever, it's all good. Because again, when you actually stick to something for longer than a week, you're gonna see, as long as you stay with it, the trend line is going to go down. And then over time, that will help you when the weight does spike up. You're gonna say, You know what, it's all good because I know as long as I'm doing the right things, I'm going to stay on track and I'm going to keep seeing progress and my weight's going to keep trending down and all these kind of things. And so being able to do that, expose yourself to it and allow yourself to have this logical versus emotional response. And again, knowing if you're, if you're educated on it, when you expose yourself to it, you'll be able to use that logic. My weight went up because of my strength training session. My weight went up because You know, I had more carbs, my weight went up because I'm a normal human being. Like, I've had clients who had to have fast for religious reasons and they fasted the entire day for religious reasons and they wake up the next day and they weigh heavier and they're like, what the fuck, man? I'm like, listen, dude, like, happens, right? So like, it's going to happen and when you can deploy that logical versus emotional response, I think the goal is not to have an emotional response because again, you are a human being and you're gonna have an emotional response. The goal is to cut down the timeframe from when you have an emotional response versus a logical response. So let's say in the beginning you step on the scale, spikes up, and it takes you the entire rest of the week to finally get over that. And you're like, all right, I'm gonna get back on track again. Then later on it takes you 3 days. So from 7 days to 3 days. Then it takes you 1 day. Then it takes you 18 hours. Then it takes you 12 hours. Then it takes you 6 hours. Then it takes you an hour. Then it takes you 10 minutes to say, you know what, oh my God, the scale went up. Do your thing. 10 minutes later, all right, cool, I'm gonna keep going. That is, that is the goal right there. So understanding that, exposing yourself to it, that is the second part, deploying the emotional versus logical response. Now, number 3, how to stop obsessing over the number on the scale is going to be start tracking other things. Um, start— I have a whole video here on YouTube, feel free to check it out, on How to track fat loss progress. Because again, you can lose weight on the scale and not lose fat. You can gain weight on the scale and not gain fat. All these things are true. And so being able to track other things— I'm not saying don't weigh yourself, because again, I just told you my clients weigh themselves every single day. Again, I know it's not for everybody, but that's what a lot of my clients do, and I find it very, very helpful, and they have found it very helpful as well. Um, but track other things. Track your measurements, track your progress pictures, track how your clothes fit. Track other forms of data. So again, you can say, man, you know what, like my scale hasn't gone down, but these jeans, man, like I couldn't fit into these jeans 2 months ago, but now I'm like, they're, they're loose on me. I gotta go buy new clothes. Or man, I can, I can track my waist measurements and my waist measurements have gone down 3 inches in the past 3 months. Like that would be insane progress, man. I have these progress pictures side by side and although I see myself every single day in the mirror, I can't notice big changes. I put the last four weeks side by side progress pictures, and man, I see a huge difference in how my stomach looks and my upper back and all these things. That's probably the best one. Like I can't tell you how many times my clients have been like, ah, Eric, I don't see a ton of change in my progress pictures, and da da. And I put them side by side, and I explain the changes to them because I've seen thousands of progress pictures. I explain the change, and they're like, oh wow, I didn't even see that because you know number one, you see yourself every single day in the mirror. So these little changes you won't notice until you put them side by side. But number 2, we as humans are our biggest critics. And so you're gonna— your eyes are gonna go to the things that you just like dislike the most. Like for example, if you want to get your waist down, right, like your eyes are gonna do, wow, my waist still isn't where it was. But when you put your picture side by side, you can see, wow, my waist actually has really improved. And as well, I can tell my upper back is getting really defined and my shoulders looking great and my arms looking better. And so, you know, you can be able to see these things and track other forms of data. If you are using the scale and like lean in because I'm going to say this once, I'm going to say this very clearly. If you are using the scale as your only form of progress, you are fucked. Can I be any more clear on that? No more. I have no sympathy for you after this video if you are still— and honestly, some of you have seen my other videos and you know this. So if you are still using the scale as your only form of data, I'm going to come through this Fucking phone and punch you. Like, I'm— I, I can't have any sympathy for you. I cannot do it anymore. So you need to start taking more forms of data. Again, if you need to, check out the video where I describe exactly what measurements to take, how to take them, how to take progress pictures, all those kind of things. All right, so that's number 3. Number 4, and this one is like the most underrated thing I can possibly tell you: start lifting weights. Start lifting weights. Why? Why is this gonna help you stop obsessing over the scale? I'm gonna paint you this picture. When you are on this weight loss journey, what are you thinking about nonstop, 24/7? Losing weight. Seeing the scale go down. Seeing your body weight go down, your measurements go down. Like, I don't wanna say you're tearing yourself down, but in a way you're like tearing yourself down. 'Cause you're like, no, I don't like that yet. I need to lose more weight. Lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. All of it's about, again, not essentially tearing yourself down because it sounds really negative because during this journey you can build yourself up and you feel better, feel more confident, all that. I totally get it. But the reality is you're trying to see a number on the scale go down. Like, that's all you're ever thinking about. You're thinking about how you don't like your body. You're thinking about how you're not where you wanna be. You're thinking about the scale going down. That's all that is consuming your life, man. And what happens is oftentimes, unfortunately, people who are trying to lose weight, They just do hours and hours and hours of cardio trying to burn the most calories. And they're just, you're feeding into that that much more. You're feeding into the tearing my body down that much more because now your exercise is used as almost a form of punishment because you hate your body. That's not what exercise should be about. Exercise and working out should be about building your body up. That's why they call it bodybuilding. I'm not telling you you gotta be a bodybuilder, but that's why they call it that. You're, you're building your body up. So when you start lifting weights, it gives you something else other than the scale to focus on. It gives you something else other than the aesthetics to focus on. It gives you a landmark where you can say, I'm gonna do more pushups. I'm gonna get better pushups. I'm gonna get my first pushup. I'm gonna lift 10 pounds. Then I'm gonna lift 15 pounds. I'm gonna lift 100 pounds. I can't tell you the— I used to train people in person. I remember we had this kettlebell in there. It was 100 pounds. I got it specifically for us. But there was this kettlebell, it was 100 pounds. And like when I would tell girls, guys or girls, but girls especially, I'm like, hey, go pick up that kettlebell and do those sumo deadlifts. They're like, what, me? Like, you're talking to me? I'm like, yeah, I'm talking to you. Go pick this shit up. And like, I would actually cuss at them. I was acting like I was mad, but I wasn't really mad. They're like, all right, fine, I'm gonna go do it. They did it, they're like, oh my God, I did it, I feel great. Like the amount of like their whole body lit up. Your whole body lights up, why? Because you're so proud of yourself. You feel so empowered, you feel so fucking strong. You don't feel that when you step on the scale. Like, you just don't. You just fucking don't. And so when you can have something in this journey that gives you, like, that gives you something to build yourself up, it's building yourself up, doing more reps, lifting more weight, pushing yourself, doing things you never thought you could do, going into the gym, into the weights area, and acting like you own the place and acting like you are confident there. Like, that's massive. Do you understand how huge that is? Lifting weights can give you that. I actually had a comment, I'll put it up here. I had a comment on my Instagram recently, which if you don't follow me, @ericrobertsfitness, I had a comment on my Instagram recently talking about, like this lady said, she was like, man, once I started focusing on my performance in the gym, and again, performance is increasing weight, increasing reps, increasing form, improving mile time, whatever it is, once I started to focus on performance, my mental health Got so much better, and that's that's it. That's it right there. Like lifting weights is the most underrated thing when it comes to how to stop obsessing over the scale. So if you are not lifting weights yet, with all of my heart, I freaking I'm begging you at this point. Please start lifting weights. And I have some people like oh should I lift weights if I'm trying to lose weight? Yes, yes, yes. Lift weights. It's gonna be such a positive thing. For your life. And so that is the 4th thing, most underrated thing I can give you is start lifting weights. You are going to just feel amazing. You're going to feel empowered. You're going to feel like a badass. You're going to feel like a beast. Like it gives you something to focus on that is not tearing your body down. It's building your body up. And so mentally speaking, that is such a game changer in this specific topic we're talking about today. All right. So that's number 4. Number 5 is going to be you versus the scale. And I want to make this very clear again. What does the scale measure? What does it measure? It measures your bone mass, it measures your organs, your intestines, it measures your— the food in your stomach, it measures your lean body mass, it measures those things, right? What it doesn't measure is your worth as a human being. That's what it does not measure. And so many people put their entire self-worth into A number on the scale. You as a human being, you are a great mother, a great father, a great friend, a great son, a great employee. You are— you make people laugh. You hold the door for people when you go out in the real world. I don't go out in the real world much, but you hold the door open for people. That's probably the biggest thing. I hate people who don't hold the damn door. Just hold the door, man. Um, we need less people like that in the world. But you, you are so much more than a number on the scale. Like, your kids aren't gonna wake up and say, Mom, Dad, what did you weigh today? They don't give a fuck, man. They love you because you're their parents and you love them and you, you know, provide them a great life. You're like— your parents don't say, hey, call you up, hey Jack, hey, what was the scale this morning, buddy? You gonna tell me? They don't care, man. It doesn't matter to them. They don't care about you or love you because of a number on the scale. Like, I use this as well. Like, your spouse isn't gonna say, hey honey, we were gonna do that thing tonight, right? What was your weight this morning? 212? Ah, yeah, it's only under 210 before we get the business. So, you know what? Yeah, we're gonna hold off. No, no. You are so much more than a number on the scale. So, stop letting that number on the scale define you. Again, I know there's a lot of rewiring to do in your brain. All the years of diet culture and all those things combined. But please, you are worth more than a number on the scale. That does not determine your self-worth. Alright? So, I hope that helped you. Those are my 5 biggest things to how to stop obsessing over the scale, how to stop obsessing over your body weight. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions, concerns, comments, if it helped you, didn't help you, whatever. If it didn't help you, at least be nice about it. If it did help you, feel free to let me know below. Give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and, um, what's the other one? Click the notification bell to get notified when Eric puts out new videos, 'cause I want to be your friend and I wanna notify you when new videos come out. All right, hope you enjoyed. And, uh, again, just one last time, you are worth more than a number on the scale.