The scale isn’t bad, and some people need the scale to track specific results. If you are a weight class athlete, you need the scale. If you need to be weighed for medication dosages, you need a scale. If you are an average person looking to get healthy, toss that scale off your roof and start tracking progress with Non-Scale Victories.
The problem with being focused on the scale is that our weight fluctuates from morning to evening and from January to December. If you think your scale weight should be the same every day for the rest of your life, this thinking is so far from the truth.
Weight fluctuates for so many reasons. See if any of these feel like your current season:
Interrupted sleep
High stress
Lack of motivation
Seasonal changes
Babies or kids
Change in jobs, living arrangements, or routine
Menstrual phases
Vacation
Quarantine
If any of those apply to you, give yourself grace, and quit focusing on the scale.
THE SCALE DOESN’T DEFINE YOU
How do we move past the scale? For many of us, we have depended on that number our entire lives. Doctors have told us that this number needs to be lower or higher to be “Healthy.” We’ve been told by the media that to be “sexy,” we have to weigh a specific number. We tell ourselves that we need to get to the scale number we were in high school because that is when we felt our best.
How do we undo years of putting our bodies through hell because the scale was our focus?
1. Quit Weighing yourself: Take a leap of faith and toss that scale out the window. Vow to stay off the scale for a month or two. Make it a goal to ditch the number in your head and shift your focus away from the daily measuring.
2. Non-Scale Victories: Focus on ways to define your health that have nothing to do with numbers. Here are a few of my favorite NSV’s.
Energy levels
Bloating
Brain-Fog
Endurance
Workouts
Mood
Sleep
Stress
3. Celebrate Success All The Time: No victory is too small to celebrate. When we get in the habit of building ourselves up, we begin rewiring our brains to find joy. For every negative thing, you tell yourself, tell yourself ten good things.
We have to stop downplaying our worth.
You are Worthy.
You are Loved.
You are Perfect Right Now (Not When).
Be Your Biggest Fan.
Gaining or Losing weight is natural for the human body. Obsessing about a number and depriving ourselves of joy until we reach that number is not realistic. Let’s get back to what feels right and healthy. Remember that stress and deprivation can have lasting, damaging effects. If we get too focused on the numbers, we lose sight of proper health.