When you lift and your weight increases, how do you keep from getting discouraged?

[LittleLifter88]

I know that men like to see the scale go up when they are building muscle, but for women (at least for me) it's a harder thing to handle. I am 5 feet tall and always have been around 106-109 lbs (depending on the time of day and year). I didn't look exceptionally skinny and was actually very curvy. I started seriously lifting at the beginning of the year while tracking my macros. The number on the scale went way up and now I weigh more than I ever have before (114-116 lbs).

Women, how do you get out of your head and accept that the higher number on the scale is okay? I sometimes have days when I just want to forget it all because I feel self-conscious about my increased weight. I know I am letting it get to my head too much but I get discouraged whenever I see 116 come up on the scale when I used to see 106. My body fat percentage is lower than ever, so it's just a brain game at this point. Any advice on getting past this point?

[tbatcho07]

Just remember that as you pack on muscle, you will also weigh a bit more due to that muscle.

[livestrong685]

Don't even look at the scale; just by how you look in the mirror.

[Violettt]

Do you like what you see in the mirror? Do your clothes fit well and you like the way you look in a bikini? If so, don't worry about what the scale says. I'm about your height and I sit at around 120 lbs. I don't have small bone structure and am not naturally skinny as well. My 120 lb weight looks better than it did before I started lifting. I'm leaner and have more muscle. The number on the scale is not very important.

[WolfBeast]

I don't look at the scale as anything bad, if I like what I see in the mirror then I keep on the path I am going. If I am gaining too much fat, obviously I make adjustments in my diet/cardio routine to fix it and get myself back on track to where I would like to head.

[LittleLifter88]

Thanks so much for your replies! Every single one of you helped. I just need to stop getting on the scale every day and need to gauge it on how I look and feel.

[Thanshin]

Don't even look at the scale; just by how you look in the mirror.

A thousand times this.

Never forget that becoming lighter isn't the objective but a simple (and often imprecise) way of evaluating the advancement towards the real objective : becoming more fit and/or beautiful.

Changing fat for muscle pound per pound reaches the objective without changing the weight. A perfect body with steel bones would still be a perfect body if it weighted 500 pounds.