The Scale is the Last Place to Look for Progress

Robin Arzón’s personal nutritionist, Amanda Manders (Simbly Manders), has been working with her for years. When Robin started with Amanda, she was breastfeeding, training intensely at Peloton, and wanted to make sure she was fueling properly. Years later, Robin weighs the same—but her body composition has completely changed. As Amanda puts it, pulling up an old photo: “Oh my gosh, like who even was that two years ago?”

That observation drives the central argument of this conversation: the scale is a terrible tool for measuring progress, especially for people who train hard and want to build strength rather than shrink.

Maintenance is Underrated

Most nutrition content online revolves around bulking and cutting—periods of eating above or below your maintenance calories to gain muscle or lose fat. But Amanda argues that maintenance itself is “so underrated” because it produces real body composition changes over time. The catch is that it takes much longer than a cut or bulk, and the scale barely moves.