Scale Hoppers Anonymous, Anyone?

Hi, my name is Heather and I am a scale-aholic. I admit it, I am. I weigh myself every morning. I get up, use the bathroom, strip down for the shower and weigh myself. The timing has to be just that because any "water" that was in my system from the night is now in our plumbing system, and I haven't gotten into the shower yet so no chance of water weight from wet hair or skin. Crazy, I know, but that's my routine.

I know that my weight can fluctuate greatly from day to day with the overall number still coming down, but I still weigh myself. Every. Single. Day. Before TCII, it would almost always backfire on me. If I saw a good number on the scale, then I would end up telling myself, "Heather, you're doing great. The scale was down this morning, go ahead and have that cookie." Or if it were up, then my inner voice is saying, "You screwed up again, you obviously can't even maintain so how are you ever going to LOSE. Go ahead, have that cookie, it doesn't matter anyway." See what I mean?

The other thing scale hopping did was had me way to focused on the number on the dial. And I know this sounds way cheesy, but that number on the scale is really just that...a number! I know that. I know that if I weighed 200 lbs, but still felt great and looked good and my clothes fit, who cares what my actual weight is???

This last point was driven home recently by our dexascan. This is a scan of your entire body that gives you your percent body fat, amount of muscle, etc. It was part of the TCII and I was really excited to see my results. Well, they were better than I expected. Yes, I have a high body fat number, no surprise there. What I was surprised by was my lean muscle mass. According to the scan, I have 117 lbs of lean muscle mass. That's not counting the other organs and tissues and such in my body. That's a LOT of muscle! LOL When I was in college I was 120 lbs, but all I ever did was run, I never did any strength training. So yes, I was trim, but I wasn't really strong or fit. Sadly enough for any of you college students out there, starving yourself so you have more beer money for the weeekend and running your butt off between parties to burn off the beer calories probably doesn't count as being fit. Sorry, don't shoot the messenger.

In any event, what does that scan mean? That scan means that I will likely never get even CLOSE to 120 again unless I lose some serious muscle mass. And I'm okay with that. I have to adjust my expectations of what being healthy means. That doesn't mean I can't be a size 7 again. I'm just going to be a much more toned size 7.

The good news is that since starting TCII, my need to find the nearest Scale Hoppers Anonymous meeting has been greatly diminished. Now, that's probably because I am showering 4-5 mornings a week at the gym and don't have access to my scale at home. But my goal this week is not to step on that scale at home (or at the gym) until my next weigh in on Thursday. Not even once. I am going to work my tail off and hope for a good number and hopefully be surprised with a great number. It's an experiment. All in the name of science, y'all. :) Wish me luck and I challenge you to do the same and see how you do on your diet and exercise routine this week.