Step away from the scale!

Are you a slave to the scale? So many of us are! Let me clue you in on a little something though.. In many cases the scale is not an accurate measure of your progress. Muscle is smaller and tighter than fat, therefore a pound of muscle is going to take up less space than a pound of fat. When you see no change (or an increase) on that scale after hours and hours of hard work, sweat and determination it can be extremely frustrating. Believe me, I know

Try to keep in mind that as your body is working and changing it is very likely that you are losing fat and building muscle. Pay more attention to how you feel, how your clothes fit, take your measurements, take photos! It is not

easy to step away from the scale, but for some of us (like myself) who can’t help but shake that disappointed feeling when you don’t see that number dwindling, it’s the best thing to do. I gave up on weighing myself regularly a while ago and now I rely on other methods to track my progress. I have learned to throw my “weight goal” to the wind and focus more on how I feel. For the longest time I was determined to get to 135 lbs. That was my set-in-stone goal weight because it was the weight on my license, what I weighed when I was sixteen. That was nearly ten years ago! I finally had to come to terms with the fact that that is not a realistic goal for me. I am not a teenager, I'm a woman, a woman whose healthy weight is now closer to 150 lbs than 135. And that's okay!

I'm not saying you should never, ever weigh yourself again. It can definitely be good to keep an eye on your weight. My suggestion would be to schedule it. Maybe you weigh yourself every Friday, or every other, or maybe just once a month. Just be careful not to let it become an unhealthy obsession. Our weight can fluctuate by pounds just over the course of 24 hours! Ladies, we all know how much our weight can change over the course of our cycle. Don't over analyze! If you're working hard and eating well, just keep doing what you're doing. Don't let a scale hold the key to your happiness. After all, who cares what the scale says if you look and feel better than you did when you started? Weight, like age, is just a number!