Non-Scale Wins: What to Track When the Number Doesn’t Budge

Why the Scale is Lying to You (and What to Track Instead in Menopause)

If the scale is your only measure of progress, you’re missing the most important wins—especially in menopause.

In this episode of The Menopause Method, I’m inviting you to ditch the outdated mindset that weight is the only marker of success. Whether you’re sleeping better, lifting heavier, or just feeling more like you again—those are the wins that matter.

We’ll talk about:

• How midlife hormonal changes affect weight and body composition
• Why your brain resists progress (and how NLP helps shift that)
• Real-life signs your health is improving (even if the scale says otherwise)
• My favorite non-scale victories to track in menopause
• A client story that shows how muscle gain and fat loss can cancel each other out on the scale—but not in your health
• How to stay consistent through the sticky middle—when life gets life
  
  

What if your body’s changing in ways the scale can’t see?
✨ Download the Non-Scale Wins Checklist to start noticing your progress today: https://www.camoyler.com/wins

📌 Whether you're in perimenopause or postmenopause, this episode will help you reframe how you see progress and stick with your goals—no matter what the scale says.

🔔 Subscribe for more episodes that blend science, real-life strategy, and the brain-based tools that actually help midlife women get strong, feel good, and trust their body again.

Free Home Gym Guide: https://www.camoyler.com/gym-equipment-guide
Free Menopause Sleep Guide: https://www.camoyler.com/pl/2148586038
Get the Menopause Mini Workouts: https://www.camoyler.com/meno-minis.

Chapters:
00:00 Rethinking Progress Beyond the Scale
05:01 Overcoming Stalled Health Progress
07:06 Non-Scale Wins Focus

Transcript

0:00

If the scale is your only marker of progress, it's really easy to feel like nothing's working. But what if the real winsthe ones that actually change your life and improve your health aren't even measured in pounds? This episode is an invitation to see your progress differently and attract things that actually matter. Hey there. My name is Kim Allen. Welcome back to the Menopause Method. And after today's episode, I hope you see your scale in a new light. Or maybe you choose to break up with your scale altogether. So here's a real life pattern that I've seen many women experience. You finally decide to shift your habits and clean up your meals. You're moving your body with intention, and you're on purpose going to bed when you know it's best for your body. And at first it feels really good and you're, like, proud of yourself and you're showing up. Maybe you have more energy and your jeans are fitting better and you're overall less moody. Those are huge wins. But this happens over and over. Life happens. Maybe it's something with work or your family or your hormones go sideways and boom, you're off track. Then that unhelpful little voice chimes in and says, see, this isn't working. Nothing works for you. This is just too hard. Go back to what you already know. This is a really fragile, invisible time. You've said with your mouth. You want to work on something. You started to make progress, and then one little thing happens and you're off track. And a week becomes a month, and a month becomes several months. I need you to understand a little bit more about your brain and why your brain doesn't always register progress as safe change. Even though it's good, change can feel very threatening if it breaks your familiar patterns. You see, your brain builds habits through repetition. And your old habits feel safer because they are deeply wired into your brain. Even if those habits weren't helping you, they still feel safer to your brain. That's where NLP comes in. NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. And it actually helps us rewrite those unconscious stories and those limiting decisions, like, for example, I'm not losing weight. This must not be working. All that we can actually teach the brain a new truth, and that is very powerful. You might not see a lower number on the scale right away, but here's what you can start noticing while the scale catches up. Let's start with sleep. If you're sleeping through the night, that is amazing. In fact, I believe sleep is the first thing I work on. When I work one on one with clients, we get your sleep going. Life is easier when you're sleeping through the night. You make better food decisions. You have more energy for exercise, your mood is more pleasant. You know those things. I remember the first time I slept through my through the night after my hysterectomy. I was in shock and awe. I woke up, it was light out. Did I sleep through the night? Is that what just happened? So if you're starting to sleep through the night or you're sleeping and you're waking up more rested, those are huge wins. Maybe it's about your digestion. Maybe you've noticed you're less bloated when you eat. Or maybe you've noticed your bathroom habits in the morning are more consistent. I use the Bristol stool chart with my clients. Digestion is feedback about the food that you ate the day before. So if you're feeling less bloated and your bathroom habits have improved, those are wins beyond the scale. Let's talk about your mood. Maybe you're feeling calmer and clearer and things that used to really aggravate you and get under your skin no longer are bothering you. Mark that as a win. Let's talk about your physical body. Maybe you can carry all your groceries in in one trip. That's my personal goal actually, as I age, to carry in all my groceries in one trip. Upstairs, stairs, backwards, and I'm just kidding, that's actually my goal. I'm going to carry my groceries in, in one trip for as long as I can. These aren't wins that are just nice to have. They're actually signs that your body's healing and stabilizing and getting stronger. Those are wins beyond the scale. Now we know that strength training improves your metabolism and keeps your bones nice and strong even when the weight doesn't change on the scale. You see, hormonal shifts can also cause water retention or this happens. Muscle gain happens before the fat loss happens. These are normal things and they are expected. In fact, let me tell you about a client. She was tracking her progress on a smart scale. The weight number was not changing. The skeletal mass, how much skeletal muscle she had, was improving and the fat was decreasing. So in her situation, skeletal muscle was going up 2 pounds, fat mass was going down 2 pounds. That means the scale is not changing, but you're improving your body composition and therefore improving your health when you have more skeletal muscle. Now this is the sticky part. It happens every time I work with a one on one client. You're making progress. You're feeling good, and then life gets in the way. So I want to talk about how to get through that sticky part, because this is actually when most people give up. They believe that nothing works for them. They believe they've tried everything and nothing's happening. They're not seeing the progress that they want. And maybe it's because they're not really sure how to track it. They only see what's missing. They only focus on that number on the scale. And that is like the smallest, wimpiest indicator of true health. And also, change is not linear. So this is how I treat my scale. Every morning. I get up, I use the restroom, I jump on the scale. By doing this, it makes the scale more neutral for me. If I ate more carbs the day before, the scale is going to go up because carbohydrates hydrate your cells. You're gonna have more water weight on a day after you eat carbs. That's just the way it is. Your nervous system's response to unfamiliar patterns is gonna be not linear. It's not really sure what's happening. Your job is to notice and name those quiet winds. So you keep going. I want you to feel normal, seen and supported as you make these lifestyle changes. And that is exactly why I created the non Scale health checklist. So you can actually see the progress you're making. You can print it and stick it on your fridge and just glance at it each week. Because tracking the wins that matter is how you stay with the process even if your scale tries to gaslight you. Also by seeing those wins and repeating like, hey, I did that. You're training your brain that these new habits that you're creating ruts for inside of your brain are helpful and safe. So be sure to download the free Non Scale wins checklist so you can stay on track, because the scale doesn't get to decide if you're doing this right. Your energy, your strength, your ability to live life fully, those are the wins I care about. And it's already happening. So download the checklist so you can see them too, over on Instagram. Be sure to stop by and say, hi, I would love to hear about your wins that are not related to the scale. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button so you never miss another episode of the Menopause Method. I'll see you next week.