As a kid you worry about monsters under your bed…
As an adult you worry about the monster in the bathroom…
That digital platform of death…where your self worth is bound to implode…
Gravity…such a prick.
You see how ridiculous this sounds, right?
You’re letting a $20 device you got off amazon consume all your mental energy.
Ridiculous…but relatable.
When I was in high school, I had the a terrible form of scale anxiety.
As a wrestler, it was crucial to know what my weight was daily…but I took it to an unhealthy level. I would weigh myself no less than 20x a day.
In the morning…in the evening…after every meal…after every bottle of water…after every bathroom trip.
The scale legitimately consumed my life.
And whenever I saw a spike that I deemed “too big, I’d throw on my workout clothes to go sweat it off.
My excuse was always “I’m just disciplined for wrestling”.
Then my wrestling career ended and the need to “make weight” along with it…but my anxiety around the scale stayed.
Somewhere along the way I had tied my self worth to the number I saw on the scale. If I woke up heavy…I was a failure. If I woke up light…I was a success.
I knew it was an extremely unhealthy mindset to have…so I started working to change it.
The first thing I did was only let myself weigh 1x per day. Wake up, go to the bathroom, and step on the scale.
Once I weighed, I put the scale under my bed…yes…under my bed.
I didn’t want to see it every time I went to the bathroom and feel tempted to do a midday “check”.
Next, I only compared weekly averages to each other.
Yesterday’s weight compared to today was irrelevant. There are sooooooo many factors that play a roll in my daily weight…
how hard I trained the day before
how much sodium I consumed the day before
how I slept
how stressed I was
+ 100 others.
At the end of the week I’d average my weight then compare it to last weeks. This gave me a clearer picture on what my weight was ACTUALLY doing.
The other benefit of calculating the average…was it helped me start viewing my weight as data.
Might sound silly, but the “calculation” part was key…now I was just back in 3rd great math, calculating the average
of a sequence of numbers.
To take the data analysis one step further, at the end of the week I’d look back on days that my weight was higher and try to explain it…
“Oh I had a hard leg day on Wednesday and Thursday my weight spiked up…”
“My weight spiked on Saturday after going to bed super late on Friday…”
My weight was now just an interesting piece of my health journey…and no longer something that controlled my emotions.
So if you’re someone who struggles with the scale…I know you might think avoidance is the best answer…
But facing your fear head on will give you your power back.
The more data you have, the clearer picture you see, and the less emotion you’ll feel when stepping on the scale.
I won’t lie and pretend it was easy to break this mindset around the scale.
Just like anything, it’ll take time.
But it is 100% possible…and I have full belief you can do it too.
If you need help or have any questions, feel free to reach out (can text me using the button below)
have the best day ever,
Mike