Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

I think it has been said multiple times in multiple places, but structuring your goals around weight only is truly bad idea. Nevertheless people still do that. "I’m on diet because I want to lose 10 kgs", or "I lost 1 kg this weekend only" - how many times have you heard those? On top of everything most people assume, that weight loss (or gain for that matter) is a linear thing, when in fact is far from it. I got Withings WS-50 weight scale recently and it really got me thinking about that whole weight obsession. But first - check this out.

This is 2 weeks of my weight measurement only. As you can see, despite my best efforts of eating clean, training mean, sleeping well and not drinking alcohol, I’ve actually gained 1.5 kgs. Yet the question is - is that really bad thing? As it turns out - not at all.


Yep, I’ve changed the phone and lost some hair here and there ;)

Jokes aside, left photo is one year old and if I remember correctly, my weight was about 74 - 75 kgs back then. I was about to start structured training but I’ve already been going to the gym and climbing quite regularly. And I was actually quite happy with my body and my results.

Right photo is from this week, taken at around 75 kgs.

In terms of weight - absolutely nothing has changed. But it was far from no progress. In terms of body composition, I’d say it is more than 5% of body fat difference. For me, despite knowing the role of fat to muscle ratio, it was a real eye opener. Knowing and seeing are two different things.

So, two things that we can take from that chart and these photos.

First - weight is quite dynamic within 2 kgs range. Yet most of the variation will come from food (is your stomach empty or full, same with bowels) and water (1 glass of water is 250g and hour heavy training can make you sweat much more than that), especially when you weight yourself multiple times during the day. If you want to manage weight - you have to look on trend, not single measurement.

Second - at some point you have to look more about body fat percentage than just body weight, ’cause when you are training, your weight might stay the same (or even go higher), while you are still getting tinner and leaner.

So, perhaps it’s time to stop thinking about weight that much?