12 Weeks Out: Stupid Scale

The scale and I have gone way back. Sad times, happy times and plenty of angry times.

We've been together through thick and thin....literally.

You always hear people say that the scale doesn't matter and how you feel is what's important...blah blah blah. Yeah, okay.Tell that to my driver's license. IT doesn't ask me how I feel. It only asks how much I weigh.

I spent years glued to the scale. Watching that number and waiting for it to tell me I'm "skinny". 

It wasn't until I truly learned about health and fitness that I realized a couple of things. 

1. I don't want to be "skinny".

2. The the scale isn't everything. 

I mean sure...if you eat cookies and pizza every day and the scale keeps going up....it's probably not muscle. But, if you are strength training and eating clean and the scale isn't saying what you want it to say, chances are you are probably still doing something right. And that is when you need to step off the scale and actually take a look at yourself. How do your clothes fit? How do you actually FEEL?

I had to re-learn this lesson myself over the past few months. When I started this bikini process in October, the goal was for me to lose some fat but to also put on muscle. 

So I stepped on the scale and took some "before photos". Boy was I not happy.

But, I needed to document my weight so that I had a starting point. It is what it is.

Since October, I have fallen into the same trap I have fallen into before and that many people fall into all the time. I was following my coaches rules with my eating and working out, but the scale wasn't really moving. Some weeks I would lose a pound or two, other weeks I would gain it back and some weeks no change at all. 

It was frustrating. When you are passing on restaurants and happy hours, you want the pounds to immediately fly off the scale! 

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. 

So let's fast forward to this last weekend. I did my weekly weigh-in and I was discouraged. Slightly heavier than last week. Ugh. 

I sent my progress photos to my coach and to my absolute DELIGHT, he told me that I am "right on schedule" and to "keep it up". What a relief!

So, I decided to pull up my photos from October to compare them to my photos now to see if there's a change. Keep in mind, I currently weigh 2 pounds more than I did in October....but see for yourself why that doesn't matter.

Am I "stage ready"? Absolutely not. I definitely have a ways to go. 

But my point is that I have significantly changed in appearance even though that stupid scale was telling me something else.

I'm not here to tell you to throw out your scale. It can be a useful tool to aid in your weight loss goals. But I am telling you to also take photos, measurements or even get a body scan periodically to see where your body fat percentage is. You need to give yourself the whole picture before you go determining your worth based on a silly number. 

Ok, that's all I have for now! I hope you all had a fabulous Valentine's Day weekend filled with lots of heart shaped things!