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To weigh or not to weigh?

Are scales useful?

It’s a question we get quite often and a question that a lot of people give their opinion about online.

The answer, like with most things health and fitness related is, “it depends”

Context is key!

What is scale weight?

Firstly. Scale weight is a metric. It is a data point that can be used to assess progress of a certain goal. What that goal is, may determine how often or how you go about weighing yourself.

On an individual level, some people can get on a scale and not be mentally affected by it. Others cannot and potentially have unhealthy relationships with scales. This is usually due to a lack of perspective of what scale weight actually tells us about ourselves.

It could also be a history/predisposition to eating disorders.

So let’s talk about what exactly scale weight represents.

The weight you will see on the scale represents your total body weight, which is then made up of the following components.

Bone (approx 15%)
Lean tissue
Fat
Connective tissue and other tissues
Water (50-70%)
Blood plasma
Glycogen stores
Food slurry/Partially digested matter/Stool
Skin
Hair

All these components make up what’s called our Body Composition.

Fluctuations

Some of these components will fluctuate in weight, be it on an hourly, daily and weekly basis. However your Bone, Organs, Blood Plasma, connective tissue, skin and hair (unless you have a very drastic cut) will continue to weigh relatively the same through your adult life.

What you need to take from that, is that total body weight, looked at randomly, doesn’t really give us a clear picture of ourselves at all. Depending on your goal or where you’re starting point is, measuring the other factors like fat %, lean tissue or dry lean tissue if possible, is going to help us fully understanding our body composition and progress.

There are outside factors that play a role in these fluctuations too, like time of day you weigh yourself, quality of sleep that night, carbohydrate intake, menstrual cycle (women), alcohol intake and so on.

Your total body weight can actually fluctuate 8lbs either side of your average weight! Which is crazy. Imagine you weighed yourself on your lightest day one week, then the next week you weighed yourself on your heaviest day. That could be so disheartening or misleading, if you’re tracking your weight for a particular reason.

Consistency

With all those factors to consider and the above example, the one thing to ensure you get right, if you’re going to ever weigh yourself periodically, is consistency!

Same set of scales, the day, time of day, underwear or naked, empty bowels, previous nights food and drink consumption. All things under our control to keep consistency. For females, knowing their cycle too.

So begs the question. To weigh yourself or not to weigh yourself?

As I mentioned before, the context is key, so let’s have a look at a couple different examples

If you are someone that can, separate the data (number on the scale) from any emotion. Not have that reading effect your focus. Are on a specific fat loss or muscle gain goal.

Weighing every day can be a very useful tool, along side other periodic body composition assessments.

The reason for weighing every day is so that you can average out your fluctuations through the week. You would then compare the weekly average weight, each week to track progress.

If your coach has set you a weekly trajectory of expected weigh change then this is a very useful method.

It is not for everybody though.

It could be the case, especially it you have a lot of weight and excess fat to lose, that weighing less frequently would be fine. That could be weekly or every 4 weeks. Reason being the expected body weight loss per week would be higher and fluctuations play less of a roll in deceiving our perception.

If you are someone who has a lot of emotion tied to what you see on the scale. If you are happy knowing you feel lighter, are fitting in clothes better and are using other metrics like body composition assessment to track your progress. Weighing yourself may not be something you need to do all that often.

Again however you go about it, consistency is key as well as looking at using as many other trackable metrics to understand your progress.

To conclude

Everyone is different. The main thing is that a person stays on track towards the goals they’ve set and if the scales effect that in a positive or negative manner, then it needs to be taken into account. These perspectives may change at different times throughout the journey.

It’s vitally import to remember that scale weight is just a metric, that can be utilised effectively to keep you on the right path. The more data, the easier it is to track progress and make adjustments if needs be.

This is why working with an experienced coach 1-1 is so important. Someone who can understand the individual and use the right tools and data at the right time in the right context, to keep the clients progressing.

I hope this post has given you a good perspective on scale weight, what it represents and how to put that into context for yourself.

Adam

Our Hormones & Plastics

LET’S TALK ABOUT HORMONES

I want to give you all a bit of an understanding about the relationship between endocrine function (hormones) and toxicity in our environment. How that then effects reproductive health, conditions, mood, drive and pretty much most other systems and parts of the body.

Firstly, all Men and Women have Testosterone and Estrogen, among other hormones, and BOTH are key to our health, whether male or female.

Mainly reproductive and sexual health but they play a role in other systems and functions of organs too and can effect levels of other hormones like the Thyroid hormones in the body.

Hormonal disrupters can disrupt systems that control metabolism, energy balance and appetite control!

They also increase energy storage in fat cells as opposed to where your body needs it.

BPA exposure in the womb can lead to a higher risk of obesity in later life.

ENDOCRINE DISRUPTERS

These nasty chemicals found in our environment are also called hormonally active agents and can act like hormones in our body, binding to receptors making them over active and blocking our other hormones, causing an imbalance. They therefore effect the production of hormones and can cause different negative long terms effects in the body.

A little example, since the introduction of petrochemicals and plastics into our society in the 50’s, normal sperm counts since 1973 (first sign of a drop) have HALVED! they have found that this is due to a women’s exposure to phthalates whilst carrying baby boys in utero.

For more detailed information on this and the effects of phthalates, look up Dr Shanna Swann’s work.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to avoid exposure to these as soft plastics and other plastics are used in all parts of the agricultural and commercial process.

Just wait till next time you go shopping and realise

HOWEVER !

You CAN clear most of these from your body and REDUCE your exposure by conditioning your personal environment and that of your family or potential family.

DETOXIFICATION PATHWAYS

1. The BEST way to detoxify your body is … you guessed it… SWEAT! Whether that be by being active in the gym or at home, but the best way would be a Sauna or steam room!

NO … detox teas and aloe vera diets do not work, your body does this naturally every day anyway

2. Ensuring you look after your Liver and Kidney’s and their functioning.

Sorry but alcohol and a diet rich in bad trans fatty acids really inhibits this.

Drink plenty of water each day and reduce levels of refined salt!

HOW YOU CAN CLEAN UP YOUR PERSONAL ENVIRONMENT AND REDUCE EXPOSURE?

Here are a few key hacks to reduce your exposure and clean up your personal environment.

1. NEVER cook, heat or microwave food in plastic containers

2. Store food in glass tubs and drink water out of glass or stainless steel bottles!

Even “BPA free” isn’t free of disruptors. If you do use any plastic, for a bottled drink or what your yoghurt comes in, then at least check the bottom to see if it has a number in the symbol, then remember this rhyme.

“1, 5, 4 & 2, all the rest are bad for you

Optimally you’d not use any at all.

3. Reduce the amount of processed foods you eat. The more processed a food The more it’s been exposed, passed through or stored in plastics. This also goes for the food sources exposure to pesticides and other refined ingredients.

4. Buy Organic foods and try to not get foods wrapped in soft plastic. Pesticides contain hormone disrupting compounds so buying organic, especially leafy greens, is optimal. Simply google a list of foods most exposed to pesticides.

You can also wash your friit and veg in a mix of water, vinegar & bicarbonate.

5. Throw away any Tefal or teflon coated non stick pans These leach onto your food when cooking. Go for a non toxic pan like the Greenpan brand, any ceramic pans or use stainless steel and use beef dripping, butter or EV olive oil

6. Personal care products makeup, moisturisers, shampoos etc.

In the UK we have pretty good regulations on what can be added to products (11,000 different things are restricted here compared to just 11 in the USA) but it doesn’t do any harm to check or swap out. There’s app’s where you can scan your products and it will tell you. Try to buy “clean” “plastic free” “organic” products where you can.

7. Clear plastics out of your kitchen. Check for utensils, plates, cups and storage and just make the switch to metal, wood, glass and ceramics.

I hope this hasn’t put the fear of God in you but it’s important to be aware and talk about these things. The good news is you can take action, clean up your own personal and families environment. Your body is pretty amazing at sorting itself out too. You’re already doing the hard part of sorting out your fitness and nutrition, after that there’s also a lot of measures and supplements to help with hormonal imbalances or improvements. Sleep isnalso a massive one to get right.

Team Sozo

Dopamine & how we can best leverage and utilise it.

What is Dopamine?

Dopamine is a critical chemical messenger in the brain that plays a key role in motivation, reward, and pleasure. It’s often referred to as the “feel-good hormone” because it’s released in response to pleasurable or rewarding experiences. However, the role of dopamine in the brain is much more complex than just making us feel good. Dopamine is involved in a wide range of processes, including focus, attention, decision-making, and motor control.

The one thing we don’t want to do is over stimulate and lower the sensitivity of the dopamine pathways and drain our dopaminergic system. There are a lot of ways and things available to us in our daily lives to do so.

What then ends up happening is you have to increase the stimulus higher and higher just to get the feel good effects. This then drains us, lowers our mood and drive to do anything productive because our brains are wired to get cheap feel good hits instead of working for them.

‘The more you press that morphine button beside your hospital bed, the less effective it becomes’

Leveraging dopamine to be at our best

So, how can you leverage your dopamine to improve your daily life? One key strategy is to focus on the effort and reward ratio.

The effort and reward ratio refers to the balance between the effort required to achieve a goal or task, and the reward that you receive for that effort.

As I mentioned, there are a lot of ways and things accessible to us that give us quick and easy reward. Scrolling through social media, getting likes and comments or playing mobile games, can all provide a cheap dopamine hit. The bad thing is they often leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled in the long run.

How many of you once you open some chocolates can’t stop until you feel sick?

Another stimulant which is very bad for our brains and hormones is porn and a large amount of stimulating images.

What can we do to fix this?

The thing to do to help reset your dopaminergic system is to cut a stimulus off all together every so often, then manage it back in if needs be and keep it under control. If it’s something that doesn’t provide us any utility and isn’t good for us like porn, leave it out all together!

One thing that takes a lot of effort to get reward is resistance training or exercise in general. I often find clients learn to curb cravings, excessive comfort eating or addictive habits once they start resistance training and exercising regularly. This is because they are conditioning their brain to get rewards and good feelings from effort.

So are you lacking drive, motivation and generally feeling down or tired?

Try assessing what’s actually making you feel good each day.

Are you running on caffeine?

Do you need a few biscuits at 10am to get you through work?

Do you drink a lot of sugary drinks, mindlessly scroll through your phone when you should be focusing on something?

Do you look at pictures of naked people or watch porn often to give yourself a buzz?

It may be that you’re over stimulating yourself and no matter how much sleep you get or how much “good” food and drink you eat, you just can’t shake feeling low and tired.

I’d advise going cold turkey on a couple of things at a time and replace them with more high effort rewarding things. Start by hitting the gym.

You won’t regret it and your energy will sky rocket!

Team Sozo