Do you freak out when you step on the scale, especially when that number is not what you want it to be, or you think it should be?
Then you are in the exact right spot. Today we're talking about nine reasons why your scale may go up. Welcome to next article to enhance stamina and scale it up. Here in my house, it is officially summer. The kids are off of school. And because it's a live show, and I work from home, who knows what's going to happen? I asked them not to video-bomb me in the background. I am in an excluded part of the house, but you never know what you might hear.
I do have two young kids… well, they're not that young anymore. I have a 14-year-old who’s going to high school, and a 12-year-old who's going into seventh grade. They're occupied right now. These are the joys of working from home. It's great when they go to school, and then in the summer, they don't realize that mom doesn't just train clients. I have to do marketing and computer work, and they don't understand why I can't just take off a half a day. If you are the first time being here, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Nicole Simonin. I am the owner and the only personal trainer at Shape It Up. I created Shape It Up in 2006. I love working one-on-one with clients, which is why I keep my client roster list very small. I like to give my clients what they need, and the attention that they need, and that is why my client list is not very large. I am the only trainer.
I used to have trainers when I had a studio. They were great and wonderful trainers, but I really like doing the coaching and the training all by myself, so I know that everybody's getting what they need, and I don't have to follow up with other trainers. I do have an exciting new program that I will be coming out with for anybody online, so it doesn't matter where you live, as long as you're in the United States and you have an internet connection. This program… I can't wait to launch it. I've been working on it for a while now, and I'm eager to share with you. It's going to open up in the next two weeks or so. If you want to be the first to know, head on over to ShapeItUpFitness.com/contact. There's a form on there, and just send me a message saying you're interested in the new program that I'm going to be announcing very shortly in the next two weeks. On to our topic today: nine reasons why your scale may be up. This is for all you ladies out there who are freaked out when the scale goes up 0.2%. You have to let it go. If you grew up in the 80s, it was all about the scale and everything. You really have to let it go. Here's reason number one: you might have had a really salty meal. This one's probably pretty obvious.
There's a lot of sodium in a lot of different foods like salsa… picante sauce is really high in sodium. A lot of your traditional Mexican foods may have salt in them. Obviously, chips, pretzels, that kind of thing. That sodium will puff you up. I try to add a little bit more salt into my diet because I have migraines, and it supposedly helps the blood flow a little bit more, but if you have heart conditions or anything like that, always check with your doctor before you add salt. But if you have too much salt, you are going to puff up. And it sometimes takes two to three days for that sodium to get flushed out of your system. Number two reason why the scale may be up is you have had too much sugar. This is processed sugar. Your body reacts to sugar similar to salt.
Salt puffs me up very quickly, but sugar does the same thing. If I have a piece of cake or something that's really high sugar, I'm puffy. Be aware of your sugar content, and sugar is in absolutely everything. It's in your toothpaste. It's in your spaghetti sauce. Just be aware of how much sugar you're intaking that could puff you up and increase the scale. Number three: you are dehydrated. Many people don't drink enough water. I would guess that most women only drink 30 to 40 ounces of water a day. Ideally, you should be drinking 90 to 120 ounces of water per day.
Now if you are drinking caffeine, or if you're having salty foods or sugary foods like we just talked about, you may need to add a little bit more water in. Yes, you can have too much water is called hyponatremia. It's also known as water intoxication. Generally speaking, the people that you hear in the news that have done this… have too much water… a lot of times they have an underlying condition that caused them to not be able to regulate the water and the sodium levels in their body. It is extremely rare for this to happen, so don't go overboard. I think it's when you drink a lot of water in one chunk, so don't be drinking a gallon of water in an hour. That's not smart. Spread it out through the day. So ideally again 90 to 120 ounces of water per day.
There's some TMI coming up in this video, so be prepared. A good rule of thumb for hydration is if your urine is pale yellow or clear, you are hydrated. If it's dark yellow, you definitely need some water. Number four, which I should have put as a number two: if you haven't done a number two, you could have some extra scale weight on the scale. Depending on the last time you had a bowel movement, your scale may be up a little bit. Another thing to think about is how much fiber are you eating during the day? Ideally you want to have 25 to 50 grams of fiber per day. If you're on the really low end of fiber, don't go jumping up to 50 grams of fiber, because you can get constipated and then you're really going to the bathroom. If you're going to increase your fiber, make sure you do it gradually. Number five: another TMI, guys, if you're listening hold your ears. It's that time of the month, ladies. I'm pretty small in stature. I'm 5’2”, and, I'm tiny.
When this time of the month rolls around, I sometimes have gained five to six pounds. It's all water weight. I look like I'm three months pregnant. It flushes out. I've noticed it happens more now that I'm in the perimenopausal stages. And then that's us, that 40+ range. Our hormones are all over the place during perimenopause. If you're not familiar, perimenopause, and I think people get confused… Perimenopause is the transition from childbearing years into menopause. Menopause is there's no period whatsoever, you're done. I’m looking forward to that moment. But perimenopause is the timeframe, those 10 years they say, before you get to menopause. In that time frame, 10 years, your hormones are going crazy. You may get bloated. Okay, it flushes out, doesn't mean you gained getting fat. Number six: you ate something you may be intolerant to. Intolerance and allergies are two different things. Allergies are a 911 a medical emergency that you're going to die, you needed anaphylactic shots. Intolerance just means you can eat the food, but you're feeling pretty crappy about it, like you're bloated, you may feel nauseated, gassy, that kind of thing.
Dairy is a huge culprit of… you’ve heard of lactose intolerance. Dairy is in everything. And what happens is, lactose is milk, sugar, and some people just can't digest it, and if you digested it well in the past, it doesn't mean that you can't get it later on. That was my case. I used to drink gallons of milk a day… cheese, everything. Maybe I had it and didn't realize it, but as I got older, it got worse. So, you can develop it later in olden years over 40. The other thing is wheat and gluten, which again, you probably heard about… being talked about a lot… gluten-free, that kind of thing. But if you find that you're very lethargic or bloated after eating certain foods, you may want to be aware of, what you've been eating and try and take it out for a little bit and see if you have that same reaction. If you find that you do have a wheat or gluten insensitivity or intolerance to it, it doesn't mean you have celiac disease. That needs to be tested, and you need to go to a doctor for that. But you could have trouble digesting it. I feel much better when I don't eat a lot of meat products and gluten products. Sticking to whole foods feels best for me.
So, you're welcome to try that on if you like. Number seven: if you did a very intense workout or you went for a run. When you work out, your body goes into an inflammation response, because the whole point of a workout is to break down the muscle… you're stressing your nervous system… all in the effect of your body trying to rebuild it and make it stronger and faster and all that good stuff. You might find that you’re a little swollen, basically inflamed, like if you were injured, like if somebody punched you or whatever, it would swell. Same idea, it's not like a contusion… it's not like a bruise or anything like that. For instance, if you've ever done a really hard leg day or leg workout, and you feel very wobbly, and then later on you go home, and you try to put on a pair of jeans that you know fits you, and you can't put them on… don't be shocked. It’s probably that your quads are swollen, or your glutes are puffy. They will de-puff in a day or two. Number eight: you may have gained some muscle. The scale will definitely go up if you're gaining muscle.
If you are doing a fat loss program, and gaining strength, which I recommend highly that you'd be doing, especially over 40, that scale may go up. As long as your inches are going down, you're heading in the right direction. If the scale continues to go up, and you're not really seeing too many inches changes, then you need to address your food, how much activity you're having, and that type of thing. Muscle weighs more than fat. I'm sure you've heard that before. Muscle takes up way less space because it's more compact and condensed than fat. Muscle is good. We want muscle. You do want fat, you want body fat, but you don't need that much. Number nine, last one, and then we have some bonus ones at the end, so hang in with me here. Number nine: if you have cut your carbs back recently, and then re-added them back in, the scale may go up. If you have dived into the latest and so-called greatest fad diets, which I hope you have not, it's pretty common right now to be cutting out the carbs. Once you cut out carbs, and I did a video on this before, you lose water weight, and that's why a lot of people, when they start these low-carb diets, the scale goes down immediately, because they're losing so much water weight, and you don't want that effect.
You want to lose body fat… not water, and not muscle. When you take those carbs out, when you add them back in, the molecular structure of a carb has two water molecules. Every time it's pulling in water into the cells, which will increase your weight. If you add them back in, I mean, instantaneously, you could add three to five pounds on the scale in a day. Here are some bonus tips for you. If you burn 3,500 calories, which is supposedly equal to one pound of fat, unless you are overeating 3,500 calories, on top of your metabolic rate… my metabolic rate would be 1,200… I would have to eat an additional 3,500 calories to gain one pound. That's a lot of food. That's a little under 5,000 calories a day. Unless you're overeating that much, you're not gaining fat. It's water, it’s volume of food, it's all the things I listed earlier. Bonus number two: your weight loss journey is not a 12-week program. It is a lifelong journey. You need to find something that works for you, for the long run. I highly, highly stress this with my clients. You have to find something that you can be able to maintain and do and get the results that you want.
Don't just get a 12-week program and think you're done at 12 weeks. Use pictures to judge your progress. If you're on my Shape It Up page, and you saw one of the posts that I posted, I had just done a workout, and I wasn't seeing the results on the scale and in my inches, and I I flexed in front of the mirror, and I was like, holy cow, I was amazed that my arms are really starting to show through. Take pictures, because a lot of times you may not see the results on the scale, but seeing pictures, especially when it's… and don't take a picture of one week and then another week later take a picture, and expect to see this drastic change. I'm talking three months, two months… I had one client who started, and she's down 20 pounds, and she's doing phenomenal, and she's been here for three months. Okay, don't feed into that “drop 20 pounds in a week.” Stop having the scale be the ultimate scorekeeper.
When I assess my clients, I do use the scale, but I also take into consideration their girth measurements, which is a tape measure; how strong they are; if they're faster; they're more flexible; and most important, how their mindset is, and how their thought process is. I have one client who's been working with me for a long time, and we're having some struggles. Her body just does not want to lose the weight yet. There are some issues that we need to address. But when she first came in, her mentality from day one to now is a complete 180.
She's really ditched the dieter’s mentality and keeps working on it. It's hard to get rid of a dieter’s mentality if you've been doing it for 30-plus years. But it's amazing how the mental switch is there, too, because if you don't have that, it's hard. You just keep replaying the same patterns over and over again. Instead of using weight as a goal, set another goal that doesn't have to do with weight. A very popular goal that most women have is a 5K, doing a 5K, running it, walking it, whatever. It’s an awesome goal, but you’ve got to find something that inspires you and makes you want to do something a little bit more to push you. This is why I like doing Goliathon, which is a local charity event that I do two times a year. It pushes me, it keeps me on my toes, and we work as a team, and this fitness competition that I'm doing. You don't have to do fitness competitions. You do not have to do an obstacle course. But it has to be a goal that lights you up and inspires you to keep pushing. I had a client who had a shore house, and she went down to clean it, and the year before, she really had a hard time pushing up the windows to get them open so she could clean them.
And she came back to me, and I'd only been working with her for a little under two months maybe, and she was like, “I did the windows and everything, and I could lift them so easily and effortlessly!” We were doing a strength-building program for her. It's not just about how you look, though that is a very pleasant byproduct, right? How small you are, or whatever you want, whatever your goal is for what your ideal physique is. But being able to do daily activities is key. I hate to tell you, but being over 40, as we get older, most people think that everything declines. It's, in my mind, about being 90 years old, not having someone to wipe my face or wipe any other part of me. I want to be able to head into the bathroom independently and be able to feed myself, be able to open jars, do all those kinds of things. It's really about independence as you age and keeping up your strength and to be able to do your daily activities as you get older.
You'll be amazed at how many women over 40, 50, 60, that I have worked with, who are doing these phenomenal things that they never thought they could do, because I think we have this mentality that over 40, you're out to pasture. Not the case. Do not give your power to your scale. That wraps up the live broadcast part. If anybody has any questions, you can enter them right now. If you catch us on the rebroadcast, you can also put your comments down below as well. I'm just going to wait one more second and see if anybody comes in. I don't see any questions coming in. I know sometimes it takes a while to generate, but I don't want to hang out here, and you're staring at me, me staring at you, awkwardness.
If you do have a comment, put it in the comment section below. I will answer it. If you liked this video, please give it a like… share to a friend. You can also go to the Shape It Up page and like the page. That will be awesome and helpful. Next week, check out Shape It Up live. Also, if you notice, I have been popping in here and there doing live broadcasts here and there. If you have a topic you want me to share, they're really short little live broadcasts, like a couple minutes, but if you have a topic that you're interested in, let me know about it. In the meantime, you can head over to and check out all the information there. And remember to get fit, be fearless, and have no limits. All right, take care. Have a wonderful day, and I'll see you soon.
Good Bye.
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