Hi there I’m Lisa Carpenter a transformational life and nutrition coach and I’m gonna lean in because it’s time to have a hard conversation.
You know, the one you don’t wanna have… about your relationship with the scale.
For those of you who are new to my work, I helped lead women and men to create a better relationships with food and their bodies.
One of the things that I start with is the dysfunctional relationship we have with the scale.
Now I want to say first of all, if you are trying to lose weight it is important to have a way of measuring your success.
It’s important to know that you’re actually progressing.
Even when you’re paying down debts or a loan, it’s so cool to see that that monthly balance is shrinking.
It’s what inspires me personally… ahh to keep going, to keep putting money against that debt.
So it’s not that I don’t want you to have a way to measure the changes that you’re making within your body.
If you are eating different foods and your body is changing it’s important to see that.
It crosses into a place of being dysfunctional when the scale is actually running your life and it determines your moods.
Consider this… you’ve been eating healthy all week, you’ve been doing your best, you’ve been writing down your food, and you’ve been making sure that you’re making better choices and you’re feeling amazing.
You’re feeling like a rock star.
You’re putting on your clothes and everything is fitting a little bit better and you’re starting to feel more energetic and you’re sleeping better.
THEN you get on the scale and it doesn’t tell you what you wanna see.
You suddenly feel horrible in your skin.
You pick up the stick and you start beating yourself up questioning your efforts aren’t working, why the number isn’t what you want it be.
This when the scale works against you and it becomes a dysfunctional relationship that actually stops you from achieving what you want.
How would weight loss be different if the only person that got to determine how you think and feel about yourself is YOU?
How would your weight loss journey would be different if you acknowledged that how you feel in your skin is the only thing that matters?
When you put on your clothes and they feel better, and they’re fitting loser, letting that be enough.
No longer needing the validation of the scale to tell you that you’ve been good or bad.
You see how kinda ridiculous that is?
It’s about breaking the emotional attachment we have to that number on that arbitrary piece of metal.
It doesn’t determine your worth.
It only measures your weight which nobody cares about but you.
You’re not walking around with that sign around your neck that says I weigh this much.
So, I want you to pay attention this week to how much that scale is actually influencing you.
How you are thinking and feeling about yourself and what you need to do to start cultivating a different relationship with the scale?
Using it as a tool but a tool that aides you in your success not a tool that makes you feel small, insignificant or that holds this huge power over how you are thinking about yourself.
I talked about it in my e-class all the time around when we make a recipe and we’re measuring out the ingredients.
We don’t get to worry about the fact that our recipe calls for a teaspoon of vanilla or you know… half a cup of sugar.
It’s just a measurement we use to build a recipe out and your weight on the scale is one of the pieces that helps you track your progress.
But it is not attached to your value or your worth as a person.
If you continue to look to that scale to feed that you (ie. if it tells me what I want to see then I’m gonna feel good about myself) it will continue to be this dysfunctional relationship keeping you stuck.
How you feel about yourself has to come from the inside out.
It’s about cultivating the best relationship you can have with yourself and making sure that the only person that determines how you feel about you is you, not the scale, not the measuring tape, nothing.
So yes, track your progress but don’t get hung up of that number.
I guarantee you, when let go of the scale and put more of your focus on eating better, living better, treating yourself better, upping yourself care, the number on the scale is gonna follow without you having to obsessed about it.
I’d love to hear in the comments below your relationship with the scale and how much it is dictating the choices you’re making in your life.
Are you willing to maybe tuck it away for a while and do things differently?
Can you allow yourself to feel good and celebrate the success you are having in the kitchen and with the healthy choices you’re making be enough?
So until next week. I look forward to your comments.
xo ~ 
