Ditch the Scale – 3 Mental Exercises to Better Achieve A Healthy Body

Photo Credit: Dr. John Berardi

The scale is one of the WORST ways to measure progress and celebrate success when it comes to changing eating habits and improving body composition. Please do yourself a favour and ditch the scale as the be-all-and-end-all to “weight loss” or the sole definition of “success” – you’ll be much healthier and happier as a result!

If you’re having one of those days where you feel stuck or discouraged, instead of letting your mood turn sour and resorting to self-criticism, anger, and frustration as many people can relate when using the scale to track “progress”, turn things around by taking 5-10 minutes to really invest in some positive visualization and re-set your mindset and focus so that your thoughts can serve and help you, not hurt you or your long-term goals.

3 MENTAL EXERCISES TO BETTER ACHIEVE A HEALTHY BODY, MIND, AND SOUL: 

EXERCISE 1: Visualize the best version of yourself – the version you aspire to be. 

-What do you look like?
-How do you act?
-What are your values?
-How do you live your life day-to-day?
-How does this version of you eat?
-How does this version of you exercise?
-How does this version of you speak (to yourself, and others)?
-Truly picture this person you want to become, and all of the good qualities you hope to have, and form a clear picture in your mind’s eye.

EXERCISE 2: Ask yourself WHY? 

-Why is it important for you to become this person?
-Why did you feel ready to make a change in your life to work towards better health and self-improvement?
-Why is it still worth your time and effort to try and become this person? (even with some setbacks that may pop up from time-to-time)

EXERCISE 3: How are you going to define progress and measure success? 

-For the person you visualized above, how does he or she define self-improvement and “making progress”?
-Does that best version of you really only care about losing weight on the scale?
-Does the quality of your meals come into consideration?
-What about the change in how much food prep you do or how many more home-prepared meals you now have, does that matter?
-What about how you feel – your energy level, your mood, how you feel day-to-day?
-What about how you treat yourself and your internal self-talk, is that important?
-What about squashing out bad habits, such as snacking while making meals, inhaling food in private after work, not making time to pack a lunch, or eating out and drinking too much alcohol on the weekends?
-What about exercise (consistency, frequency, what your body is now capable of doing), is that a consideration that’s worth factoring into how you measure success?
-And what about how your clothes fit and how your body has started to change and show more muscle definition?
-Once again, how does the future healthy best version of you define success?
-Is he or she truly so hung up on the scale that it is the only thing that matters, or is a richer, deeper picture of what success looks like starting to form in your mind?