A few years ago I used to manage a women’s fitness and weight loss center, called Curves. As an April fool’s joke one year I decided to hide the scale and hopefully prove a point. The point being is that a scale should not be a measurement of how we feel. As you can imagine, the missing scale created a mass panic and many of the women did not find my joke to funny nor did they like the point I was trying to make. Today’s blog post is inspired by both April Fools and a client’s recent “ah-ha” moment on the scale.
How many of you have had this experience: You are having a great day, you’re feeling fly and loving how you look. THEN you step on the scale and a number pops up that changes your entire mood. You no longer feel happy, or thin, or alive. Instead, you now feel depressed and deflated. Our entire mood can be so easily and dramatically affected by the scale.
It starts a chain reaction and that old negative tape starts to play… “I’m so fat.” – “Why am I wasting my time doing this.” – “This is never going to work.” Our reaction to that number creates a serious drop in motivation and it can cause us to abandon our healthy habits. “I didn’t lose any weight, so I’m going to eat that ice cream sandwich.” All because of a number.
Here is what’s important to know about the scale. That little apparatus on the floor doesn’t know the whole truth. It doesn’t take into account your feelings, how hard you’ve been working out, how much better your clothes are fitting, how much energy you have, how great you’ve been eating or how good you feel. SO, why do we give it so much credit? You are so much more than a number. I challenge you to hide the scale and learn to measure your success in other ways.
Making small changes over a long period of time will get you to a healthy goal, but don’t fret if the scale doesn’t immediately reflect those gains in the form of lower numbers. We all want to see results; we just need to change how we measure success.
Here are some great ways to measure success:
___ Do your clothes fit better
___ Have you increased your energy and vitality
___Can you finally keep up with your kids or grandkids
___You’re thinking about food less often
___ You eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full
___ Regular exercise is routine
___ You’ve become more self-confident
___ Minimized negative self-talk
___ A better nights sleep
___ You’re drinking more water
___ Cooking at home more often
___ Manage your stress in ways other than eating
Remember: The scale is not a good measure of your overall health and especially your self-worth! A number is a number and you are you..
