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Last updated on June 17th, 2024 at 08:56 pm
When you think about your health do you find yourself measuring your health by the scale? What about those non-scale victories that leave you feeling fabulous in your body but are all too often ignored?
Celebrating non-scale victories can be a great way to:
- Respect your body
- Keep up healthy habits
- Help you properly nourish your body
- Get rid of negative thoughts about body size
- Break up with food restriction
- Stop compulsive exercise
If you are tying any or all of your achievements to what the number looks like on the scale you will always be disappointed.
This article will help you recognize non-scale victories and celebrate victories without disrupting your relationship with food.
Why You Shouldn’t Use The Scale To Measure Your Health
The scale really can’t measure anything about your health. The only thing it can really measure is the mass your body has on planet earth.
Does body mass equate to superior health? Absolutely not.
Weight is often used to determine BMI, a metric that for over a century has been used in an attempt to predict health outcomes.
However, BMI is a faulty predictor of future health and even current health.
Weight sucks at measuring health because:
- Scales can’t tell you anything about your energy levels
- Weight tells you nothing about your lab values
- Scales can miss nutrition deficiencies and irregular meal patterns
- Lower weights and BMIs do not equal better health
Let’s dig into some ways to glorify the habits that make us feel good without relying on the scale.
What Are Some Examples Of Non-Scale Victories
You’re Really Tuned Into When You Are Hungry And Full
Let’s face it, Hunger and fullness can feel overwhelming when you are bombarded with messages about:
- When you should eat
- How much you should eat
- What counts as hungry or full
- How our eating compare to what someone else is eating
This is all just a lot of noise you don’t need. Feeling confident you can start eating when you’re hungry and stop eating when you are full is real freedom and an often overlooked non-scale victory.
You Don’t Feel Like Food Is Something You Have To Earn
Food is here to nourish your body, not earn. Food victory can be something as simple as:
- Not feeling obligated to hit the gym after a dessert
- Not feeling like you have to restrict all day to go out to a nice dinner
- You don’t feel like you need to restrict yourself after you eat a little too much
This freedom is often what we’re searching for when we try to shrink the number on the scale. However, you can actually have this freedom right now if you break up with the mental food restrictions holding you hostage.
You’re not binge-eating
Binge eating is often defined by:
- Eating large amounts of food in a small amount of time
- Feeling an urgency to eat rapidly
- Feeling out of control with food
- Feeling guilty after a binge
Binging is often the result of food restriction (aka dieting). It can leave people feeling out of control, worthless, anxious, and depressed. The most common type of binge is a sugar binge, as this is often the food that is off limits.
Creating an intuitive relationship with food is a huge non-scale victory and can help you on your way to becoming binge-free.
It’s important to remember that binge eating can be a sign of an eating disorder. If you feel you have an eating disorder, seek the support of a provider trained in treating eating disorders.
Don’t forget that eating past fullness doesn’t always mean binging, and it can be an important way to honor your hunger.
You’re Meals And Snacks Are Consistent
Consistent meals and snacks are a great way to take care of your body and emotional well-being. It’s a form of self-care, and taking care of yourself is always a win.
Keep meals and snacks consistent by:
- Meal prepping
- Preparing meals and snacks that are emotionally and physically satisfying
- Nourishing the body with a variety of foods
Consistent meals and snacks don’t necessarily mean “ eating by the clock” but rather going no more than about 4-5 hours between meals and snacks.
This helps to regulate appropriate hunger and fullness hormones and will help you not feel anxiety around a meal.
You’re Getting A Variety Of Foods In Each Day
A great non-scale victory includes getting a variety of foods each day. This includes foods such as:
- Pasta, Bread, Cereals, Oats
- Meats, cheeses, dairy
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Seeds, nuts
- Beans, legumes
- Sweets, desserts
A variety of foods helps your body to get all the macro and micronutrients it needs. Making sure you get in your nutrient needs is far more important for determining overall health than weight.
Food variety also helps to keep you emotionally satisfied. It also kicks the routine of the “cheat day” followed by fasting.
You Don’t Have Rules About Food
If you feel perfectly comfortable keeping all types of foods in the house and eating all food types on a regular basis then this is a food victory that has nothing to do with the scale.
What this can look like is:
- You don’t have fear foods that you actively try to avoid
- You let your body decide what types of foods and how much to have
- You don’t compare what you’re eating to what others are eating
- It’s easy to eat normally at social events and holidays
Challenge the food police and tune into your own intuition when it comes to choosing what to eat!
Your Energy Levels Are High
Food is literally the energy that fuels our bodies. So the restriction of food will leave us feeling low and sluggish. You will know when your energy levels are on par because:
- You won’t have extreme lows and highs in energy throughout the day
- Your mood will improve
- You won’t need to rely on caffeinated beverages
Feeling good is really what we all strive for. You can physically improve the way we feel and our energy levels without ever changing our weight on the scale.
Why Are Non-Scale Victories Important
All too often diet culture tells us that our self-worth is attached to a number on the scale. But let’s face it, dieting sucks. You might feel like you hate your body and the only way to love it is to shrink it.
Diet culture lies and tells us that lower body weights will give us:
- Positive body image
- Bodies that don’t have to constantly worry about what they eat
- Freedom
- Better nutrition
- Better fitness
However, it’s really quite the opposite. You can actually have all of those things right now if you simply ditch the scale as a measure of success.
Nourish your body in a way that helps you show up with your talents, accomplishments, desires, and passions, not simply an overwhelming desire to take up less space in the world.
Instead of “What number do I want to be” ask yourself “Who is the person am striving to become by trying to shrink my body?”
Then seek to become that person right now!
How Should I Reward Non-Scale Wins
It’s really easy to take what goes well in our health for granted and look for the next problem to fix. Don’t do that! It will leave you continuously dissatisfied with your food choices, your body, and many other lifestyle factors.
Instead, celebrate your health victories!
Here are some strategies to help you acknowledge your non-scale wins:
- Journal about how your body is feeling
- Take yourself on a trip
- Book a massage
- Write positive body messages in spaces around your house/office
- Take yourself out to a nice meal (or enjoy with a friend/family)
- Take yourself to a movie
- Buy an outfit you love that fits the boy you’re in
- Go to the zoo, mall, beach, hiking and practice being mindful of your energy levels
- Write yourself a thank you letter
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