Let's Talk Trash...

I love to talk trash. So let's talk about one piece of trash I think everyone should get rid of immediately - your scale. Weight is crap. And it's an absolute crap way to measure health. OK, OK - don't start yelling back at me just yet...read on for a minute.

Your weight fluctuates daily based on what you've eaten, how much you've eaten, your physical activity, your lack of physical activity, your water retention, the weather, the score of the latest Rockets versus Mavericks game, whether the Dow is up or down - you get the point...a million things can affect your daily weight.

Here's one illustration why we shouldn't use weight to measure health goals: if you eat 8 ounces of plain grilled chicken breast you're eating about 220 calories. If you eat a doughnut (1.8 ounces), you're eating about 200 calories. Almost the same number of calories, but which one weighs more? And which one is going to weigh more in your body? The chicken breast. Yet, the chicken breast is a much healthier option.


Your body will use almost ALL of the chicken breast and burn just about every single calorie you've eaten - about 200 calories of the 220. But if you eat a doughnut, over half the calories enter your body as fat. There's 22 grams of sugar in a Krispy Kreme - that's about 88 calories. That means of the 200 calories in a doughnut, almost all 200 calories come from fat and sugar. Fat and sugar may weigh less the day you eat it, but your body will store almost of that as fat - and in case you haven't heard yet - fat doesn't weigh as much as other substances...say...like muscle. So weight can be very deceiving.

OK, I've started making my point. So what heck are you supposed to use to measure how your meeting your healthy goals - because let's face it - it's fun to see our successes?

One idea is to use your favorite pair of jeans. As you continue to incorporate more healthy habits, you're going to start to noticing changes in your clothes and how they fit. As you get healthier, your jeans will start to get more and mnore loose.

Measuring your waist is a really good way to keep track of your progress - and it's much more accurate than using a scale.

If you're just dying to weigh yourself or curiousity is getting the best of you, just about every gym has a scale or you can use one at GNC usually.