WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

49. A Lower Number On the Scale Will Not Make You Feel Better: Here Is A Better Approach

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 49

Share episode

Send Naihomy encouraging words!💕

Can a lower number on the scale truly solve all your problems and make you feel better? On this episode I challenge that flawed belief and dive into what your weight is really made of—muscle mass, fat, water, and bone density. We advocate for a balanced, informed approach to weight management, emphasizing the importance of looking beyond mere numbers. Through personal experiences and cautionary tales against crash diets, we aim to promote a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle that prioritizes overall wellness.

Have you ever felt puffy and sluggish, mistaking it for weight gain? I share my personal journey of dealing with these symptoms, possibly linked to perimenopause or dietary factors. This episode is all about focusing on overall health rather than obsessing over the scale. We discuss assessing lifestyle habits like nutrition, hydration, and movement, and considering body composition and blood work to pinpoint underlying issues. Understanding how different life stages and hormonal changes affect our bodies helps us grasp what feeling truly well means beyond just the numbers.

Is the secret to your outer wellness hidden within? We explore the significance of embracing inner wellness for achieving outer results. Quick fixes and drastic measures often fail, especially for women in perimenopause. Instead, we advocate for consistent, mindful habits such as regular exercise and balanced nutrition. Building muscle and improving overall health is key—muscle mass and strength are more crucial indicators than the number on the scale. Join us as we discuss finding peace through inner wellness, appreciating your body’s capabilities, and enjoying the present moment while working towards long-term changes. Connect with me for further support and let’s begin this journey of self-acceptance together.

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

Hola friends, welcome back to Wealthy Generation Podcast that's W-E-L-L-T-H-Y wealthy. Today I'm just gonna chit chat with you. I really want to talk about weight, the number on the scale, how you're feeling, all that good stuff. And I wanna talk to you like we're just friends at a table having a conversation. Maybe not so much friends, because I actually want to coach you. Well, if you were my friend and you asked me something like this, it's like what I would tell you and I think that it's something, or like a conversation that will hopefully bring you peace, open up your mind, give you a new perspective, because I'm even taking off my glasses, y'all. I think that it's something, or like a conversation, that will hopefully bring you peace, open up your mind, give you a new perspective, because I'm even taking off my glasses, y'all. I'm like let me put them to the side, because they're sliding down my nose. I'm like that's distracting me. Anyway, here's what I see all the time, and I want to set you free from this ingrained thought that has no flexibility. Okay, and just roll with me here.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and it's the fact that it is assumed that if you reach a different number on the scale, that automatically means you're going to feel better and all your problems are going to be solved, and I just want to tell you and share that that is absolutely not true. Yes, for some, that number should be lower to some extent, like it's really affecting your health. We, yes, do have an obesity problem in this country and therefore it leads to many chronic conditions. Other times there is not much budging around or that number is fine and you still assume that it being 15, 20 pounds lower is going to fix whatever's going on. Or some people actually want it to be higher because they've had a hard time gaining weight in their life. So people are everywhere, but what's most common that I see is expecting for a number to be lower and it automatically equals you feeling better, and this thought can get you, or idea, can get you, into trouble or into a very negative mental space where you actually cannot take action from a place of love and care and a health first perspective, especially in perimenopause, because that number can mean so many different things. It doesn't mean that you don't have a goal in changing it or that it is where it should be, or any of that.

Speaker 1:

I just want to kind of unlock this idea that a lower number, or whatever number you think it should be, 100% equals that you will feel better in your body and oftentimes, again, that is not the case. The first thing that we want to see is what is that number comprised of? Anyway, right, like a lot of people, when they're losing weight or they're losing, yeah, when they're losing weight they're seeing that number go down on the scale. Sometimes, what they're actually losing in the beginning is a bunch of inflammation. It's not even fat. So I think that, to start to get clear as to where your body is, what that number on the scale is comprised of is it muscle? Of course you're going to have some muscle and fat and all that, but what's the combination of it that's going on in your body? How much water do you have? What's your bone density? How much fat do you have and muscle mass? There are certain scales that can give you this information. There is in-body machines at the gym. There is DEXA scans. There are handheld machines. There are now smart skills in the house. There's a bunch of different ways. I want you to get more curious to figure out what that is.

Speaker 1:

If you've been somebody who have lost a lot of weight and then gained it back right and you're shocked by that and it's like, oh my gosh, I am gaining and losing and when I was at that weight it was so much better, but the way you lost it was so unrealistic. For whatever reason, maybe you were in a crash diet, maybe you had a health scare or concern or whatever it is, and you actually did not learn along the way how to feed yourself, how to move, how does actually gaining weight works and how does losing weight works, and how our body hold onto inflammation. What is actually a healthy number for you? Where you are more balanced internally, where you have more muscle mass and less visceral fat stored in your body, then those are things you want to find out. I don't want to necessarily overwhelm you.

Speaker 1:

When I started my health journey if you don't know it was I just wanted to lose weight. I did not know what that meant. I did not know that there was such a thing as body composition. I didn't know any of that. I, like you, just wanted to see the number go down. I, like you, knew that I did not feel comfortable in my skin at that moment. I, like you, knew that when I was a lighter weight, I felt better. Okay, I also was in your shoes before, where this is all I knew and I had just had a baby about six months prior. And I had just had a baby about six months prior. So I was just like, oh well, it's easy, I just need to lose the baby weight, right?

Speaker 1:

I think that's what everybody says, most people is really common to say, but we don't actually know what that means and that can lead us in the opposite direction of health when we don't understand what it means and we're doing crash dieting, we're restricting foods, we're under eating and malnourished, and then there comes this resistance and scariness to eating anything, because you feel like everything you eat is going to pull you away from the goals that you want, which is essentially seeing the numbers on the scale drop Right. So I just want to really emphasize that that number that you're seeing might not totally correlate with you feeling better. How I want you to look at that number is not that it's not important, is that we give it too much power, is that we give it too much authority and it's very nearsighted. There's not a lot of creativity involved, there's not a lot of room to learn and to build skills and habits and to be patient and to actually see the progress, because we're so hung up on this number that may or may not move to where you want it to move, or may or may not move as fast as you want it to move. So we put all our eggs in that basket and it literally starts to rule how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about our progress, and I can bet money that because it's not happening the way you want it, the way you expect it, at the speed you're expecting it, then you feel quite shitty about yourself and about the whole process and you might feel like it's just not working for you. So the way I would recommend or suggest looking at this number is, yeah, to bring it along for the ride, but what's actually because what's actually going to make a difference in how you're feeling is the steps that you take in a health forward way to create some sort of change, either in the overall number you see on the scale or, let's say, your body composition, how much muscle versus fat you have going on in your body, especially visceral fat.

Speaker 1:

Aside from all of that, oftentimes what makes us feel puffy and not sexy feeling and very heavy and sluggish and all of that is the inflammation happening in the body. We're just inflamed, and I had a period of time, especially, I think, for like a whole year, until maybe early summer, late spring of this year 2024, where I was there again where I was just feeling very puffy in my body. And now I no longer feel that way and the scale has maybe moved all of two pounds when it wants to, but nonetheless I feel really good in my body, as I used to before, and the problem was that I was having shifts, maybe due to perimenopause, or maybe there were other shifts happening, something that I was eating or something like that, where it was causing my body to be inflamed and I saw it in pictures. I felt it in my clothes, I felt it in my body. I was just uncomfortable all the time, especially when I woke up in the morning, when it's usually like I feel my best and I see my little baby abs and all of this happening, and I knew that something was off. Right, but never did I yes, no, that's a lie.

Speaker 1:

I did focus on the scale a little bit, because it kept going up and up and up at a rate where it was just a little off because I had had such a stable weight for so long, but my goal really was to figure out what was happening inside my body that was causing these shifts. So when you look at your weight and when you're like, oh, I want to make a difference and I don't feel good, I want you to just carry this number with you. It's just going to come with you wherever you go, but I don't want your focus to be on that number. It's like ignoring a zit on your face almost. I don't want it to be on that number. I want it to be on everything that you can be doing to promote overall health and wellness and support your hormones along the way.

Speaker 1:

How are you eating? How are you hydrating? How are you moving? Is whatever you're doing benefiting you? What other changes can you make along the way? What new skills can you learn? What habits have you let go of recently? What habits have you thought of implementing that you haven't?

Speaker 1:

And, yes, have some form of measurement. The scale can be one, but I also really highly do recommend seeing what your body composition is so that you have more data about what's happening in your body. Maybe get some blood work done and seeing where all your markers are. Is your body holding on to inflammation somewhere? Do you feel the puffiness, do you feel the sluggishness? And all of that is going to give you a better idea as to is it really this number that's causing all of this, or is it really your lifestyle and stuff that you're not or are doing that is causing you not to feel well? Because I'll tell you something almost every single one of my clients comes to me well, most of them they're like I want to lose 50 pounds, I want to lose 25 pounds and that's going to allow me to feel better.

Speaker 1:

And by the time we start working together, they've lost some sort of weight right, 10, 15 pounds and they're already starting to feel amazing in their body Before they even lose a pound. And they're already starting to feel amazing in their body Before they even lose a pound. They're already starting to feel better. Because what we actually work on is this inflammation that's happening, is this sluggishness that comes along with it. And we're looking at the foods, we're looking at the ingredients, we're incorporating movements. So when you start to actually give the body the appropriate nutrients it needs, the movement that it's craving, when we're not intoxicating it hour after hour with certain snacks and food products that we're giving it and it actually has the space and the time to breathe and to heal and to not be in panic mode every single time trying to clean up whatever you are eating. That's really, really, really slowing down the processes in your body and creating toxic environments. Then you all of a sudden start to feel better and you haven't even lost a pound yet.

Speaker 1:

So this is why I mean that 100% correlating a specific number on the scale to you feeling amazing, it's just not it. What happens when, let's say, you reach the number that you think you need to be and you still feel like crap, right? Is it even worth it to be all the way over there, right? Is that number? Does it apply to you now, in this season of your life? Right? And oftentimes, even if you like the way you look in the mirror and you don't feel well on the inside, you might feel like still, that number on the scale needs to change. It needs to be like it was before, because we have this strong correlation of whatever the number was before and how we were feeling.

Speaker 1:

One it might've been a false positive, and by that I mean you might've looked at a certain number on the scale and assumed you were feeling well. But you don't even know what feeling well actually feels like. You might've felt obviously lighter, or clothes might fit you different, and that gave you the boost that you needed to assume that you were also feeling well. But one is not true with the other. You might look amazing in clothes and still feel like crap on the inside, right. So that's one. Two you might've been in a completely different season, right? It just fluctuates. The way you were in junior high school or high school or college or whatever your preferred season is, it might not be the same right now.

Speaker 1:

As females, our hormones are fluctuating. Our body is designed to shift with our seasons. It is designed, when we go into puberty, to prepare for childbirth and then, as we go into perimenopause, we stop ovulating as much and we're no longer. Listen. We sometimes forget that we're human and we're animals, and most animals, I think every single animal and living being on this earth. Their one and only goal is for the species to not become extinct. Therefore, it is to procreate right, to have babies and to make sure that we don't become extinct. So, technically, although we are very multifaceted beings and we've created corporations and we have the most developed brains and we invent all these cool things and we created money and like all of these other things that we do is fine and dandy, and still and still.

Speaker 1:

When you bring it back to the basics, we are here to reproduce, okay, so the female body is going to adjust and shift accordingly to that. That is our purpose. And we bring it down to the basics as animals, as mammals on this planet, right, although we are here and we do other amazing things too. So, with that said, our hormones will function accordingly, right? Obviously, external factors have a lot to do with how our genes work and how our hormones work and all of that. And we have a lot of free will now to choose to want to reproduce or not, or whatever we want. I mean, fingers crossed, no pun intended, right? Um, all that good stuff, but the truth is that we need to actually come to terms and learn to appreciate the different cycles that our bodies go through and learn to adjust with it, because, if not, we always end up in these moments where you don't have freedom or peace or love or grace towards yourself or what's happening, and you're always hoping to be like a past version of yourself and you're never content with the present one and you always want your future version of yourself to be different. And we never appreciate the current moment.

Speaker 1:

You kind of leave yourself hanging and I know it's happened to me and it's probably happened to you where you look at a picture from 10 years ago and you're like, damn, I wasn't even fat. I don't know why I was complaining about. I was trying to go to the gym and kill myself and do all these diets because I thought I was so big and look how freaking hot I was. Haven't you been there? I've been there. Listen, I was looking at my perky boobs, okay, when I was in my early 20s I was like, damn, I had some perky boobs and now they're not so much anymore. I breastfed two kids, right. So anyway, let's keep it moving.

Speaker 1:

The thing is that we're always looking to change it somehow and that's okay. Like I'm not telling you not to have body goals. I have body goals. I want my body to be toned and I want my butt to be perky and all of those things At the same time. It's always from the inside out perspective and appreciating the current version that brought me here right. Like, okay, I want that. Well, how am I moving? How am I eating? How am I accomplishing these goals and how am I giving my body the space and time that it needs to actually create this?

Speaker 1:

Because, again, in microwave culture, in instant culture, you want everything to happen fast and the truth is, to create body composition changes, you need to be patient and you need to do very boring, monotonous work, and no one wants to hear that shit. I remember when I first lost 50 pounds unintentionally is just what happened from taking care of myself from the inside out. A lot of people would come up to me and ask me like, how did you do it? What did you do? What did you take, where did you go? And my answer was always like, oh, I went to the gym once a week and I started to watch what I was eating and immediately people would lose interest in the conversation. No one wants to hear that shit because it's boring, because it's not fast, because it's not instant, and that is what oftentimes we expect.

Speaker 1:

So just knowing that our body is going to shift, our muscle tone is going to shift, our fat is going to shift, body is going to shift, our muscle tone is going to shift. Our fat is going to shift and, especially when you're in perimenopause and you try and push it and do drastic things, you're putting yourself in real danger with your health because we are already losing lean muscle mass at a drastic speed. And if you start doing things like crash dieting, the weight that you're going to see start to come off is going to come from the inappropriate place. Instead of it being inflammation, instead of it being visceral body fat, it's going to be muscle mass and that really puts you in trouble for chronic illnesses like diabetes and then later on, it puts you in trouble in things like bone density. The stronger the muscles you have, the stronger it will make your bones, because the muscles will tug on your bones and be like, hey, you need to get it together. You need to continue to repair and become strong, because these things are pulling on me and this is why, again, women are more prone to bone fractures and you break your hip and your sprain and you break your ankle and you break this and you break that because we become so weak.

Speaker 1:

So if you're desperate to lose weight and you're doing drastic things and you don't even realize that the number that is shifting on the scale is a result of you losing your lean muscle mass, then is that really worth it? Is that how you want to go about it? Not me. I would like to keep my independence and autonomy for as long as I can, and most of the time, women are ending up in nursing homes because they cannot take care of themselves anymore. They cannot raise their hands over their head, they cannot pick up anything heavy, they cannot climb on anything and most of the time they have fallen and they have suffered a fracture and then they end up in a home because they can no longer take good care of themselves because of those kinds of injuries.

Speaker 1:

And I ask you is losing weight drastically and just really wanting to see those numbers change and fluctuate and assume that that's what's going to make you feel better? Is that really the case and is that what you want? You know what's going to help you feel better really the case, and is that what you want? You know what's going to help you feel better Really, really, really adopting a lifestyle where it's rooted in wellness, where you are eating foods you love and you are satisfied, when you're enjoying life, where you get to move how you want to. They invite you on a hike bet. They invite you to travel bet. You need those muscles to drag around luggage, to push, to pull, to go, to bend down, to reach up. Hello, traveling is an Olympic sport.

Speaker 1:

If you have not noticed, to sit for a long time, to walk for a long time, to twist your body right, you have to be able to move in that way and be well. So when you want to move and shift those numbers on the scale you want to have such good awareness of, is the number going down because I'm losing visceral fat? Is the number going up because I'm gaining muscle mass? Has the number not changed? But I now feel amazing because what I'm losing in body fat, I'm gaining in muscle mass. Right, and most of the time, if you're admiring somebody else, it's not probably necessarily because of the weight they're at, it's because of the body composition they have created for themselves. And, to be honest with you, that person might weigh more than you think because muscle takes up more space and is healthier than body.

Speaker 1:

So I hope this gives you a different perspective. I hope this unlocks this idea that once you reach that number, you will feel better. What's actually going to help you feel better is looking at how you're eating and learning about how you're eating and eating appropriately. What's going to help you feel better that is not the weight on the scale is actually moving your body. It will give you energy, it will give you strength, it will help you stand up taller and more confident and with better posture. Do you know how sexy it feels to feel strong man? Man, you should try it.

Speaker 1:

When you start to feel strong, when you start to build that body composition that you want, when the clothes starts to hug you in the right ways, you really are not going to give a crap what that number is on the scale. Okay, maybe a little bit. Who am I kidding? Because you know why. Is there real mindfuck to see the number on the scale go up at the same time have so, see the number on the scale go up and, at the same time, feel amazing in your clothes and your body? It just doesn't compute. The math doesn't math Per societal standards, per what gets promoted and shoved down our throats, per like lose 15 pounds today, lose this weight, lose that weight. Look how great this person look, look how great that person looks. Okay, so it can be such a different experience.

Speaker 1:

I just got so distracted because the ice cream truck always pulls up and you'll probably hear the music and all that and I'm like, damn, why is it every single time that I'm recording that the ice cream truck wants to stop by? Anyway, this is what I want to share and lend you today, that I want to make it 100% safe and valid to want to change how your body physically looks. But I also want you to think about how you want to accomplish that, and are you taking a long-term look at the health consequences that will happen depending on how you go about it? Okay, Look, whatever you do, whether that's surgery, whether that's the sleeve, like a plastic surgery, like whatever you want to do, like a plastic surgery, like whatever you want to do I still believe and there's no judgment like none of it is easy or faster. Okay, everything has its challenges. I can promise you that. And still, I will have to say that the foundation still remains the same.

Speaker 1:

You're doing yourself a disserviceervice just focusing on the outer physical appearance, when how you treat your insides will have such big effect on the quality of your life and how you get to live your life, especially as you get older. Okay, it doesn't seem like a big deal now, but it's going to start being a big deal, so I am not judging. I also want to look a certain type of way on the outside. I also want my clothes to fit a certain type of way. I also want to keep being sexy mama through forties, 50s, 60s, whatever God gives me the opportunity to go to, and at the same time, I will do that while protecting my health. I will do that while protecting my lean muscle mass and ensuring that I do my very, very, very best to prevent and reverse health conditions that I don't want.

Speaker 1:

And I think that weight is one of these controversial things that people get hooked on and with the BMI and with the obesity and all of this and being called overweight, and people want to make change fast. And you can make change fast in your day to day, in how you're eating and how you're moving, but give the scale its proper time to do whatever it needs to do while you take care of what actually is going to give you the biggest difference in overall, in your health, in your energy and all that which is taking care of yourself from the inside out. And then the bomb ass. Side effect is that you start to get that figure that you want, figure that you want, and there is no more confidence or sexiness or feeling of accomplishment that you were looking for than that, than that. Because when you actually take really good care of yourself and you put the time in and you know how you're doing it, that feeling is so rewarding, you know how you're doing it, that feeling is so rewarding If you want to learn how to start doing this, if you have no idea I literally had no idea how exercise affected me, how food affected me, what kind of changes I had to make.

Speaker 1:

I was extremely supported in my own journey, which is now almost eight years in. I was extremely supported the whole way by a trainer, by a nutritionist I did not make it here all on my own and all of the advice that I was getting from the internet, none of it worked or served me and it made me even more miserable and more frustrated because it wasn't working for me. I felt like crap, it was hard to keep up with, it did not fit with my schedule or my culture and that was extremely frustrating. But I can promise you this working one-on-one with me on food and hormone health can actually give you these kinds of results and change your life from the inside out. I can actually support you in gaining knowledge, in building a skillset, in practicing these habits to make it an actual lifestyle and therefore creating that change that you want inside by healing yourself through ruling lifestyle and, in addition to that, supporting your hormones right and looking and actually receiving the results that you want with a more settled, open-minded mindset, where you understand what's actually happening and you have more appreciation, grace and self-love for yourself along the way.

Speaker 1:

And that, my friend, is just such a more peaceful and free journey to be on, where you just get to enjoy where you are at the moment while diligently working on creating those changes that you desperately have been wanting for so long. And it just feels harder and harder and harder as the years goes on. So I'll leave you with that. My friends, if you would like to connect with me, I would be happy to. In the show notes there is a consultation link where you can go ahead and book one and we'll talk through Zoom. Or you are also free to DM me on Instagram I always reply to my DMs or you can feel free to send me an email as well. I will see you next week and I hope, I hope, I hope you have a different perspective now on that little little number, on the scale that may or may not be controlling your whole life. Peace out.