The following is a ‘reair’ of the Purposeful Strength Newsletter from June 22nd. If you enjoy this, make sure to subscribe below to get fresh and live editions each week!

Colleagues who write publicly have always told me the best writing topics are right under your nose.

Your own struggles and/or successes.

Interests you may have within the scope of your writing.

And the one that brings the best gems, the questions the people you work with ask.

I had a couple conversations last week that were 1) amazing questions from my clients and 2) questions that often get asked and I think a lot of people who read this newsletter would like the answers to.

So without much more, here we go…

Question: “I’ve been working out and eating way better for 2+ months and have seen some amazing progress, but now the scale has stopped moving. What the f*uck?”

The f-bomb is no embellishment, nevertheless, a great question that often gets asked. You crush your to-dos and the scale has been moving in the right direction, but then stops for a week or two.

A couple thoughts on this.

First, maintenance of weight within itself, is progress. If the overall goal is fat loss and the numbers are changing for the better, just because they aren’t moving for 1 or 2 weeks doesn’t mean failure, it simply just means the scale isn’t moving. The ability to maintain is progress.

Second, the scale is lag indicator. The scale is a response to other things. Calorie deficit to be exact. Sometimes after a training session OR a change in training or exercise style, can cause the body to need a hot minute to adjust, that’s all. It’s not good or bad, it’s just an adjustment period.

Morale of the story, ride it out, and typically if your consistent, you’ll see a pretty big dip coming up.

Question: “When you lose weight, where does that weight go?”

This was a fun one because I didn’t really know the answer. So together we did the most logical thing and asked Google which told us that most of the weight is let out through carbon when we breathe. More info on that here.

Remember this answer the next time you're at trivia night.

Question: “If I go on vacation for a week, will my progress in the gym be stalled”

This was a fun one because my initial answer was a very non-specific “It depends”.

After letting the ‘look’ from my client go away, we had a great conversation on what ‘progress’ is for her. To which she explained that progress wasn’t the weights she was using or even the exercises performed, she was just really proud of herself for making ‘her time’ during the day and sticking with it. So with that being said, even on a vacation, we created some strategies to keep those same lines of progress for her.

It was a pretty rad conversation.

It turns out my writing friends are spot on. The best writing pieces come from those around you and the clients I work with did not disappoint last week. The best thing about fitness and nutrition related questions is that if you have a question, a bunch of other people have one too.

What questions do you have? Smash the reply button and ask away- I’d love to write another one of these!

Have a great week everyone!

-Casey