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Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

NEVER Weigh Yourself (The Scale is Rigged)

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

0:00 Introduction: 11 reasons to stop weighing yourself

1:07 Why you shouldn’t weigh yourself

2:58 Hormones and weight loss

8:12 Sleep and weight loss

11:22 Healthy weight-loss tips

16:36 The best weight-loss advice



Scale obsession is not helpful for weight loss. The rise in cortisol from scale anxiety alone is enough to stifle your progress!


Here are 11 reasons why you shouldn’t weigh yourself:


1. Water weight

Some people can lose up to 11 pounds of water weight in just 2 days! Initial water weight loss can cause unrealistic expectations. Most people only lose 1 to 2 pounds per week.


2. Salt

Salty foods can cause you to retain fluid, especially if you’re consuming them with sugar.


3. Hormones

A woman’s menstrual cycle can often cause weight-loss fluctuations of around 3 to 7 pounds. A rise in cortisol can also prevent weight loss.


4. Location of fat

The worst type of fat is visceral fat, which accumulates around the organs. If you don’t see weight loss right away, you could be losing some of the more dangerous types of fat first.


5. Muscle loss or gain

Losing muscle isn’t healthy! Your weight may be decreasing, but it could also be accompanied by serious side effects. Similarly, muscle weighs more than fat, so you won’t see weight loss if you’re building muscle.


6. Myxedema

This type of fat is often found in people with hypothyroidism and is difficult to eliminate with diet and exercise alone.


7. Poor sleep

One week of poor sleep can increase insulin resistance! Poor sleep leads to snacking, increased visceral fat, lower testosterone levels, and higher cortisol and stress levels.


8. Ozempic

People lose weight with Ozempic, but typically regain it when they discontinue use. Around 20% to 40% of this weight loss is attributed to muscle loss.


9. Microdamage from exercise

Overtraining breaks down your muscles. Edema and swelling can cause your weight to increase after exercise.


10. Medication

Medications such as calcium channel blockers can cause weight gain.


11. Constipation

Fiber intake and constipation can affect the number on the scale.



Stop weighing yourself and focus on these healthy weight-loss tips instead:

1. Waist-to-height ratio

2. Fasting insulin

3. Appetite decreases

4. Tiny amounts of carbs can block fat burning

5. Fix insulin resistance

Insulin resistance is the root cause of many chronic diseases. Fixing it is the key to getting healthy and losing weight.



Dr. Eric Berg DC Bio:

Dr. Berg, age 60, is a chiropractor who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He is the Director of Dr. Berg Nutritionals and author of the best-selling book The Healthy Keto Plan. He no longer practices, but focuses on health education through social media.


Disclaimer:

Dr. Eric Berg received his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1988. His use of “doctor” or “Dr.” in relation to himself solely refers to that degree. Dr. Berg is a licensed chiropractor in Virginia, California, and Louisiana, but he no longer practices chiropractic in any state and does not see patients, so he can focus on educating people as a full-time activity, yet he maintains an active license. This video is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. It does not create a doctor-patient relationship between Dr. Berg and you. You should not make any change in your health regimen or diet before first consulting a physician and obtaining a medical exam, diagnosis, and recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

We are going to talk about the 11 reasons that you should never weigh yourself.

0:05.3

I've had a nutritional practice for over 30 years, and I've dealt with a lot of people that want to lose weight.

0:10.2

I'm telling you, if they hyper focus on looking at their weight every single day, the amount of frustration or discouragement that's going to happen because your weight's going to fluctuate up and down, up and down, or actually nothing

0:21.7

might change through the week, is going to spike your cortisol, and that stress alone will

0:27.3

prevent you from losing weight. I've seen it over and over and over. I mean, just think about what's

0:32.2

normal for an average person. The most that someone can lose if they're on some diet per week is between one and two pounds.

0:41.9

If you have a really good metabolism, it's two pounds.

0:44.6

If you're an average person, especially as you're getting older, it might be one pound.

0:48.7

So think about that.

0:49.6

How much weight can you lose every single day?

0:51.5

It's very similar to investing in the stock market.

0:54.1

You're watching your stocks every single hour, hoping to very similar to investing the stock market. You're watching

0:54.5

your stocks every single hour, hoping to get rich, and it comes up and down, up and down, you're going to be

0:59.5

just very frustrated. There's a much better measurement to know that you're really losing fat. I'm going to

1:05.1

show you that. But now let's talk about why you shouldn't weigh yourself okay number one water weight when you start

1:11.9

losing weight the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to lose water

1:14.8

weight you know the ideal goal is to lose this right here not necessarily

1:22.2

water weight unless you have a dema or a swelling but your your liver is a fluid-filled sack, this stored sugar called

1:31.8

glycogen that comes with a lot of extra fat. In other words, 300 grams of glycogen that's that

1:39.1

stored sugar is literally holding a lot of water with that. When you start on the weight less program, you're going to dump the fluid.

1:46.7

And you're going to be very excited because, wow, I lost three and a half pounds the first day or two.

1:52.5

In fact, you might lose a lot of water weight depending on how much fluid retention you have.

...

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