The Scale Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

(c) brankica Fotosearch_k30952420

I’ve met so many people over the years who have fallen into a pattern of dieting failure: One diet after another, several in a year, multiple times, and each time focused solely on their weight, almost never on their health. Obsessively focused on a daily number on a scale instead of a cumulative improvement to their bodies. Willing to compromise health for the sake of weight loss.

I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them: You can lose weight and continue to be unhealthy. Unless a person has a shift in perspective, they will always be short-term dieting and never achieve longer-term health. If you are eating from each of the food groups every day, every few hours, using portion control, and drinking water throughout the day, don’t get bummed out simply because the scale doesn’t show a pound or two down over the course of a week. There are very positive changes taking place inside your body, and it won’t be long before you start to feel them:
 

• You’ll start to be more clear-headed, more focused, better able to concentrate.
   
• You’ll have better quality sleep; more energy throughout the day.
   
• Your hormones will become more balanced. If you’re female, your menstrual cycles will become more regular.
   
• You’ll experience less pressure on your muscles and joints and be able to resume (or start) physical activities.
   
• You’ll have better digestion; waste release will be more consistent.
   
• Your acid reflux/heartburn will dissipate or disappear.
   
• Your skin will become clearer, healthier.
   
• You’ll experience a normalization of blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels; lowering and/or removal of meds.
   

. . . and this is a short list of health benefits that starts to take place in a short period of time.

Additionally, and using my client’s feedback as a guide, there are two other positive noticeable changes:
 

1. You’ll become more organized: Planning a food diary, packing meals and snacks, leads to less clutter in your kitchen and pantry (and less waste). This gives you a greater sense of control, which spills over to other aspects of your life.
    
2. You’ll notice an improvement in your two strongest motivators: No, it’s not weight or size . . . it’s your mood and morale. It is mood and morale that so strongly influences your day-to-day decisions and quality of life.

Weight loss works in mysterious ways: You can have a ‘perfect’ week of doing everything right and not have weight loss . . . and lo and behold, there it is, 2 pounds down the following week or week after. Or, if despite all your efforts you’re bummed because you ‘only’ lost 1/2 pound in a week, here’s what 1 pound looks like:

So, if you only lost 1/2 pound every week for a year, you’d have lost 26 pounds!

When it comes to weight loss, of course the scale can be a good measure of progress, particularly if you have a lot of weight to lose. But putting too much emphasis on your short-term (daily, weekly) weight results and not enough on your end-game health objectives, is unproductive and can lead to unhealthy behaviors. 

You can always find a non-scale success that has taken place in your life every time you don’t have a weekly weight loss on the scale despite your best efforts. Perhaps it’s an improvement to one or more of the positive changes I’ve listed above or:
 

1. Did you notice that you’re now automatically reaching for a bottle of water vs. the diet soda you always reached for a few months ago?
    
2. Did you notice that because you’re cooking healthier for the whole family your kids are now asking for fruits and vegetables more than they did a few months ago?
    
3. Did you notice you had to tighten your belt buckle another notch from a few weeks ago?
    
4. Did you notice that you easily spent another 30 minutes on the stationary bike from your previous ‘best time’ last month?

If your sole objective is to transform your body into a skinnier pair of jeans, and to hell with how you get there, you can definitely do that fast and cheap in the short-term . . . and then fast and cheap again and again. So “fast” actually becomes never, and “cheap” becomes very expensive over time.

Changing your perspective, however — from what the scale says to what your body tells you — will lead to habit-forming improvements that can transform your health and entire life for the better . . . and for the long-term.