Your Race, Your Pace: Why Comparing Your Progress Makes No Sense

Why Is She Losing Weight Faster Than Me?

One of the quickest ways to become dissatisfied with perfectly good progress is to compare it to somebody else’s.

She lost ten pounds and you lost four.

She eats more calories than you do.

She walks 15,000 steps a day.

She seems to build muscle faster.

She is losing weight every week while your scale has barely moved.

So naturally, you start wondering what you are doing wrong.

But the problem with comparing your progress to somebody else’s is that you are comparing the outcome without accounting for all of the variables that created it.

Two people can follow very similar plans and get very different results because they are bringing two completely different bodies and histories into the process.

Age Matters, But It Is More Complicated Than You Think

A 30-year-old woman and a 60-year-old woman should not automatically expect their bodies to respond identically to the same program.

Age can affect recovery, hormones, muscle mass, activity levels and how much training stress someone can tolerate. But even two women who are exactly the same age can have completely different starting points.

One may have strength trained consistently for 20 years. The other may be picking up weights for the first time.

One may have spent decades dieting. The other may never have intentionally restricted calories.

One may sleep eight hours a night and have relatively low stress. The other may be caring for aging parents, working a demanding job and sleeping six hours.

Those things matter.

You are building the body you will live in later. In many ways, your body today represents a rolling history of what you have consistently asked it to do.

And age is only one reason comparing your results to someone else’s can be so misleading.

Height Changes the Equation Too

Body size matters.

A woman who is 5'10" generally has very different energy needs than a woman who is 5'2". She may be able to eat considerably more food while losing weight simply because maintaining a larger body requires more energy.

That does not mean her metabolism is “better.”

It means her body is different.

So when you hear that somebody is losing weight eating 2,000 calories while you are eating less, that number by itself tells you almost nothing.

Starting Body Composition Matters Just as Much

Two women can weigh exactly the same amount and have very different amounts of muscle and body fat.

The woman carrying more muscle generally has more metabolically active tissue and may also be capable of doing more work in the gym. Years of strength training can create a very different starting point than years of inactivity or repeated dieting.

That history matters.

This is also why I care so much about preserving and building muscle during fat loss. You are not just trying to create a smaller body. You are trying to create a stronger, more capable one.

Stop Copying Somebody Else’s Step Count

This happens constantly.

Someone hears that her friend gets 12,000 or 15,000 steps a day and assumes she needs to do the same.

But what does your normal day look like?

If you currently average 3,000 steps, jumping immediately to 15,000 may be completely unnecessary. Moving toward 5,000 or 6,000 consistently could be a significant improvement.

On the other hand, if you already average 10,000 steps because of your job and lifestyle, adding another 2,000 may not change very much.

The useful question is not, “How many steps does she get?”

It is, “What does my body and lifestyle currently require?”

Consistency Has to Come Before Optimization

People often want to optimize things they are not doing consistently yet.

They worry about the perfect macro split, meal timing, supplements, cardio zones and exactly how many steps they should take.

Meanwhile, they are strength training once every couple of weeks, protein intake is inconsistent, sleep is all over the place and weekends look completely different from weekdays.

Before you optimize anything, you need enough consistency to know what is actually working.

A good plan performed consistently will almost always tell us more than a perfect plan performed occasionally.

“I Know What to Do” Is Not the Same as Knowing How to Do It

Most people I coach already know that vegetables are good for them. They know protein is important. They know they should move their bodies, sleep and drink water.

Information is rarely the entire problem.

Knowing what to do and knowing how to consistently apply it to your own life are two different skills.

That is where coaching becomes valuable.

The plan has to work when you are busy. It has to work when you travel. It has to work when you eat at a restaurant, when work gets stressful and when motivation is low.

Otherwise, you do not really have a plan. You have ideal circumstances.

Social Media Makes Comparison Even Worse

Social media gives us access to everybody’s outcomes and almost none of their context.

You see the body, the weight loss, the workout or the meal.

You do not see their genetics, training history, dieting history, schedule, stress, hormones, sleep, medications, relationship with food or how long they have actually been doing what they are doing.

And you definitely do not know whether what they are doing is sustainable.

So be careful about allowing someone else's highlight reel to become the standard you use to judge your own progress.

Come Back to Why You Are Doing This

At some point, you have to decide what you actually want your health and fitness to give you.

Do you want to be stronger?

Do you want more energy?

Do you want to feel comfortable in your body?

Do you want to travel, hike, play with your grandchildren, carry your own luggage, get off the floor easily and continue doing the things you love as you age?

Those goals belong to you.

Your training should support your life, not somebody else's.

Your calorie needs do not have to match hers. Your step count does not have to match hers. Your rate of weight loss does not have to match hers.

And your body does not have to look like hers for your progress to count.

Stop trying to win somebody else’s race. Build a life that supports yours.

In Part 3, we are going to look at one of the biggest reasons comparison and scale weight can be so misleading: losing weight and losing fat are not necessarily the same thing.

Be Capable,
Laci

P.S. Stop Overthinking it - Click HERE to schedule your free Game Plan Session call.