I will always remember when I first started strength training. It was about six months before my wedding. Like just about every bride to be, I decided that I needed to get onto shape for the big day. Not that I was overweight by any means at all. In fact, I was already in pretty good shape, I just wanted to 'tone up' a bit so I would look better in my wedding dress and photos.
Around this time I also found the perfect wedding dress! It was a little bit big for me so the lady at the shop pinned it up and said she would make some alterations.
I didn't have a gym membership at this time, but I had a set of adjustable dumbbells and I started following the workouts that were printed in women's fitness and oxygen magazine's.
I was so happy with the results I was seeing in the mirror, the improvements in my strength and I felt great! This encouraged me to keep increasing the weight I was lifting (as much as I could with my limited equipment). I was loving it!
Then something happened that made me question if I had been doing the right thing, I hopped on the scales… and I had put on 2kg.
I freaked out and started having some totally irrational thoughts that my wedding dress wouldn't fit me any more, (even though most of my other clothes were feeling looser) I was so upset at first, I was doing everything right - eating healthy, counting calories, and exercising, how could I have put on weight? Is there something wrong with me?
I eventually calmed down and tried not to stress about it, like I said, my other clothes were feeling loose and I liked the way I was looking and feeling.
Anyway, I bet you can guess what happened. I went to have my final fitting and… the dress needed to be taken in some more!
How did this happen? I’m sure that you have heard lots of people say that muscle weighs more than fat, right? To be honest, I hate when I hear people say that because it doesn’t make sense, a kilogram of muscle weighs the same as a kilogram of fat. But a kilogram of muscle is much smaller and more dense than a kilogram of fat and therefore takes up less space on your body making you look smaller and more defined even though the scale may not have changed, or even gone up.
So to answer my question, what happened was that I had lost some fat and built some muscle. As a result of this I actually weighed in heavier but I looked smaller and fitter. After this experience, I started incorporating other ways to keep track of my progress as well, I also used a tape measure and started taking progress photos. This way I could see other ways that my body was changing that were not related to my weight.
This is why the scales do not always give you the full picture of what is going on. It is always a good idea to track your progress in other ways as well.
