A Weight-y Subject

Dinner was a veggie-intake success: leftover quiona, spinach, yellow pepper, tomato, cauliflower and cucumber with Bragg's liquid aminos and a dollop of hummus. Also, demolished half a sweet potato with smidgen of Earth Balance, nutritional yeast Cheeze, Herbamare and organic ketchup.

Now onto a subject that is something that everyone dreads to step onto...

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There's always a lump in my throat when I'm about to step onto the scale. Questions and thoughts rush through my head and sometimes poison my outlook... How will that one number make me feel? Will a 3 digit determine my mood and how I feel about myself?

Working at gyms and wellness centers, I am surrounded by these machines. These machines that taunt me with fear. Will the number be the same? Will it have gone up or down? Am I getting fat or skinny?

While I do believe that one has to monitor their weight for their own health and well being and keeping in a healthy weight range is important, I am beginning to think that for myself personally, the scale causes a immense amount of anxiety.

So here's my goal... I will not step on a scale until I have to at a doctors office, which I anticipate to be at the beginning of August . Instead, I plan to find alternatives to monitoring my body's weight without the scale. Here's the approach I conjured:

1) How Clothes Fit : If your clothes fit the way they're supposed to than you're maintain. If your losing, they're loose and if they're tight, you're gaining. Simple enough right? We'll see.

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2) Energy Levels: The more energy you have, the more the things that you do for yourself are benefiting your body. These things include diet, exercise, sleep amounts and stress levels.

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3) Tone and Strength of your muscles: When you're nourishing your body properly and are properly active than you begin to notice how taut your muscles are and how much easier daily tasks are.

4) Find a Balance: This is something I really struggle with. It's finding your own personal happy medium. People often take on the all or nothing attitude towards their health. Either they're going all out exercising for a certain amount a day, eating salads and protein shakes and balancing their cheque books to a tee or they're  sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and maxing on their credit cards on Ebay. I think the important part of finding a balance is finding out what your body needs as far as exercise, sleep, diet, rest etc and also figuring out the emotions that trigger the actions that hurt our bodies. And allowing ourselves some leeway, so we're not living our life full of anxiety that we're going to screw up our health by eating chocolate (which by the way, is NECESSARY to be healthy and happy, I believe). 

5) Self Confidence and Happiness: Learning to acceptt love myself at any weight. This is something that is easier said than done that's for sure. But this I know, when you love yourself, you're truly happy. However, when you're comparing and putting yourself down, nothing is ever good enough and you're making it impossible to be fully happy in life.

Here's a quote that I recently saw on my friend Jordan's facebook status and I think its' quite appropriate:

The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."-Sex and the City

That's what I've come up with so far, any advice is greatly appreciated! Have a great night!

What are some approaches you take to maintain/enhance your health without stepping on a scale?