Scale It Back

We hate it. We love it. We are down right addicted to it. We cling to it as if it is our best friend only to cuss it out when it doesn't tell us what we want to hear. You know what I'm talking about and if you don't you probably aren't American. It's our bathroom scale. Oh yeah! It's amazing to me that we will wake up each day as if its Christmas morning, bounding to our bathrooms to step on this one foot by one foot gem of an appliance. It's cheap fortune telling! Seriously. You step on it and it's two pounds heavy; I foresee you having a crappy day filled with carb loading and emotional eating. You step on it and it's two pounds down; I foresee you having an awesome day filled with carb loading and emotional eating. Why is our happiness tied to a scale is beyond me. Now, I realize that I sound like I'm starting a "Skinny Bitch" post where I could never in a million years care about what the scale says when I step on it, but I assure you this is not the case. I have gone to a doctors office and stepped on their scale that looks like it should be weighing cattle What the He!!! Why on earth does it need to look like that? And, really, why do we really need to know what we weigh unless we are cheerleaders that will be thrown in the air and caught (hopefully) by some dude that looks like he could actually catch cattle and not the 97lb blond wonder he is catching. Sorry, I side tracked. Yes, I have stepped on a scale and felt the desire to look away only to hear, "Oh sweetie, looks like you have gained a couple pounds." Can we agree that from now on that we will have Nurse Betty just simply scan us and say "Yep, looks good!" Because really we know if we need to work on our diet and we know if we could stand to lose a few lbs. The scale is not giving us any information we don't already have. 

For 12 years I trained clients who were breaking ground on their health. They were feeling better, sleeping better, quite honestly looking better and then it happened. They came in and stepped on the scale and all of their rose colored balloons behind their rose colored glasses were popped and thus began their downward spiral. I understand why we use a scale. It allows us to see immediate change when we begin a weight loss program. Or does it???? Let me have you consider; the human body can hold up to 25 lbs of fecal matter in our intestinal tract! Holy mother of mercy! Is this true?!? Yes. We can carry another ten pounds of water weight. Soooo, here is where I'm going with this biology lesson. When you first try to lose weight we generally increase our fiber intake (veggies) and water consumption. When fiber meets an unhealthy colon it takes some time to work it's magic. And when we introduce water into our diet, our bodies store it in any nook, cranny and cell for fear we will be heading back into the dehydration dessert we have been living in. 

It takes time for our bodies to allow for necessary changes. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither were those love handles. Give your body some time. Give yourself some grace and realize this journey is not going to be made in a day. A scale should not hold so much power over your happiness. Whip out your handy dandy journal (because I'm sure you own one or at least a piece of paper and pen) and start writing how you actually feel after you start eating healthy and exercising. If this is not an option and you find yourself needing a S.A. (scale anonymous) program, I suggest you chart your weight loss on a piece of paper so you can see change over time and not get so hung up on the small lb jumps. Good luck and scale it back.