How The Bathroom Scale Became Our Altar, With Prayer Required Daily
Why do we battle an unhealthy obsession with the number on the scale?
Takeaway: Part of the process is learning how to dissociate your self-worth from your bodyweight so that it’s no longer a driving force of your identity.
New readers: Don’t miss out on new content. Subscribe now.
How The Bathroom Scale Became Our Altar, With Prayer Required Daily
How did this simple number grow to carry such immense weight and power? (Pun intended.)
Many of us have grown to equate our bodyweight (or ideal bodyweight) with a particular feeling.
If you weigh a certain amount you’ll look a certain way. If you reach this number on the scale you will feel a certain way about yourself. Since it’s these feelings you’re after, you chase the almighty scale number like some deity promising you immortality.
The problem is that you either:
→ Reach this goal and don’t feel the way you expect.
→ Reach the feeling but haven’t met your goal weight yet.
Either way, there is confusion and frustration.
In the first case, you think your original ideal bodyweight might not have been enough. You need to get leaner and leaner until you achieve the feeling, leading to obsessive and unhealthy practices.
In the second case, you feel like you’ve fallen short of your goal. You feel good about yourself and where you’re at, but something about those elusive few extra pounds gnaws at your accomplishments.
"Ideal bodyweight” is more of a range than a hard target.
That's why it's important to focus on other, non-scale victories too. Your clothes can fit better, you can have more energy, you can be in less pain, and all this can occur without any change on the scale.
The reality is that weight is a guiding metric of progress for many. Weight won’t go away as a major data point or as a symbol of success, at least in the beginning.
The best part of the transformation is learning how to dissociate your self-worth from your bodyweight so that it’s no longer a driving force of your identity.
To your non-scale victories,
~ Coach Alex
I agree. Thank you, Coach Alex.