I stood on them the moment I got up. Of course! Isn’t that everyones first priority on awakening? Then I would weigh myself after I had emptied my bladder. After I showered. After I ate my breakfast. After I brushed my teeth. After I had a glass of water. Before I exercised. After I exercised. Lunch. Dinner. More water! Haircut! Cutting my fingernails! I kid you not. A never ending ritual. Unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins. For I would then allow the figure they reported to me hundreds of times a day to control exactly how I would then feel about myself in that moment. I would be excited beyond belief if the figure glaring at me had dropped. I would float - light and happy. Or I would be crushed - disappointed and frustrated, if I so much as gained a gram. Eat if the number was down. Starve myself if up. Reward. Punish. Love. Hate. Certainly not a healthy relationship. Nor, a smart lifestyle, is it? Can you imagine how exhausting that rollercoaster ride is? I had such an emotional attachment to the number on the scale. However I was in denial of that obsession. To be very honest I actually thought everyone had that same ‘passion and focus’ that I had, to be a particular, and concrete, ‘number on a machine’.
Then one day, my trainer, got me to bring them in and... she took them home with her! THAT, devastated me. But that, was also the best thing that could have happened! My relationship was then restricted. I hadn’t realised it at the time but, I had been freed.
Now hopefully, you aren’t quite as enslaved as that but if you are like most people trying to lose ‘weight’, you just can’t stay away and you do weigh yourself quite regularly. And most likely, you too, are elated if the figure it displays is lower, or depressed if the figure has risen. A bathroom scale - your best friend or your worst nightmare. After all the hard work, it only takes that number to not spiral downwards enough, remain the same, or worse still, budge in the wrong direction, and your day is altered. Being consumed by a kilogram figure can really thwart your weight loss goals.
Don’t let it get to the point where a number decides how you are going to feel. The scale can be very deceiving and ultimately stressful. Why? Because that number on the scale does not reflect how things really are. There is so much that goes into that figure. It doesn’t reflect how much fat you’ve lost or how much muscle you have gained. Your kilogram weight is the sum total of all the bone, skin, fat, muscle, internal organs, water and other paraphernalia that makes up the body. It’s also affected by food and liquid that is somewhere along its journey through the digestive system, water retention, specially at ‘that time of the month’ (for a woman!), excess salt. You can experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to a kilo a day with no changes in calorie intake or physical activity level.
Yet we react soooo negatively to number gain. If we are trying to lose weight, fat loss is what we are actually after. A scale, can’t give us that result yet it is the one element most of us make a connection with. When you start exercising bodyfat reduces, lean muscle mass increases, specially with strength training. Scale weight may not go down rapidly, occasionally if at all, but your actual body composition will change quite dramatically.
Do I weigh my clients? Yes. It’s a base. A starting point. Do we weigh weekly? Not all. (Factors are very individual as to when or why we weigh after obtaining that initial figure.) Bodyweight is only one way of measuring what’s going on and shouldn’t be looked upon as the sole answer of success or failure. We also do progress photos (oh how exciting they are to look back on), girth measurements and body fat percentage. However to me, and after living that anxiety driven life, the best indicators of positive change, don’t involve hard, cold figures of ANY kind.
For optimal health and fitness, body composition can be far more important than how much you weigh.
How your clothes fit, your general energy levels, your emotional mood and how you carry yourself are important factors of the benefits of eating healthier and exercising.
Chatting with my clients about these changes gives me the best feedback to how things are REALLY going for them.
As you start to feel better about yourself and become more confident, you ooze a positive self esteem, hold your posture more proudly - it’s actually this wonderful metamorphosis that others notice.
Food, should be a joy in our life. Not a battle. Exercise, should be exciting and fun. Learn to love how you feel in your own body. Do you like the changes you see? Are you losing centimetres? Can you exercise for longer? Do you feel stronger? Increased muscle definition? Are you smiling! Laughing! Often? Loving life? There. That’s where the changes are. Not in a number.
Take control of your life, don’t be a slave to the scale and feel the empowerment. Cheers to a less anxious week, month... (life?!) Ann.
(For the record, sucking in your gut before hopping on the scale, or holding your breath, don’t make a difference either! :D )
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