In the Media
2006-02-20, The Edmonton Journal
New Year, New You: Week 5
Chris Zdeb; journal staff writer, Edmonton
Bobbi Robbins starts her third workout of the week by stepping on the scale and finds she’s back at 199 pounds, the weight she started at five weeks ago. This, after weighing in at 196 pounds the last two weeks.
It was her best week for eating healthy, she says: she even passed on the chocolate chip cookies she was offered at school (Robbins is a teacher’s assistant at Ross Sheppard high school). The worst thing she ate was a yogurt that wasn’t low fat, she says, so what gives?
“A woman’s weight normally fluctuates anywhere between one and five pounds a day,” explains Robbins’s trainer, Alexandra Senkow, fitness director at Defining Eve personal fitness studio. Step on a bathroom scale at home several times throughout the day and you’ll get a slightly different reading each time, she says.
“It’s not a real indication of her progress, because you can look at Bobbi and see that her body is changing.”
Robbins’s workouts are increasing her muscle mass, which is toning her physique, and reducing her body fat, which is great for her overall health, especially her heart rate. But muscle weighs more than fat, Senkow says.
Numbers can be deceptive and, unfortunately, a lot of women measure their success by the scale. Some become discouraged when they see their weight increase – although fluctuations are common for people when they first start to work out – prompting them to stop exercising.
“It’s almost difficult to have a weight measurement done every week because all that is indicating to us is what Bobbi weighs on that day, not necessarily what kind of progress she’s seeing,” Senkow says. It’s one of the reasons our studio doesn’t keep it’s scale out on the floor.
“I’m not upset that Bobbi’s back at her starting weight because I know she is seeing progress. She is improving, the way she looks and the way she feels,” Senkow says.
Robbins is sporting a new workout footwear – a pair of stability shoes, a Valentine’s Day gift from her fiancé Todd.
She says she can feel the difference when she’s pedaling on the stationary bike.
“I didn’t get the burning feeling I usually get on the pads of my feet and I didn’t get the shin splints.”
Neck pain, which Robbins suspects is the result of spending more time than usual hunched over a computer at school, resulted in her working out at a lower intensity than usual this week. We’ll take a closer look at this problem next week.
Starting weight: 199 pounds. Week 5: 199 pounds.
Bobbi Robbins won 12 weeks of personal training with Alexandra Senkow, fitness director at Defining Eve personal fitness studio, in The Journal’s New Year, New You Contest.
