"The Key to Weight Loss Success: Beyond the Scale"

This One Unexpected Thing Is the “Biggest” Weight Loss Success Measure, Says a Cleveland Clinic Obesity Doctor

When you’re trying to maintain a healthy weight, tracking your progress can help you make informed adjustments to your habits and keep you accountable to your goals. But if the number on your scale or even your body mass index (BMI) are your only measures of success, the Cleveland Clinic warns that you’re likely missing the bigger picture.

BMI, a calculation of body fat based on height and weight, has long been used to assess overweight, obesity, and the associated health risks, a few of which the Mayo Clinic notes as heart disease, diabetes, certain cancer types, and more. Yet increasingly, experts are mentioning shortcomings of the widely used assessment tool and suggesting that in a more modern picture of health, BMI may be relatively antiquated.

According to a 2023 update to the American Medical Association (AMA)’s physician guidelines, BMI is “an imperfect way to measure body fat in multiple groups given that it does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders, and age-span.” For a more accurate assessment, they recommended viewing BMI as just one measure of health risk, alongside:

• Measurements of visceral fat
• Estimates of body fat percentage
• Body composition
• Waist circumference
• Genetic and metabolic factors

Peminda Cabandugama, MD, an obesity medicine specialist and endocrinologist at Cleveland Clinic, adds that a range of factors can affect the number on the scale—and, subsequently, BMI. These include fluctuations based on time of day and whether you’ve eaten, water retention, hormonal bloating, or muscle gain from exercise, among other things.

Dr. Cabandugama emphasizes that when considering weight and BMI, it’s just as important to take into account how a person feels and what their body can do. He notes that typically, these measures improve when there is a loss in fat mass, not just a reduction in overall weight. “The biggest thing about weight is quality of life,” the doctor says. “I have patients who say, ‘Hey, I don’t really move much on this scale.’ [But] they will tell me things that are important, like, ‘Hey, I climb up and down the stairs without being winded. I’m not in pain anymore. I get to play with my kids a lot more.’ That’s why quality of life plays a role.” So, instead of holding your breath as you step on the scale, go for feeling better—that’s true motivation to stay at it.

If you’re still looking for a way to log where you stand compared to weeks or months ago, Dr. Cabandugama suggests measuring your hip-to-waist ratio or trying the “picture method”—taking a photo of yourself wearing the same clothes every two weeks to track your weight loss progress. With this approach, weigh yourself once or twice a week at most, first thing in the morning after visiting the bathroom.

For daily wellness updates, subscribe to The Healthy by Reader’s Digest newsletter and follow The Healthy on Facebook and Instagram. Keep reading:

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• Meghan Trainor Gets Candid About the Mental Health Work Behind Her Fitness Transformation

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