My battle with the scale


Have I mentioned how frusterating the journey towards a healthy lifestyle can be at times?  It seems so easy and do-able when your flipping through Women's Health magazine reading about the 1500 calorie flat belly diet plans.  And trust me I love reading about diet and excersize plans.  I have a whole binder of sheets I've ripped out of health magazines telling me just how I am going to get the right body.  Flip through the channels and your likely to see some kind of diet advertisement promising fast and painless results.


 You see the success stories of women losing 6 pant sizes in 5 months .  But we often don't hear about the struggles and difficulties women face along the way.  We don't hear about the women who make it through the whole day eating healthy and than go through half a box of cookies before they go to bed.  We don't hear about the women who appear perfectly healthy on the outside but are secretly discontent with their body. Yes, these are the stories we would rather not share with our friends or signifigant others. 

So instead we keep our secrets inside the cookie jars and the empty candy wrappers.  Not only do we hide our guilt from others.  We hide it from ourselves.  So we do everything we can to escape this feeling of guilt.  We starve our bodies for one day and than binge on sugar the next.  And then if your like me, you feel even more guilty when you walk on the scale and see no results. 



I weighed myself yesterday at my health club.  Because I have been dedicating so much time to excersizing and eating right I expected to see results.  I looked at the scale praying for a number that would feel good enough.  The result was one pound MORE than I weighed before.  At first I felt a wave of denial.   I wonder if the scale is broken?  But than I became angry.  I was angry at the stupid Women's Health magazines for promising fast results.  Most of all I was angry at myself.  How could I have gained weight? Why did I have to eat those cookies before bed last night.

 I stomped over to my body bootcamp class wishing I could go back home and curl under the covers.  But Amy, my energetic workout instructor, had other plans for me.  "Lets get started ladies!!" 


For the next hour I pushed myself to the limits doing squats, jumps, sucide sprints, push ups, and body planks.  When people in the class got discouraged Amy would yell "Don't tell yourself to give up, tell yourself you can do it!"  Maybe, I thought, this is the type of attitude I should have for my own journey towards living a healthier lifestyle?   Instead of getting discouraged by the numbers on the scale, perhaps I just needed to develop a confidence in my own abilties to achieve my health goals. 

It was then I realized that I am not doing this for the numbers on the scale.  I am doing this to so that I can feel energized and at peace with my mind, body, and soul.  The scale may not have shown the hard work I've put into this journey.  But that doesn't mean what I have done thus far will go to waste. 


As I left the class I felt rejeuvenated and ready to continue my journey.  Screw the scale.  I just finished a hard workout class and I feel great.  Yes, I feel great.  And that my friends is more important than any number a scale can give you. 

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