As I was unpacking I pulled out my scale and thought, “Do I even keep this?”
The last time I weighed myself was around Christmas. We had just begun another stay-at-home order here in Ontario and the food and booze were flowing. My clothes were feeling tight and I figured if I weighed myself I could shock myself into cleaning up my act and lose a few pounds. I hadn’t weighed myself since almost a year before and had mostly forgotten why I had stopped.
I had stopped weighing myself because I had realized that as soon as I take away the weight-loss goal and make it about achieving more strength, better gut health or generally feeling good everything falls into place where it’s supposed to.
Knowing the number was a slippery slope for me and even worse, repeatedly checking on that number. The reason is it would create this stressful yo-yo lifestyle that was so unhealthy.
If the number went up, I’d deprive myself. If the number went down I’d gorge and set off a SIBO flare up.
I’d completely stress about the natural changes my body goes through every month and every year.
What works for me is checking in with how I feel. Do I feel tired, weak, stiff? How is my gut? Am I bloated? How do my clothes feel on my body? How is my skin doing? Do I feel foggy, depressed or anxious? How is my stress level?
Once I have done a scan of my body and really have a sense of how I am feeling then I adjust accordingly. What I adjust is not always the same. Sometimes it means more smaller meals with extra vegetables. Other times because of my SIBO it can mean that I have to reduce my vegetables, fruits, sauces and animal protein for a little while to get out of a flare up and reintroduce them in small portions.
Sometimes it can mean I need to overhaul my schedule and really carve out time for daily exercise which for me is typically a little cardio and a fair bit of strength training with weights.
Lastly is my sleep. My sweet spot is falling asleep by 10pm and waking up at 5:30am. If I do that consistently then I am firing at all cylinders.
Ben and I are pretty similar when it comes to this approach. He called it his three pillars: healthy eating habits, daily exercise and good sleeping habits. I love that way of looking at it so I am going to steal it.
The couple weeks leading up to my move and right after I was a mess. I was eating whatever I could grab, which often meant leftovers on my kids’ plates, I was not exercising at all and I had the worse case of insomnia.
But I was easy on myself knowing that what I was doing was nearly impossible and I just had to survive it… moving four kids during a pandemic who weren’t in school as a solo parent to a new house and city. Phew!
But… I friggin’ did it!!! Whoop Whoop!
About a week after my move I was feeling it. All my clothes were tight, I was trying to sleep better but it was still spotty, and I had set off a pretty bad SIBO flare up. It was time to piece back together my three pillars.
As I unpacked I pulled out my scale. Weighing myself didn’t even cross my mind. No way was I falling into that trap again. I almost tossed it but remembered I may have to weigh my kids fromm time to time so I have slid it way under my closet built-it.
In the meantime I will be protecting my three pillars and making sure I don’t take life too seriously (I am shoving my face full of Lucky Charms as I write this… just keepin’ in real).
Good bye scale!
From close to my weight-loss goal (left) through gaining seven pounds (center) to losing six pounds.
That smile on my face is very fake. If you ever see that smile, you know I am fake smiling at you. 