I spent most of my life feeling shame. I have an alcoholic father who wasn’t present, and we moved a lot. I was lonely and never felt good enough. I took that with me to the scale and allowed those numbers to determine my self-worth.
Not long after my children were born, my relationship with the scale became more self-sabotaging. I even refused to allow the nurses at the doctor’s office to weigh me. The scale had become my enemy and I avoided it at all costs.
I was obsessed with working out became a personal trainer, and then a gym owner. I fought back at the scale with my coveted 17% body fat and business success. My physic had become part of my self-worth, but my confidence was at an all-time low.
As a former fitness professional, I can say with certainty that the fitness industry thrives on people relapsing and gaining their weight back. It’s big business. Fitness marketing is effective at convincing us to “change everything Monday.”
We lack a true understanding of how we got to the point of feeling sick and being so overweight we couldn’t button our pants. The self-shaming cycle sets in, and we go down one of these three paths:
- Join a fitness gym and/or program that promises success.
- Fall deeper into despair with self-shaming and devour a pan of brownies.
- Ignore the problem altogether and sweep it under a rug.
Suffering burnout from the way I punished my body, I left the fitness industry to stay home with my family. What I learned in the aftermath is that God created us with a body, soul, and mind. When we separate these and work only on our bodies, we will eventually rebound and gain it all back.
When we slow down the weight loss process with a holistic approach, rebound is less likely. Lifestyles don’t change in twenty-one days. Hurting hearts take time to heal and living healthy is a lifelong journey.
One of the best practices we can do to increase our confidence, is weigh ourselves every day. That little scale can steal our self-worth pound by pound. Weighing daily helps us face that challenge head on.
Why do we let a man-made machine have so much power over us? After all its metal, plastic, and digital numbers. It says nothing about our personality, our love for others, or the unique person we were created to be.
It’s time to overcome the abusive relationship we have with the scale. Bodies fluctuates so much that it’s possible to lose or gain several pounds at different parts of the day. This is normal.
I suggest weighing yourself daily, and posting a positive affirmation on the wall, mirror, or directly on the scale. This can be anything that reminds you your worth is not found in the numbers on the scale. I like to post this bible verse from Psalm 139: 14: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
The point of doing this daily is not about accountability as much as it is about knowing there is no measurement that can touch your worth. This lets our brains create positive experiences on that dreaded scale. You will begin to associate the scale with that affirmation and no longer avoid it.
Three things happen when you weight yourself daily and focus your thoughts on a positive affirmation:
- You will realize that several pounds of weight fluctuation is a normal daily occurrence.
- New positive associations with the scale will be created in your brain.
- Approaching weight loss holistically will help you be less likely to stress eat.