Ep. 78 Why the Scale Isn’t Moving Yet—And Why That’s OK

Feeling frustrated that your healthy eating and workouts aren’t paying off? You’re not alone. 

In this video, I share 10 ways teens can stay motivated even when the scale doesn’t move.

 From non-scale wins to habit trackers, learn how to build long-term results that stick.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. Today's topic is one that I hear all the time from teenagers and their parents, and that's oh, I worked out for a week. Why , I don't see any changes? I try eating healthy. I did this for one month, but the scale didn't move and now I'm frustrated and now I think there's something wrong with me.

Does that sound familiar? If so, you're not alone. Today we're gonna talk about why wanting instant results can lead us to give up too soon, and how we can train our brain to stay in the game and actually win the long term. So let's be honest, we live in a fast base world. Everything is going quickly. We all wanna get instant results right away.

We are used to, we want something, we order it. On the app, we wanna talk with somebody. We get on the phone, we can FaceTime, we can call, we can send a message. We want results Right away we go to the restaurant There. Waitress comes, we want to eat in 30 minutes. So we are used to getting results right away.

However, when we are aiming for lifestyle changes, then we need to have patience and we need to have persistence. It's not going to happen all at once. And if you get. Disappointed then that can actually hurt your progress. And I'm gonna talk more about what are some of the ways that you can decrease the disappointment and what you can focus instead of the fact that you're not getting the scale victories you're looking for in the timeframe that you are looking for.

So number one tip that I have is to track your non-scale victories. Now, what does that mean? When we are following a healthy lifestyle, we don't only focus on the number in the scale, we can gain other victories that have nothing to do with the number on the scale. Like for example, you may notice that you have more energy during the day.

You may. Notice that you are able to focus better at school. You may notice that you're able to sleep better at night. You may notice that you're feeling less anxious or moody. You may notice that your clothes may start to fit. Differently. So sometimes what happens first is we change on the inside before we see the scale changing on the outside.

And that happens because one of the major drivers of weight gain in teenagers is emotional eating. So if you are able to. Feel better, then you're gonna control a lot of this emotional eating. And then eventually you will see the scale dropping. So give your body the credit for all the winds that you can see right away, but they are actual real wins and very important wins.

Number two, instead of setting a number on the scale that it may take you three months or six months or even a year to get to your ideal weight, you can say, instead of saying, I wanna lose 10 pounds in one month, you can say, I will walk 15 minutes. Every day after school. Or you can say, I will drink two bottles of water every day before lunch.

Or you can say, I will eat vegetables every day at the dinner five times a week. When we focus on the actual behavior that happens every day, this is like an immediate action we can take and we can start rewarding ourselves when we meet those little. Habits. We don't have to wait for a reward after we lose 10 pounds, because if you do all those action steps every single day, it is inevitable that the pounds will go away.

But if you focus only on the pounds and not focus on what you actually need to do every day. Then that creates a lot of anxiety. You get disappointed you don't get the weight loss, and you also don't get the action steps that will eventually need you to the weight loss. Number three is you can use visual habit trackers.

This is very important. It may sound very simple, but it gives you a progress report that you can see every single day. Like for example, you can have a calendar or your wall. Or you can have one of these free apps that they are habit trackers and every day you can just put an X or a check mark on this calendar, and you see how you are making progress every day.

You can even have different colors for different habits. Let's say every time you are successful with water, you'll put a red. Tip to your calendar. Every time you have vegetables for dinner, you put a green tea. Make it a fun activity and make it a visual so that you can track your progress and you give yourself the reward that you deserve.

Tip number four is remind yourself that. If you are going to lose weight too quickly, that may actually have negative effects on the long term because it's very likely you are gonna gain the weight back if you wanna have sustainable progress. If you wanna have progress that. It's not the yo-yo effect where you lose, you gain, you lose your gain, you lose your win gain all the time.

Then you need to aim for slow progress. I created a previous episode on like, how much weight do I need to lose. You can go and listen to episode 66. How much weight is safe for a team to lose in a month? This will give you a better idea, but the main point is that if you have a goal that is in excess of what you actually should aim for, then you probably have to starve yourself with very strict diets.

And if you have very strict diets, then eventually you are gonna have weight regain. So remind yourself that slow progress is. The key to sustainable progress and give yourself credit, even if you are losing a little bit of weight, it's okay. What is more important is if you are actually doing the things that you need to do every single day.

Okay. Tip number five is revisit your why. When you don't have a lot of motivation, remind yourself, why did you even start this journey? What are you hoping to get out of? Getting into a healthier weight. Maybe you wanna feel stronger, maybe you wanna put the clothes that you like. Maybe you want to feel more confident.

Maybe you wanna put your swimsuit that you like. Whatever it is, remind yourself why is this important to you? And this will help you keep moving when you are having a down moment. And tip number six is celebrate consistency, not perfection. So everybody can have days that they are not making the healthiest choices.

I talked before about 80 20 rule, like you can have a 80% clean and 20% have those foods that are not. The best. They have a place in your diet, and even in those days, you can still have small wins. Like even on a day that you had pizza, you can still have two liters of water. You can still have vegetables with it.

You can still have 15 minutes walk. You can still sleep eight to 10 hours. Those are small wins, so focus on all the things that you do, not just on the one thing that may not go well one day, and therefore being consistent on those little habits that you build over time is important for success.

Tip number seven is to read stories of others who made progress slowly. If that will build up your confidence in a sense that if other people have made it, you can do it too. Now, if you feel that when you compare yourself, then instead of getting encouragement, you feel disappointment, then I would say don't follow that and don't.

Look at what other people are doing. Like I've seen both reactions when I work with teenagers. Some of them feel encouraged. Some of them feel disappointed. So if you feel you're not getting encouraged by other people who have succeeded, then just don't. Look at them. But if you can feel that you are like the same and you can do this too, then talk to these people, learn from them and see what they did.

So you can do that too. Tip number eight is there are on the internet a lot of quick fixes, trends, so I would. Encourage you to stay away from those. Like for example, there are a lot of teas that are advertised as detox teas or there's like specific belts that you can put along your belly and you lose five pounds in a week.

Or they're like super low diets that if you follow them you can lose 10 pounds in one week and things like that. Those products, even though they're advertised as they're not drugs per se, they can be like herbal or other supplements, they can still have negative effects in your health.

Those are actually products that are not regulated by the FDA. So again. Aim for slow, consistent progress and not for quick fixes that can actually be dangerous. And tip number nine is to write one sentence every day in your journal about what you did well. How did you feel after you did something that you.

Told yourself you were gonna do so those things, by writing it down, you are constantly reminding yourself that you are making progress, even though you may not see the number on the scale changing right away. And. Number 10 is ask yourself, what progress would I be proud of if I made after six months?

So imagine yourself six months from now, if you continue doing the little actions every single day, what would you be proud of? What do you think would happen if you were constantly. Doing those little habits, I promise you, you are going to get closer to your vision than if you actually focus on the scale every day than if you focus instead on the little things that you need to do and just be consistent with them for six months and one year.

To summarize getting into a healthy lifestyle is not a sprint, it's a marathon. We are not trying to lose weight fast. What we're trying to do is to build habits that last for a lifetime, that once you are done, then you don't stop because basically you are becoming a new version of yourself and you are.

Really doing something amazing, even just by listening to this episode, you are getting educated. You give yourself the confidence that you need, your body needs to keep on. Going. So I invite you, you haven't done already to go to lifestyleforteens.com/ free and download some of the free resources that I have there for you.

One of them is 30 recipes that are high in protein. Please feel free to go and check it out, and if you find this episode helpful, feel free to share it with a friend. I'll talk to you next week. Take care.