Losing the Scale

I have a number obsession.  It feeds into every part of my health and fitness routine.  I am obsessed with everything from Calories, to race times, to mileage, to Flywheel power numbers, and everything in between. But the number that has always burdened me the most has been the number on the scale. It literally haunts me.  When I was in the process of losing weight I would get on the scale every single day (despite the fact that MANY reliable health and fitness people told me that once a week was more than enough), and after I lost the weight I continued on this path.

Weighing myself every day was stressful, the ups and downs made me feel thrilling victories and terrible defeats (that were probably mostly just water weight anyway).  Yet somehow I thought this was the best way to maintain the weight loss.  I read somewhere, at some point that it is normal to fluctuate 2-5 pounds in a week but despite that, if the scale was on the upward turn at all it would tear my whole day apart.

Then, about a month ago, something unexpected happened… my scale broke.  I have to admit that I practically jumped on it trying to get it to work, HOW would I get through my day without knowing what I weighed in the morning? I ordered a new scale online without thinking about the fact that this would mean going at least a week without one. And this week turned out to be the best thing that has happened to me in a while.

During this week I broke the habit of weighing myself every day and it was more freeing than I can possibly explain. I freed myself of the constant thoughts surrounding the number, and learned to make it about how I feel. What I mean by this is that I am more aware of my body, of what I put into it, and how those things make me feel. Some days it’s a little harder to zip my jeans, and then you know what? That day I focus on eating very clean foods. I’ve also recognized how I feel on a day when I am very focused on my health. Rather than finding this victory in the scale, I find it in feeling extremely alert, fit, and ready to take on anything.

It’s unbelievable the power that I let the scale have over me for so long. This is not to say that the scale is not a great tool for weight loss, because it was certainly necessary for me to keep track of my weight during the 6 months I was losing it. However, the freedom that I feel, and the mental stability that I have gained from removing the scale from my morning routine is unrivaled.

The craziest part of this whole thing is that my scale came over two weeks ago, and it is still sitting in the box, because I don’t want to go back to being that person who relies so heavily in the numbers. After all, at the end if the day it’s about so much more than that. It’s about how fueling your body rather than just feeding it. It’s also about knowing how to work out enough that you can have a little mess-up or a bad day and still have great results because of of.

I don’t think I’ll put the scale back out any time soon, I’ve gotten really comfortable and happy with the lack of it. Its funny how something I once relied I so heavily is now a thing of the past.

Crystal

@Fitcrys

#FITJ