Love or Loathe the scales today?

This is from the page of a well known personal trainer.

As you can see, the status requires that you only give yourself approval once you’ve weighed in, and the followers go on to promote LOVE (conditional upon the scales saying something positive) or BLAME and SHAME.

It begs the question – is the Trainer responsible for writing these statuses? Or is it their social media marketing team? (probably – so then why the attraction?)

I’m not sure – but in my experience this type of negative reinforcement is not only ineffective in the long term to managing your weight, it’s also very dangerous and destructive.

Don’t get me wrong – I applaud any Trainer who is making a change in the lives of others. I think they play an incredible role in helping people lead healthier lives.

HOWEVER, as trainers (and as an ex PT myself), it is in the very essence of who you are, to strive to be the best that you can be. And also to continually educate ourselves – and here’s what I would recommend to anyone who resonates with my message or who has experienced the same up and down battle with their body confidence before.

Firstly – don’t cultivate a love / loathe relationship with the scales.

It leads to blame, shame and guilt – which is proven to produce far more fattening hormones and does more damage than consuming the food itself.

Secondly – the scales DON’T tell the absolute truth.

They are but one tiny piece of the puzzle that allows you to put together a picture of what is happening in your body. They tell you how much water is in your body (W), how much lean tissue (LT) how much useable energy is stored in your muscles (E), how much fat you have (F) and what part of the digestion process you’re in (DP) and its affected by what time of day it is (T.O.D). How late you ate your dinner the night before (D) Oh and whether or not you need to go to the loo (POO).

Okay so what the scales ACTUALLY tells you is
W+LT+E+F+DP / T.O.D x D – POO ….

And that’s apparently supposed to tell you how fat or worthy you are and whether or not you should love or loathe yourself and your efforts .

You know what I think it equals ???????…….

BULLSHIT!

Instead – throw away the scales and use a completely different way to measure your progress.

Spend every day thinking of the best version of yourself and how they would live their life.

Do things that make you truly happy and make choices that honor your body.

Seek out the right information for yourself and your set of circumstances and test and trial them out on yourself.

Exercise for performance not for appearance – or for a ridiculous number that flashes up on the screen of an inanimate object. (You know, the one you promised yourself you’d let yourself be happy once you weighed “that much”)

Surround yourself with supportive people who lift you up, not those who point the finger at you for not “being perfect”. (Who decided being perfect made you successful anyway?)

Above all, know that punishing yourself is never the way to achieving your ideal healthy body. Whoever heard of going on miserable journey battling with self-loathing and arriving at a self-loving destination?

You don’t – because that’s not the way the universe works. The journey teaches us far more important lessons than arriving at the destination does.

Live each and everyday like its the most exciting, challenging, rewarding ride and being grateful for every experience that comes your way.

THAT is the recipe to living a healthier, happier, leaner and lighter life.

Because life is too short to measure your self worth by a number on the scale.

Bianca x