Ep #191: I Just Need to See Results: What That Really Means in Weight Loss

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #191. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “I just need to see results to know this is working,” this episode is for you because there’s usually more going on there than motivation.

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. 

Hey, how are you? What’s new? What’s good? So, what’s good here? Well, today, I’m putting a spotlight on something I hear all the time from clients, and we’re going to spend some time pulling this one apart. Because I’ve worked with enough clients through this now to know that there’s often something much deeper beneath the surface of this thought. And the line I’m talking about sounds something like this. “I just need a jumpstart.” Or, “I just need to see results.” Or, “If the scale would move, I’d feel more motivated.”

And on the surface, that sounds reasonable. Of course, you want to know that what you’re doing is working. Of course, it makes sense to want reassurance and see results. In theory, it all sounds motivating, but in practice, it usually does the opposite. So today, we’re going to slow this down because in my experience, this way of thinking, while it’s super common, often doesn’t pan out the way people expect it to. And it’s not because they’re doing anything wrong, it’s because what’s actually happening underneath is usually something different than what they think. All right? So let’s go.

So, when someone tells me, “I just need a jumpstart,” it’s usually not dramatic. It’s not frantic or emotional. In fact, it most often comes out pretty calm and casual, like an observation. And that’s part of why this is so tricky. Because when you listen to how it sounds, it’s subtle. It sounds like, “I just want to know that this is actually working.” Or, “I just need reassurance.” Or, “Once I know this is working, I can relax.”

And none of those thoughts are irrational. Wanting feedback makes sense. Most of us want some indication that our effort is paying off and that it’s working. So, when someone tells me, “I just need to see results so I know this is working,” at first go, it often sounds like a motivation issue. But over time, what I’ve noticed in coaching is that this really isn’t about motivation at all. What I tend to see is that it comes up most often for women who have tried very hard before. They have tried to change their habits many, many times. They’ve started programs, they’ve stopped programs, they’ve worked with multiple trainers or coaches. They’ve spent tons of time, money, and energy. They’ve had stretches where things worked, followed by stretches where everything fell apart.

So, there is most definitely some history there. And in that context, wanting to see the scale move quickly isn’t so much about impatience as it is about reassurance. It’s about trust, or more accurately, the fact that trust hasn’t been built yet. Not just trust in the plan, but trust in yourself during the slow middle part. That’s the part where you’re doing all the right things, but nothing dramatic is happening. There’s no clear feedback, no obvious proof. And asking yourself to stay there and stay with it, to keep showing up without knowing how it will turn out, that can feel really vulnerable.

So instead of seeing this as, “I need faster results,” I think how it really shows up is, “This feels really uncertain, and I don’t know if I’ll stay with this unless I get some reassurance.” And the hard part is that reassurance often starts coming from the number instead of your follow-through, which makes everything feel shaky the moment the scale doesn’t cooperate.

And there’s another layer to this that matters, and that often gets overlooked. Even when someone understands what they’re doing and feels good about the plan, there’s often a stretch early on where things just feel unsettled. You’re showing up, you’re doing the work, but you don’t have much to point to yet that says, “Hey, yes, this is working.” And sitting in that space can be harder than people expect, especially if you’re someone who’s used to seeing a clear cause and effect really quick.

And what’s uncomfortable here usually isn’t physical. It’s not hunger or workouts or effort. Most often, it’s emotional discomfort. It’s the uncertainty that comes with waiting. It’s wondering if what you’re doing is enough. It’s doing the right things without immediate feedback. Or it’s worrying about what it will mean if this doesn’t work again. The emotional side of change doesn’t always get much attention, but it is in fact very real.

So that space between effort and visible results is especially uncomfortable for high achievers. When you’re used to working hard and seeing outcomes, being asked to stay consistent without proof can feel super vulnerable. And when that discomfort shows up, it makes sense that your brain says, “Hey, no thank you, let’s make this discomfort go away as fast as possible.” And then your brain does something very predictable. It looks for something concrete. It looks for evidence that says, “Relax, you’re good, you’re safe.” And the fastest way to get that feeling is often a lower number on the scale, or a visual change, or a smaller pant size, or really any kind of external signal that things are moving in the right direction.

That’s why this isn’t about impatience. People aren’t trying to lose weight faster just for the sake of speed. It’s way more than that. They’re trying to shorten the time they have to sit with uncertainty. They’re trying to feel less exposed and less vulnerable while they’re in the middle of change when the outcome is not guaranteed. And that’s why I think it’s important to clarify that what’s happening here is really not a motivation issue. It’s an emotional regulation issue. And what I mean by that is this. It’s about how we manage the discomfort that comes up while we’re waiting.

It’s the difference between being able to recognize, “Hey, this feels uncertain, and I can still do this anyway,” versus needing something external like the scale to calm that feeling down right away. So do you see the difference? One is providing temporary comfort in the form of a number that will change at the drop of a hat. The other is providing comfort from within by staying with yourself even when it feels hard. That, that is what I mean by emotional regulation. You’re giving it to yourself.

So, you can see why this becomes a problem if the only thing that helps you feel okay is the scale. When reassurance comes almost entirely from a number, that number starts to carry a lot of emotional weight. So a stall doesn’t just feel neutral, it feels like failure. A fluctuation, which is completely normal and expected, starts to feel personal, like it means something about you or what you’re doing wrong. And a slow week can create an alarming amount of panic, even when your habits haven’t actually changed. I see this all the time. Things are ticking by. You’re sticking to the plan, but because the scale doesn’t move in a week, there’s an assumption that something is wrong.

And it’s not because you’re doing anything wrong, it’s because the scale has quietly become the thing that tells you whether you’re okay or not. And that is like riding a roller coaster. Your steadiness goes up and down with the number, and that is a very hard place to live. That’s very different from trust, which gets built in a much less dramatic way. Trust gets built from showing up repeatedly, even when it is totally boring or inconvenient or when no one is watching. Trust comes from staying with a process even when you don’t have proof yet that it’s working. And that is the real work. And honestly, the clients I’ve seen succeed are the ones who’ve really internalized this idea and made it apply to them. And they don’t do it perfectly, but they believe this enough to stop treating every scale fluctuation as a problem.

But let’s talk about why wanting that jumpstart feels so compelling in the first place, because that is not random. When the scale moves early on, it creates a sense of relief. There’s a little rush of, “Okay, I’m good. This is working.” And for a moment, things feel calmer and more settled. And that feedback can feel incredibly motivating, especially if you’ve had a lot of doubt or uncertainty up to that point. But what’s happening here isn’t stability, it’s more like a short-term hit of reassurance. It’s quick feedback, and your brain loves that. It’s wired to respond strongly to quick feedback, even when it doesn’t actually tell us much about what’s happening long-term.

So this is where the difference between feeling good and being steady really matters. Early scale movement feels good because it gives you an immediate signal that your effort is paying off. It creates momentum. It gives you relief. But that relief is coming from the outcome, not the process itself. So it feels energizing, but it doesn’t actually hold up. The problem with that kind of motivation is that it depends on your environment staying calm and predictable. It works as long as the scale keeps cooperating. But the minute it doesn’t, and we all know the scale doesn’t always cooperate, the whole system starts to crack because now you’re asking a number to tell you that you’re okay. And once that number stops doing its job, it doesn’t just feel disappointing, it feels destabilizing because the one thing that was helping you feel steady is no longer there.

So that jump at the beginning feels really good in the short term, but it doesn’t hold up well in real life. It doesn’t give you anything steady to lean on when things get messy. And things always get messy. Stress goes up, sleep changes, hormones fluctuate, routines get disrupted, and motivation that relies on early wins does not survive that very well.

And that’s why I think it’s important to say this very clearly. The scale often becomes less about data and more about emotional safety. And that is a whole lot to ask from the scale, and it inevitably cannot deliver. The scale fluctuates. It’s totally fickle, it’s unpredictable. So putting your emotional safety in the hands of a number that jumps all over the place is a setup for disappointment. Not because you did anything wrong, but because the scale can’t give you what you’re asking it for.

And there’s one other thing to consider here. For a lot of people, the jumpstart at the beginning of weight loss actually does work, at least initially anyway. The scale moves, motivation goes up, and for a short period, it can feel easier to stay on track. That early feedback can be very reinforcing. But it’s also worth looking at how that jump is usually created. Most of the time, rapid early weight loss doesn’t happen because someone found a perfect sustainable plan. Often, rapid weight loss happens because of drastic change, often in the form of heavy restriction. Calories get slashed, carbs get cut, eating out disappears, flexibility goes out the window. Or life gets narrowed down into a very tight lane where everything revolves around staying on the plan. I see this all the time. And that level of intensity can be effective in the short term, but it often requires more focus, control, and rigidity than most people can maintain once real life shows back up.

The problem usually isn’t that the jumpstart stops working. It’s that the behaviors required to keep it going inevitably clash with stress, schedules, hunger, fatigue, all of the realities of being an adult with a full life. And when that happens, you often don’t just lose momentum, you often lose trust in yourself because it feels like, “Oh gosh, I had this and then I couldn’t hold it together anymore.” When really, the approach was never designed to be sustainable in the first place. That is a really, really important distinction.

Because once you’ve had to use that kind of intensity to get results, even if those methods aren’t sustainable, it makes total sense that you keep reaching for intensity when things slow down. It’s familiar, it’s what worked before, even if it eventually didn’t. And I’m going to zoom out a little and share what I actually see happen when someone leans too hard on getting the early jump. When the scale becomes the thing that’s providing reassurance, people usually start watching it much more closely. They check it more often, they think about it more, and when it inevitably stalls or fluctuates, that calm they felt earlier starts to slip.

And that stall doesn’t feel neutral. It feels unsettling. And when the number doesn’t behave the way it did at the beginning, people often assume they did something wrong. So the instinct is to start changing things. And it’s not because anything is broken, but it’s because the reassurance they were getting from the scale disappeared. That’s when the tightening behaviors tend to show up. People eat a little less, they skip a meal, they add even more cardio, they start second guessing the decisions that were actually working just fine a week earlier. And the plan gets questioned, not because it’s flawed, but because the reassurance they were getting from the scale went away.

Then over time, that creates a feeling of being betrayed by the whole process. You might start thinking to yourself, “I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So why isn’t this working?” Even when nothing has actually gone off the rails. And one of the hardest patterns to watch is how often people give up right before progress would have showed up. Not because the plan failed or because they did anything wrong, but because the early feedback faded. The scale stopped moving the way it did in the beginning. And without that reassurance, everything started to feel harder.

And what’s interesting is that when this happens, people don’t usually say, “I’m quitting.” More often, they say things like, “I don’t think this is working,” or, “Maybe I just need a different approach,” or, “I’m not sure if this is worth it.” And it sounds reasonable. It sounds thoughtful. But underneath it, what’s really happening is that they’re being asked to stay in a process without proof. And that is uncomfortable. So the plan gets abandoned, not because it failed, but because it stopped giving quick feedback. And when you’ve been relying on fast, early wins to feel okay, it’s pretty hard to tolerate that shift toward patience, steadiness, and self-trust. That is a big, big transition to make. And most people underestimate how uncomfortable that can be.

And that is the real cost of chasing the jump. It doesn’t just make things feel stressful in the moment, it makes it super hard to stay in the work for a long enough time for the slower, more meaningful changes to happen. And I want to make something else clear here. I’m not saying this because I think people are doing it wrong. I’m saying it because I’ve seen it enough times now to know how easy it is to mistake uncertainty for failure.

So, if you’re hearing all this and if you’re starting to see that chasing an early jump can create fragility, the natural question becomes, “Okay, so what actually works instead?” And this is where I want to be very careful because this is often the part where advice turns into total cliches, like, “Just be consistent,” or, “Just follow through,” as if you haven’t already tried that. So what I mean here is more specific. Motivation that lasts doesn’t come from outcomes, it comes from follow-through. But not follow-through in the sense of pushing harder or being more disciplined. I mean follow-through in the sense of doing what you said you would do, even when it doesn’t immediately reward you. That is a very different skill and it matters a whole lot.

Early on in a process, motivation often feels like excitement. There’s energy. You’re thinking about it more, you’re talking about it more, noticing every little sign that things are moving in the right direction. And that kind of motivation feels good because it’s emotionally rewarding. It comes with momentum and a sense of possibility. But that phase doesn’t last forever and it’s not meant to. And as the newness wears off, motivation often changes shape. It becomes quieter but more steady. And that shift can feel unsettling, especially if you’re used to relying on early excitement to keep yourself going.

And the tricky part is that steadiness doesn’t come with the same emotional payoff. There’s no rush. It often just feels like repetition, doing the same things over and over again without much excitement. And for a lot of people, that’s when doubt creeps in because the process no longer feels rewarding in the same way.

And what’s important to understand is that this isn’t a drop in motivation, it’s actually a transition. It’s the point where progress stops feeling exciting and starts requiring trust. And when I say trust here, I don’t mean trusting the scale or even trusting the plan. I mean trusting yourself. This is where trust shifts from the outcome to you. That you can stay consistent even when you’re not getting much feedback because this is the phase where the real change is built.

And the reason I’m spending so much time on this isn’t to talk anyone out of wanting results, not at all. Instead, it’s to help you see the difference between motivation that depends on intensity and motivation that can survive real life. Once you see that difference, you can stop treating every stall like a problem and start paying attention to the habits that actually hold up over time.

And here is where I want to offer a really simple shift. This is not about effort, it’s about what you’re using as proof. When you’re chasing a jump, the question you often ask is, “Is it working yet?” And most often, I find what you usually mean is, “Is the scale giving me reassurance yet?” But a more helpful question is something like, “Am I doing what I said I would do even without the reward?” Because that’s the skill that actually makes this sustainable.

That’s the thing that holds up once the scale stalls or when your week gets messy or when nothing dramatic is happening. If you want something to track in the short term, track your follow-through. Track your consistency with the basics. Track whether you’re keeping promises to yourself without needing the number to cooperate because honestly, that is the kind of evidence that will build confidence and real self-trust that lasts far longer than any scale number ever will.

And the reason this matters so much is because the way you define progress is going to determine whether you stay long enough to actually see it. You can decide now, ahead of time. “I’m going to measure progress by my consistency, first and foremost.” That shift alone will change everything.

So, if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this episode, it’s this. Wanting a jump in your weight loss isn’t wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re impatient or undisciplined or doing it the wrong way. Most often, it means you’re uncomfortable in the middle. In that space where you’re showing up, but you’re not getting much feedback yet. And that is an important place to pay attention because in all honesty, the urge to rush ahead, that’s often a signal. It’s a signal to stay with it. It’s a signal to let progress be more subtle than you expected. It’s a signal to build something that doesn’t rely on intensity or restriction or constant reassurance to hold it all together.

When you can shift the question from, “Is this working?” to, “Am I doing what I said I would do, even when it feels boring or uncertain?” you change your entire relationship with this process. You stop outsourcing your confidence to the scale. The number stops determining whether you’re okay or not. And instead, you start building a foundation of habits that feels steadier because it holds up when real life happens.

And if you want help with this, let’s talk. If you’ve been chasing a jumpstart because you don’t quite trust yourself to stay when things slow down, that is exactly the kind of work we do in coaching. Coaching isn’t about pushing harder or finding the perfect plan. It’s really about learning how to follow through without needing constant proof and building confidence that doesn’t disappear when life happens. Check out my website, send me a message at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact, and let’s talk about how coaching can help you. All right? Thank you again for hanging out with me and I’ll catch you again next week.

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You’ll also find strength training tips to help you train smarter and see real results. My goal is to help you get strong and this strength-training guide will help you do it. Go to CarrieHollandMD.com/build strength and check it out.

Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.