How to Make Peace with the Dreaded Scale

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If you are an email subscriber, you might have read my email about my juice fast.  I started juicing about 15 days ago, drinking only green juice for about 10 of those days.

I’m now eating some clean fruits and veggies in addition to my go-to green juice and my favorite carrot/orange juice.

I have to say that I feel amazing, my skin is amazing, and I’m dropping some excess poundage.

Why?  Well, over the past couple of years, I’ve avoided the scale like the black death.

I just didn’t want to know what was going on, and I just shut down.

Obviously, that didn’t work for me.  I started out thinking this:

Weighing myself everyday is obsessive and not helpful!  Going by how my clothes fit is a much healthier way to keep tabs on my weight.  I’ll just ditch the scale and not worry about the number. That’s the way to go.

I had good, healthy intentions that rolled down the hill and picked up pound after pound along the way.  I wasn’t eating gluten or sugar, mind you.  But I did have my fair share of nachos, I guess.

I quit juicing because cleaning my juicer wast “JUST TOO HARD”.  Ugh.  Whiney, much?

During this season of 100 days to where I’ve committed to juicing and clean eating (as much as possible when we are out of town for swim meets), I’ve made a decision.

I’m making peace with the scale and using it for my benefit.  Not so I can judge my self-worth by the number that it shows, but to gauge how I need to eat that day.

For now, my plan is to watch that number decrease, and it is… slowly.  But over the weekend when we were out of town, I had to eat out some.  I chose as wisely as I could, and when I got home, I was only up .8 pounds.  That includes just eating food because I’d been mostly juicing prior to leaving.  So this morning, after mostly juicing yesterday (with added fruit in between) I was back down.

That felt really good.  Really good in the sense that I was able to be awake to what I was eating and have a plan to deal with my intake based on the situation.  I felt much more in control and positive.  I wasn’t discouraged about it at all.

If you aren’t familiar with juicing, check out Reboot with Joe and his movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead I and II.  They are total eye-openers. (And both movies are on Netflix right now!)

Here are my tips for how to make peace with the dreaded scale:

See it not as the “scale of judgement”, but as a tool to use for knowledge.

Write down some affirmations to remind you that the scale is your friend.  It is a tool that keeps your informed.  The scale doesn’t judge you.  It doesn’t talk back to you and tell you how horrible and ugly you are.  That’s your mind.  And you are beautiful just as you are, right now.  Seriously… tell yourself that every. single. day.

Have a plan.

For example, when you have to eat out, know where you can eat, what your best options are and what serving sizes to stick with. For example, we ate a Red Robin three times. They have a great lettuce wrap option, so I jumped on that.  I ate the Guacamole Bacon burger, which had no cheese or anything fried on it.  I had sweet potato fries as my side because I know my body metabolizes sweet potatoes much better than white ones. That way, when you return home to the scale, you know you’ve done your best.

Distance yourself emotionally from that number.

That number is just a number. It’s not an indicator of the value of your being.

When you see the number inch up a little, remember it sometimes happens and IT”S OK. Then use that knowledge to jump back into juicing some green juice or, maybe, plant based meals for a few days.

You are not the number.

That number is just a way to keep tabs on one part of your health.  There is SO much more to being healthy than just your weight.  Your thoughts are, IMHO, the most important part of a healthy life.  Losing emotional attachment to how much you weigh frees up your mind to be your cheerleader rather than your accuser and judge.

How have these tips changed me?

The most dramatic change I’ve seen over the last fifteen days, is in my attitude towards the scale.  I’m not allowing myself to avoid it or dread it.  I’m making it my friend… my bff that keeps it real for me.  Now, I’m more intrigued when I step on it every morning.  How did my body react to what I put in in the day before.  It’s very interesting, actually.

Have you overcome your fear of the scale and made it your friend?  How did you do it?

Let me know down in the comments below!

xoxo

Gwen