A decrease in your size but not on the scale may be caused by losing fat while gaining muscle at the same time. Other causes may be temporary water retention or a weight loss plateau.

If you’re trying to lose weight, you might be using a scale to gauge your progress.

If so, it can be demotivating and upsetting to find that you’re not losing weight, even if you notice non-scale indicators like your clothes fitting more loosely or the need to tighten your belt.

This article looks at why you may be losing inches but not weight and explains what you can do about it.

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If you’re losing inches but maintaining your weight and you regularly strength train, you may actually be losing fat and gaining muscle. The process of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is called body recomposition.

Most scales don’t differentiate between the amounts of body fat and muscle you have. For example, two people can weigh 150 pounds (68 kg) but have completely different body fat and muscle proportions.

In this example, the person with a higher ratio of muscle to body fat likely wears smaller clothes and has smaller body measurements because muscle is denser and takes up less room than body fat.

Strength training combined with a reduced-calorie and high protein diet favors muscle gain and fat loss, resulting in body recomposition.

The simultaneous gain in muscle and loss in fat can result in no weight loss or much slower weight loss over time.

This is one reason you shouldn’t rely solely on the scale to measure your progress when trying to lose weight. Besides, your ratio of muscle to fat is a better indicator of health than your body weight is.

Weight loss is not a linear process — it’s full of peaks and valleys.

Some days you may lose weight, some days you may gain weight, and some days your weight may not change at all. Part of the reason your weight fluctuates is because of fluid shifts or water retention.

You may retain water for a number of reasons, including:

  • standing or sitting in the same position for too long
  • eating too much salty food
  • having overweight
  • being pregnant
  • taking certain medications, such as:
    • some blood pressure medications
    • contraceptive pills
    • hormone therapy
    • antidepressants
    • steroids

Over time, weight loss may cause your metabolism to slow, significantly decreasing the rate at which you lose weight.

It can help to track your calories for at least 1 week to determine whether your calorie intake is too high based on your needs.

Remember that you’ll need to continuously adjust your calorie intake as you lose weight, based on factors like your age, gender, and activity level.

If you find that you’re maintaining a calorie deficit, other factors such as stress or a lack of sleep can increase hormones that can prevent weight loss and even promote weight gain.

Weighing yourself is a good way to monitor your progress.

It can also reinforce the idea that factors like diet and exercise move you closer to your weight loss goal, while others, like a lack of sleep and excess stress, push you farther away.

Indeed, people who weigh themselves and engage in other self-monitoring behaviors, like tracking diet and exercise, seem to be more successful at both losing weight and maintaining the loss in the long term.

Despite daily weight fluctuations that may occur due to factors such as water retention, research suggests that daily weighing is more effective for weight loss and maintenance than weekly or monthly weighing.

This may be because people who weigh themselves more often are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors like:

  • reading nutrition labels
  • eating whole grains
  • drinking less soda
  • exercising vigorously

While weighing yourself has not been strongly linked with body image, disordered eating, or anxiety, some people may experience these effects.

If you find that daily or even weekly weighing leads to discouragement or obsessive behaviors, it may be better to monitor your progress in other ways.

In either case, remember that your weight is not always a reliable indicator of your health.

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There may be several reasons you’re losing inches but not weight.

You could be simultaneously gaining muscle and losing fat through body recomposition or experiencing temporary water retention.

You may have hit a weight loss plateau, meaning you may need to adjust your calories or better manage your stress and sleep schedule.

Weighing yourself daily or several times a week has been associated with increased weight loss and weight loss maintenance compared with less frequent weighing, but you shouldn’t rely on the scale alone to measure health.