garagegym107

No, not fish scales.  Weight scales.

I work with so many women regarding weight-loss and fitness.  I’ve talked about scale weight before and how it fits in the big scheme of things.

If I could somehow be Glenda the Good Witch for just one day, I swear I’d love to banish all scales from the land! 

Have I ever told you guys the story of going to our company “health-fair”?  I consider myself pretty fit in the big scheme of averages so the health fair didn’t deter me.  They checked both my good and bad cholesterol and both were impeccable.  My blood pressure was also in the very good category. 

So off I go the new super-duper body mass index machine.  To use the machine you must be in your sock feet.  I took off my shoes and when it was my turn, I jumped up on that bad boy only to receive this little ticker tape print out showing that I was by American standards “obese”.  I literally laughed out loud. 

One of the guys I workout with was right behind me.  He 26 years old, six feet tall and has six-pack abs.  Yes, I saw them during a workout class.   You know what?  His BMI put him in the obese category as well.  I was already skeptical about our BMI standards anyway, but that pushed it over the top.  The number one reason is that the technician never bothered to ask either of us if we work out on a regular basis.  There is a different selection for athletes.  Either way bad data.

Anyway, back to where I was going with all of this.  Data is just data.  It’s not a sign of success or failure, it’s a number.  It is what we do with that number that matters. 

If you struggle with getting on the scale to gather data then it’s time to ask yourself  “why does this number matter so much to me?”.

What should really matter to you is if you are doing better today than you did yesterday.  If you strive every single day to be a better person, whether it’s in your workouts, your finances, your savings, keeping your kids clothes clean and helping someone else out in some small way.  You are moving forward.

Progress isn’t about what’s happening on the outside.  It’s about what’s happening on the inside.  When you figure out why you wrap success or failure around a number, changes begin to happen.  You stop paying so much attention to the scale and to your appearance and start focusing on your workouts, how consistent you are, and if you are doing them correctly from a technical standpoint.  Suddenly your body image starts to improve as does your ability.

One of the most refreshing things I’ve read lately was Lifting My Spirits about page and reading that she went on stage to compete in her first bodybuilding show without even caring what her BF% was.  She just new by looking in the mirror and by doing the right things with her workouts and food that results were there.  And that’s how this should be.

Do the right things and results will come.