Step Away From the Scale
*This piece was written in 2019 when I was health coaching full time and had a fall out with my scale after vacation
It's mental work to detach from the number on the scale and make choices simply because they feel good for us. Even if you want that number on the scale to budge; the process of doing so begins and ends with starting from a place of kindness and care for yourself. We have to see ourselves, our habits and our lifestyle differently; that's how changes to our health can begin. Fixating on a number will often lead us to a place of obsessing or unhealthy decision making to get to a goal, but health is a journey - a journey to getting to know yourself beyond a number or potential weight loss.
All of that to say, as a woman who prides herself on “healing a relationship with food, a mindset, and eating from a place of joy” the scale can be hard to avoid and, somehow, does take centerstage in the weight loss process - but only if we allow it to be the case. Do you relate to any of this?
1. You return from a trip SO HAPPY, having eaten meals that were delicious and that you really enjoyed.
2. The next day you go to weigh yourself
3. You weigh yourself and this brings pain because you still sometimes associate how you’re supposed to feel with a number - even if you do feel comfortable and happy.
Now, that's not so kind - is it?
My scale and I broke up a while ago, resolving that so long as I felt good in my skin, could move my body freely and felt attractive to me (it’s an inside job) I would no longer focus on the number. I have always found that when I focused on the number, I was really just obsessing about the outside instead of all the hard work that needs to go on on the inside. the real work takes place on the inside, it still does and always will. Numbers will change, fluctuate, be temporary or plateau - but what’s constant is what we believe about ourselves.B
I always said that I never carried physical weight but, instead, the number was the weight of my emotions, my habits and my choices. Once I shifted those, inevitably, the number also shifted. And the more we can think about emotions, habits and choices as being the baseline of living a healthy life - a mindful life - the better we’ll feel overall.
The momentary lapse of judgement I had on Saturday morning by getting on the scale after a beautiful week away to visit my family in Miami - was rebounded by a naked look in the mirror and a scream wherein I shouted “YOU FEEL GOOD. STOP IT, TINA!” I yelled at myself. And then I proceeded to kick said scale under my dresser.
If you’re a slave to your scale, I get it. If you’re trying to lose weight, I get it. The number was constant chatter in my mind for years until I realized I didn’t want to lose weight to get to a number, I only wanted to feel good. And not only feel good in my body, but at peace in my heart. Feeling a sense of relief in my relationship to food and my body meant making new choices - choices that would truly make me feel better about myself. New choices meant cooking, walking, socializing more with friends, doing things I loved; including dancing around naked and letting my skin flip, flop and drop it like it’s hot. It meant embracing where I am/was and moving from there.
After losing 150 plus pounds on my own and maintaining it for 18 years I'm still learning what it means to feel good. It’s a lifelong process to break up with habits and thoughts and it’s not something we do overnight.
How do you define your relationship to yourself? To food? To your kitchen? Your mind? Your body?
The scale doesn’t determine that; you do. Your heart does.
My lesson for Saturday: realign and make more choices that make me feel good. (stop being such a jerk to yourself, says the "health coach" ... because I'm a human being too) .