Ep 69 | Did the Scale Go Up? Don’t Panic!
One of the biggest challenges people face in their fitness journey isn’t physical—it’s mental. And one of the most common triggers for frustration, shame, or even setbacks is the number on the scale.
Here’s the truth: the scale is not as important as people make it out to be.
The number is neutral. It doesn’t hold moral value. It doesn’t define your worth. It’s how you interpret that number that can either support your goals or sabotage your progress.
Why the Scale Feels So Heavy (Even Though It’s Just a Number)
We live in a society that is deeply fat-phobic. For many people, the idea of the scale going up feels like the worst possible outcome. If you’ve spent years trying to lose weight, seeing the number rise can trigger panic—even if it’s part of a healthy and intentional fitness plan, like building muscle or transitioning to maintenance.
I recently had a conversation with someone who was moving into a higher weight class. Their strength was up, their body composition was improving, but they still struggled with self-image because they were no longer in the “180s”—a number they had tied to their identity.
This is so common. We attach self-worth to numbers: body weight, clothing size, body fat percentage. But these numbers are neutral. They only carry the meaning we assign to them.
Redefining What Progress Really Means
Here’s a perspective shift I often give my coaching clients:
If your weight has gone up, ask yourself why.
Are you performing better in the gym?
Are you lifting more weight?
Are you building muscle mass?
If the answer is yes, then that’s what the number means: you’re stronger.
The scale doesn’t just measure fat—it reflects everything your body is made of: water, glycogen, muscle, organs, and yes, body fat. When you’re building strength, it’s normal (and often necessary) for that number to rise.
Breaking Free from Scale-Obsessed Thinking
This is where mindfulness and a little bit of psychology can help. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teaches us to separate what happens from the meaning we assign to it.
The scale going up is a fact. Feeling insecure about it is a reaction. But deciding that “this means I’m failing” is an interpretation—and one you can choose to change.
Instead, you can write a new script:
“This number means I’m getting stronger.”
“This is part of my body’s natural fluctuation.”
“This is temporary data, not a measure of my worth.”
Learning to observe your thoughts without spiraling into shame takes practice. Mindfulness helps you notice your reactions without judgment, so you can step back, breathe, and choose a healthier perspective.
Practical Takeaways
If you’re struggling with the mental side of weight gain or transitioning out of a fat loss phase, here are a few steps to try:
Practice mindfulness. Notice your thoughts about the scale without judgment.
Separate fact from meaning. The number is just the number. Decide what meaning you want to assign.
Focus on performance. Ask yourself: Am I stronger? Do I feel healthier? Am I performing better?
Reframe your self-talk. Replace “I’m failing” with “I’m building.”
Final Thoughts
Your body will fluctuate. Your weight will shift. That’s just part of being human. The key is to remind yourself that strong and healthy matter far more than lean or light.
If you’re ready to take control of your fitness journey without shame and burnout, I’d love to support you. I work one-on-one with clients through my online coaching programs, including my 90-Day Fat Loss Transformation Course. Together, we’ll navigate not just the workouts and nutrition, but also the mindset hurdles that come with real, lasting transformation.
👉 You can learn more and apply here.
And remember: the scale is neutral. Your interpretation is what gives it power. Choose wisely.
-
Jayd (00:00):
The scale is not as important as a lot of people make it out to be. It's just not. The number on the scale is morally neutral. You interpreting what that means is where you're causing yourself to get fucked up. The number is the number. The weight is the weight. It's how you choose to interpret that number and that weight.
(00:28)
Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I have been a personal trainer for over 10 years, and I've created this podcast to help you to get leaner and get stronger without shame and burnout. In this mini episode, I'm going to share a conversation that I had with one of my Twitch chatters while I was live on my Twitch channel. This episode is about how to deal with the mental health aspect around gaining weight. Even if gaining weight is part of your fitness plan, because you are trying to build muscle and get stronger, it can bring up a lot of insecurities, especially if you have a history of a troubled relationship with your body or a troubled relationship with food.
(01:09)
So I give this chatter a couple of pieces of advice for navigating the feelings and insecurities that might come up as part of increasing your body weight. So this conversation could be helpful for you if you are transitioning out of a fat loss phase and heading into a maintenance phase or a bulk where the goal is to increase your body weight by increasing your muscle mass. Now, this is something that I guide my personal training and online coaching clients through all the time. And if it's something that you struggle with and you want some support with, check out my new online coaching programs by going to my website, jd gaines.com. That's J-A-Y-D-I-G-A-I-N-S.com. I've just recently launched my 90 day fat loss transformation course where you can work with me one-on-one toward achieving your fat loss and physique goals. Now, as part of this program, I guide my clients through the process of transitioning into a maintenance phase and dealing with the feelings that come up when you're no longer relying on the scale as the main marker of your progress.
(02:17)
So I hope that you enjoy this episode, and if you would like some more support, please reach out and apply to work one-on-one with me. The link for that will be below this video if you're watching on YouTube or in the show notes if you're listening to the podcast. And as always, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel so you always get updated on the newest videos. If you're listening to the podcast, make sure to follow the channel so that you always get the latest episodes delivered right to your device. And without further ado, let's get into the episode.
(02:52)
You had a coach question for me. You're in the 1 91 91 weight class leaner than you've been. Strength is good, but not sure how you feel not being in the one eighties, which has been my identity for a while, and I don't know, but my self image is kind of, bro, I don't know what to tell you because it just is hard when you go up in weight class. It is hard because we live in the society that's so fat phobic, and it's just the worst thing is to get heavier. You know what I mean? Give yourself some compassion and some time and some patience and remind yourself that healthy and strong is the goal. Lean isn't necessarily healthy, and lean isn't necessarily strong. So you have to remind yourself of what's the most important thing, what's the most important thing that you want? You want to be able to perform and you want to be healthy.
(03:42)
And everybody's weight fluctuates. Everybody's body fat percentage fluctuates. It is just the nature of having a body, and it's something that I struggle that my clients, my fat loss clients struggle with. I just finished filming the lessons for the end of my 90 day fat loss training program and started filming the lessons for the second half of the program for the six month program. And it is just, that's the hardest hurdle, right? Is like once you have been in a fat loss space for so long, or if you've had a really big fat loss goal and you've been really focused on that for a while, or if you have had your body weight at a certain weight and your weight goes up, it's really hard to change how you think of yourself because we have so much of our self-worth tied into the weight on the scale, and the scale is not as important as a lot of people make it out to be.
(04:35)
It's just not. The number on the scale is morally neutral. You interpreting what that means is where you're causing yourself to get fucked up. It is like the number is the number, the weight is the weight. It's how you choose to interpret that number and that weight. Now, from the outside looking in as from my coach eyeballs, I would say that number tells me that you have gotten stronger and that you got more muscle mass, so you should be able to push more weight or do more reps. And then, so my next question to you would be, is that true? Are you performing better? And if the answer is yes, then that's what that number means. That number means that you're stronger. Yes, you have been. Then that's what that number means. We get so brainwashed into thinking that our weight means fat and that fat is bad, right?
(05:33)
But you have to get really conscious of the meaning that you assign to things like the scale and your size, your clothing sizes, because the size, the scale, these things, they're meaningless. They're neutral. They don't have meaning except for what meaning we assign to them, and we get to be in control of what meaning we assign to them, and we get to decide that we're no longer going to assign the meanings that we used to. You know what I mean? That's a little bit of a CT acceptance and commitment therapy for you. Acceptance and commitment therapy is all about separating things that happen from the meaning that we assign to those things. Separating facts of existence, things that exist, separate them out from how we interpret or what we interpret that existence to mean, because that's where the suffering happens for most of us. That's where most of the suffering happens.
(06:34)
It's not necessarily that the thing happened or that the scale is whatever the weight is. It's what you interpret that as and the worth that you assign to yourself as a result of seeing that number. And that's where you have to interrupt that process and give yourself a new script. Give yourself a new meaning that you assign. I super recommend listening to or reading this book that's called Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. I think that's what it's called. I'll put a little link. This is an affiliate link. I recommend listening to or reading that book because it has a lot more information on how to do that, how to begin to separate the things that happen from how you feel about them. I mean, I really do think that you should practice mindfulness and mindfulness in terms of observing your thoughts.
(07:29)
There's different types of thoughts that we have. There's thoughts that we have that just kind of go through our mind. We have no control over them, they just happen. They're just thoughts that we hear. Same thing with our emotions. We don't really have control over our emotions all the time. Sometimes we just feel a way, and then where we can cause ourself even more suffering is our reaction to how we feel. Whereas a lot of times, sometimes we can just observe that we feel a certain way and then just be like, well, that's just how I feel right now, and that's okay, and then that's all that needs to be done. Whereas sometimes we take that like, oh, I feel some type of way. Oh, I must be a failure. Oh, I must be. You know what I mean? And then you get on that shame spiral.
(08:10)
Being able to observe your thoughts without entangling yourself with them, or just becoming conscious of what meaning you assign to them can help. So yeah, that's what I would recommend. One, I always recommend practicing some mindfulness and get into the habit of being able to observe without reaction, the thoughts, the experiences, the feelings that you're having and observing what you see in the world. And then taking it a step further is practicing acceptance. Again, not trying to interfere, get tinkled up with or wrestle with or assign meaning to the things that you observe. And then another step further is deciding mindfully what meaning you assign to the things that you experience.
(09:03)
Thanks so much for listening to or watching this episode of The Coaching Corner podcast. Again, I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. If you would like some more support and help along your own personal fitness journey, please feel free to reach out and apply for one-on-one coaching with me using the link that's below this video or in the show notes. Right now, I am currently enrolling new clients in my fat loss transformation course, so that's something you're interested in. Sign up today. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure that you eat your veggies, eat your protein, drink your water, prioritize your self-care, and I will see you soon.
Subscribe for Updates ✉️
Sign up to get notified whenever new episodes drop. Opt in for more tips on training, fat loss, and nutrition by filling out the form below:
Your privacy is important to me! I will never share your information with any third party. Unsubscribe from the email list at any time.
