F*ck the Scale 2.0 - Body Fat & Your Food Scale

Three years ago I wrote my original F*ck the Scale blog. It has been one of my most popular pieces to date, and I never would have believed that to be the case when I wrote it since it was so blunt. It has remained at the heart of my beliefs as a nutrition coach, and it’s something that resonates with people on their fitness and health journey, so I wanted to revisit it again.

So many of us get wrapped up in numbers..

Our weight.
Our dress size. Our pant size. Our shirt size.
Our body fat percentage.

And less appreciative of our..

Strength.
Cardio endurance.
Purpose in life.
Our happiness.
Career success.
Capacity to enjoy our food.
Social life.

So again, I’m here to say it again - Fuck the scale. Fuck the numbers.

PART ONE - PERCENT BODY FAT

About nine months ago I was coaching a challenge where the participants got their weight, muscle mass, and body fat percentage measured at the beginning and the end of the challenge. I was always there for the first weigh in. As you might imagine, it’s the most frightening part of the whole thing.

For those of you who have started to implement health and fitness into your lifestyle.. Do you remember how that felt? Do you remember how scary it was to start something new and hard?

I can’t count the number of women (and men, too!) who conveyed to me how embarrassed they were by their weight, by their body fat percentage. It’s not uncommon for me still to hear someone watch their body fat rise on a machine and say, “Oh god, it can stop anytime now!”

Many times they say this really early. For men, it’s when they pass 5% body fat. For women, it tends to be once they pass 15% body fat.

And guess what? THOSE AREN’T REALISTIC NUMBERS.

My favorite thing to tell women in particular is that when bikini competitions step on stage, after prepping for months, following a strict diet plan, and starving and dehydrating themselves leading up till stage time, they sit around or below 16% body fat. Why would you, as a normal woman, who has a successful career, children, who enjoys pizza and beer, and has yet to start your health journey (and honestly, even if you have) expect that you should have that same body fat percentage?

This is blunt, but it’s true.

While more and more people are moving away from the fact that weight does not determine the body shape of a body, and acknowledging that two people or the same weight can look very different, I’ve noticed a skewed perception around the expectations body fat percentage.

What you think a “healthy” body fat percentage may be, might not actually be true, or sustainable, or very fun to maintain. When you think of women in particular who have abs, they are likely weighing and measuring everything that goes into their body in addition to following a strict exercise regimen. They’ve likely removed alcohol from their social life, and they follow the same plan day in and day out. And you might not want that for you life, even if you’d like to have abs.

Having varied body fat percentage requires compromises, some of which you may be willing to make, but as always it doesn’t happen over night. It doesn’t happen in 6 weeks. It might not even happen in 6 months.

Here’s the truth - If we all ate the same and exercised the same, our bodies would still look different from one another. Because we all have different needs, different body compositions, and tolerate food differently.

PART TWO - THE FOOD SCALE

For as long as I’ve been in the health and fitness industry, macros and flexible dieting have been a thing. It’s been gaining popularity, and I do coach some clients this way. However, this is a high level nutrition ideology, and not for someone who doesn’t understand what different foods are made of.

Now if you’e heard of macros or ever counted macros, you know that you have to weight and measure everything. Your eggs, your meat, your veggies, your olive oil, your rice. Everything. If it goes it your body, it’s being measuring on a food scale or in a measuring cup of some sort. Many people who this works for, especially high level athletes, even go so far as to take their food scale out with them to restraints to ensure that they can weigh and measure their food to stay on track.

With no disrespect to professional athletes, fuck that.

The food scale is in my mind intended to serve as a tool for education. It tells you what 4 ounces of chicken breast looks like and what 3 ounces of cashews looks like. The food scale gives you a better idea of how much you should be eating at each meal in order to consume the right amount of food throughout the day to properly nourish yourself. It’s not meant to be a crutch.

If you need to take a food scale to dinner, first it means that you might consider this an obsessive disorder, such as orthorexia, an obsession with eating food that one considers healthy. Secondly it means that you haven’t been learning or committing to memory all the data that food scale has been providing with you up until this point. It means you don’t know what a good portion looks like for you. It probably also means you’re unable to really enjoy your meal out while you’re crunching numbers in your head during dinner conversation and waiting to weigh your food out and make sure everything is in order.

When I coach clients with macros, we talk about food types and what portions should look like, how they can break their overall macros into meal portions to keep them satisfied throughout the day, and how whole food options are always best. We also talk about how this is meant to be temporary. It’s meant to give them the tools and the knowledge to not always need their food scale and calorie tracker app to let them know they’re doing a good job.

They learn to visually recognize proper portion sizes.
They reflect on how they feel after their meal - hungry, full, stuffed?
They grasp how much food they should be eating overall throughout the day.

Because nobody is going to carry their food scale with them everywhere for the rest of their life - eating out, to weddings, to parties, on vacation. What happens when you forget it or the batteries die? Is the day a loss? Are you then completely unaware of how to eat well?

I hope not.

Ditch the food scale as soon as you’ve learned how to eat well. Know when to say, “Fuck the food scale” and maintain control of your health through all the ways you’ve learned.