March Week 2: 5 Steps to Weigh Yourself

According to the National Weight Registry, most Weight Masters weigh themselves at least once a week while reducing their weight. Now, I know our relationship to that cold slab of metal can be fraught with emotions both high and low when we are stuck in “Fat Thinking”:

• Weighing myself depresses me
• I like going by my clothes
• The scale never changes so why do I even bother?

For years you have been weighing yourself as a dieter and now I want to show you how to weigh yourself powerfully - as  a weight master.  When we use the synergy of our mind, the physics of weight release, along with the environmental measuring device - our weight scale - it removes us from the emotional roller coaster and keeps us focused on facts.  The difference is not on the scale, it’s in your head.

JULIE THE SCALE WEIGHT WATCHER

I want to introduce you to Julie, who came to see me wanting to release a pound a week for a year. That was her goal, simple right? Here was her challenge: every time she went on a diet she lost weight up front in the first few weeks and then stopped losing. The scale literally didn’t budge - just long enough for her to lose interest, get frustrated and give up. Have you been there too? Let’s look at a typical Julie diet/fat thinking/ scale episode.

Okay, Julie’s goal is to lose a pound a week for a year. Her calorie budget to lose a pound per week (remember this is 3500 calories of energy) is about 1400 calories. Her record keeping shows she is on track for week one, things are looking good. Julie gets on her scale and the scale says she is down 4 pounds. Julie of course is ecstatic. All that hard work has paid off she feels great and loves her new plan - life is good!

She gets off the scale with a happy head but in cognitive error, not realizing that she is really has only burned 1 pound of fat. She has not burned 4 pounds of fat, 3 of those pounds were water weight, but her mind now thinks she has lost 4 pounds.

WATER WEIGHT

Here is a quick lesson about water weight. This learning about water weight will save you a lot of tears and cognitive error down the road on the scale.

Like Julie, many people get tripped up on the scale because of an inability to accurately understand overall weight release versus day-to-day weight release, which may vary wildly and cause all sorts of mental mind games.

When we eat more than our body needs, our body converts the food into glycogen molecules which get stored in our muscles and are bonded to water molecules. If the glycogen isn’t used up, it gets moved to our fat stores.

When we begin eating less fuel (food) than our body needs to run itself, the body quickly will pull the glycogen from the muscles to use and the water molecules get excreted from our body. This will result in water loss and not fat burning from our body.

So my client Julie, when she was dieting, was not accounting for the water weight that initially comes off during most weight release journeys. Right now, on week 1,  Julie actually owes the scale 3 pounds. Let’s move on with Julie to week 2.  In the physical universe she burns another 3500 calories but on the scale it shows another 4 pound drop. “Wow”, Julie thinks, this is amazing! I have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks!” It’s another party for Julie on the scale! Life is good for Julie - or is it?

I just see it coming - don’t you??

It’s kind of like watching a horror movie and you know before the victim that the killer is about to strike. The victim is just merrily minding their business but you know the killer is lurking and you want to shout stooooooooooooooooooop,” but it’s too late. Well the victim in this instance is Julie but the killer isn’t the scale - it’s Julie’s Fat Thinking expectations of how much weight she has released that is going to take her down.

It’s week three and Julie's walking towards her bathroom. She takes off her robe. It’s the moment of truth, Julie steps on the scale, the digital numbers do their dance and deliver the fatal blow! Zero pounds lost.

Julie minds does a dive into deep Fat Thinking.“I have lost no weight this week!? What? How can this be? I have done the exact thing I did the first 2 weeks of this stupid diet, I have deprived myself and this is what I get?”

Now Julie’s Inner Critic comes into action with the limiting beliefs, “What is wrong with me?  What did I do wrong? My body is broken. I was meant to be fat.” “Dieting is so hard”. Julies Inner Rebel steps in, “this diet sucks - lets go eat waffles and take it easy for a few days. I am sure there is the perfect diet out there for you but this one isn’t it!”

WEIGHT CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

Yup that’s right, it’s a gory bloody CSI scene of limiting beliefs and overwhelmingly dashed expectations. The DNA of Julie’s Inner Critic and Inner Rebel are all over that crime scene.

But, in powerful Thin Thinking reality, what happened on the scale was not bad or horrible. Julie has now released 3 pounds of fat having burned 3500 calories a week. Her body is, in essence, now paying back the scale. But Julie doesn’t know this because she looks only to the scale for results and not her record keeping to see that in her reality, over three weeks she will have really released three pounds, and that is fine!

USING THE INNER COACH VERSUS INNER CRITIC WHILE WEIGHING YOURSELF

If she understood what you do now, Julie would have gotten on the scale and been able to coach herself by saying, “well this makes sense, I am down eight pounds but in reality have only lost three of fat. It makes sense the scale didn’t move this week. She would then have been able to get off the scale and on with her week knowing she was still progressing forward on her plan to deficit 3500 and release one pound a week.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever dieted and gotten great release the first few weeks and then everything seems to stop? What happens? You get mad at the diet and the scale and your body but never the thought processes that got you here, vulnerable to the bad scale days.  The scale always eventually will catch up with the truth, but in its own time. That is why self monitoring is so powerful - it calms you down, it gives you the facts, it keeps you out of cognitive error.

PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE ON THE SCALE

Okay, so how do you step on the scale and stay sane?? You take off your robe and put on your imaginary lab coat and begin as a loving scientist:

1. Take a breath before you get on the scale - remind yourself you are going to still love yourself no matter what the number is.
2. Step on the scale, get the number
3. Record the number on a graph or on your Lose it or My Fitness Pal App.
4. Assess as a scientist if the number on the scale is in line with your record keeping.  If not take a moment to figure out:
   • Is your record keeping 100% accurate? (usually this is the place there is error.)
   • A weight gain could be due to other things beyond your control that usually have to do with water retention and not fat gain.
   • Sanity Tip!!! If the scale is up a pound and you did not eat in excess of your caloric needs by 3500 calories, rest assured you did not gain a pound of fat.
5. Get off the scale and get on with your life. If the scale is down you can celebrate with feeling good that you are on a powerful journey. If the scale is up, I invite you to feel just as good knowing that you are patiently on a journey of showing up for yourself and you can always rejoice in that - no matter what the number.

JULIE TOOK BACK HER POWER FROM THE SCALE

When Julie Shifted from Fat to Thin Thinking she learned that her body wasn’t broken.  In fact, she kept eating waffles once a week and a hamburger once a week and managed to stay within her 1400 calorie budget for one pound release per week.

Over the course of the year she tracked her weight release on a piece of graph paper she kept by her scale.  She would come and show me the graph as she consistently stayed within her budget for weight release.

Some months the weight went down quickly, there were other times Julie experienced as long as a 4-5 week plateau and then the weight dropped. I assured her all the while this is normal in a weight release journey. There are so many internal and external variables with water weight and the body holding on to weight that the scale won’t always show results day to day but it will trend over time.

At the end of the year, fifty-two weeks later, Julie came in with her graph paper beaming. She held it up and sure enough she was 50.8 pounds down - “the laws of physics work!” she said.

Julie had been able to revel in her weight release but really was more happy for the freedom from Fat Thinking that she found in the course of the year. Fifty pounds is nothing compared to the weight of letting go of the limiting beliefs and habits that had been keeping her from living the full and expressed life of her dreams.

I invite you to use the 5 steps above this week and really practice weighing yourself with your loving Inner Scientist and Coach with you.

Have a wonderful week.