The Bathroom Scale

I did something crazy.  I hid my bathroom scale under the bed.  Its been about a month and I think it was the best decision I could have made.  Lemme 'splain.

This year I decided to get healthy. After fad diets, diet pills, low carb, cheating on low carb, and then poorly following pretty much every diet on the planet, I started running.  And then doing some free weights. (I can do a pushup! A real one!)  And although my calories have been reasonable and I lost a percent of body fat, the scale did not move for 6 months.  Well actually, it did. It went up.

I know I know. "Muscle weighs more than fat." "Calorie deficit is how you lose weight" "Make better snack choices" "Don't eat after 5pm" "Eat breakfast". I. KNOW.

But it was still so discouraging. I couldn't be happy for the progress I had made. And then my friend somewhat offhandedly said, "You know I didn't even grow up with a bathroom scale. Not that I never had body image issues, but they were with the mirror, not that number."

Can I just tell you what a relief that has been for me? I still catch myself doing the mirror evaluation and I'm still keeping an eye on calories ... but that magical scale number has been out of my life for 4 weeks now!

I'm not dumb. I know when my workout hasn't happened in a week or that I ate a chocolate chip cookie (or 3... with ice cream...) today.  But I'm so sick of that number on the scale being an all consuming force in my life.  I have plenty of other things to worry about.

And I want to be healthy diva in body and mind.