Note: I revised this piece to provide a little more context to the graph below.
The timing of this post — landing on Valentine’s (or Galentine’s) Day — may feel a little weird. It’s not about burning off chocolate calories. It’s really about extending love to yourself by cultivating your capacity to go with the flow of life.
Before I say anything else, I want to make clear that I don’t have a “weight problem.” I hesitated to share this story because I worried that people would think, “You don’t get it. You shouldn’t be writing about this because you can’t understand my situation.”
Again, this post is not about weight loss. It’s about resistance. Specifically, it’s about noticing the presence of resistance — the feeling of push back against what’s happening in the present moment — and using it as a learning and mindfulness practice-deepening opportunity.
So I’ve decided to simply acknowledge the “you don’t have a weight problem, so you shouldn’t write about this” thought and let it go.
Here’s what’s real and true for me:
- I will turn 57 in a couple of months; my metabolism and body have changed (normal).
- I ate a lot of comfort food in 2020 — triggers being the pandemic, political turmoil, and related uncertainties.
- My exercise habits have shifted — less running (which had been my morning routine for several years after my cancer recovery a decade ago) and a little less fitness class frequency as work has ramped up along the way.
- My food choices are healthy, but I was doing a lot of mindless snacking.
- The story in my head was that healthy food choices meant portion size didn’t matter.
- My clothes had become uncomfortably tight — yes, even the yoga pants.
My Chosen Kick in the (Tight) Pants
My wishy washy intentions to “eat more mindfully” weren’t translating into real change. I realized I needed a little extra help with my reboot, so I downloaded a health and weight loss app that integrates the latest nutrition research with mindfulness and behavioral psychology lessons and tips.
In mindfulness practice we talk about bringing a “Beginner’s Mind” to our meditation each day. I committed to bring that same curiosity to this process, especially since I felt I already had a strong foundation in the app’s interdisciplinary content.
The program has you log your meals, exercise, and weight. All of that was expected. What DID surprise, me, though, was that they ask you to weigh yourself every day, at least for the duration of your weight reduction period.
But wait, I thought weighing yourself every day was bad…
I had always heard that you should NOT weigh yourself every day because your weight fluctuates so much on a day-to-day basis depending on many different factors. Age, hormones, time of day, water retention, and scale inconsistencies are some of the influencers. You can make yourself crazy obsessing over the numbers (to which almost any American woman, myself included, can attest).
Healthy weight loss is about more than the number on the scale, no question about it. All of this explains why so many health programs advise to only weigh yourself once a week or even less.
But I had committed to bring my Beginner’s Mind, so I let go of the “you’re not supposed to weigh yourself every day” story. Defining this project as a short-term experiment, I showed up for the work, stepping on the scale at roughly the same time every day for the past 42 mornings (thank you, covid, for the perfect shelter-at-home laboratory setting).
Transformative Resilience Training
The process of weighing in every day—noticing the apprehension beforehand, sensing into the physical manifestation of a positive, negative, or neutral emotional reaction depending on what number the scale settles on—has turned out to be a fascinating awareness practice. Body awareness, emotional awareness, habitual thinking awareness; greater clarity has emerged across the board.
Noting the thoughts and feelings that arise, staying curious rather than judgmental, and coming back to the reality of the present moment (“I’m healthy enough to step on this scale, which is AWESOME!”) has turned into a light hearted game, even when the number on the scale is higher than yesterday.
TRUTH: no matter how well you stick to your eating plan, the number WILL tick upward from time to time! And as in everything else in life, that number, too, is temporary.
Here’s my trajectory over the past 42 days. Nope, you don’t get the actual numbers — sorry — but they don’t matter at all here. You can see that there are almost as many weight uptick days as downward movement days.
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: In my effort to leave off my actual weight, this graph is deceptive in that it looks like I lost a whole lot of weight really quickly. Not true. The first dot on the left to the last dot on the right represents 7.2 pounds. That’s how incremental the change was over 42 days.
The full view of the journey, however, shows that the direction is in alignment with my intention. This “big picture awareness” has transformed my relationship with the scale.
Economist Framing
Falling back on my former economist wiring…
↓ resistance → ↑ resilience
I’ve noticed that, as my resistance to weighing myself has subsided, my resilience (the ability to go with the flow and stay grounded during inevitable weight fluctuations) has increased. It seems to be a direct inverse relationship.
What’s really struck me is how liberating it feels to have freed myself from false storytelling around my weight. If the number has gone up, I can immediately direct love to myself by bringing to mind my healthy intentions, listening to my inner motivational girlfriend, and noticing that my yoga pants and lycra-laced jeans aren’t stretched to full capacity any more.
We often use the analogy of meditation being like bicep curls for your brain. I do my daily “exercise” (mindfulness meditation) to strengthen my capacity for attention and awareness. Stepping on the scale shortly after meditating these past 42 days has been the “higher intensity add-on” to my practice.
I suspect I will ease off of the daily scale check when I finish my program in a few weeks. As a short-term, curiosity-driven exploration, though, I’ve found it surprisingly valuable.
Disclaimer: I am not a trained nutritionist, mental health or medical professional. Daily weight checks may not be the right recommendation for everyone.
Interested in cultivating or rebooting a daily meditation practice that supports all of your healthy intentions? My first 30-Day morning meditation course begins on Monday, February 22, at 7 am ET. Learn more, read testimonials, and register for my signature mindfulness “circuit training” program here.
