As many of you may have noticed, I took the scale out of the gym last week.
Removing the scale was kind, as what I really want to do is take a sledge hammer to it.
It's not really the scale's fault, but for many of us, it's so much more than a number. It's the judge and jury that sentences our mindset for the rest of the day, sometimes longer.
While removing the scale was 95% about helping our clients stay in a positive mindset when they come in to workout, if I’m being totally honest, it was also about keeping me in a positive mindset.
Though I discourage clients from using the scale as progress, I don’t always practice what I preach. Partly because every time I go in to pee, I’m just sitting there staring at the scale and can’t resist the urge to get on it.
I think that's the case for many of our clients. It's a temptation.
It’s there, we're curious, we get on it, and that number, whether good or bad in our eyes, shakes up our day. Even though we know that something as small as the amount of sodium we consumed the day before could alter the number by several pounds.
I took the scale out Tuesday morning, and on Tuesday night, I got an interesting text from one of our clients:
“So you took the scale out of the bathroom and about half way through my workout, when I pointed at you, is when I realized you had derailed my usual inner monologue. Instead of demeaning myself during my workout because once again I did not lose 10 pounds since I stepped on the scale the day before my, head was clearer. I also noticed I felt more positive in what I was doing.”
That’s some pretty good self-awareness on her part, but I think sometimes we don’t even realize the kind of inner dialogue that creeps up on us when we do get on the scale.
I’ve written about the scale before, and how it sucks as a way to measure progress. Muscle weighs more than fat, so as you build muscle and lose fat you may even see your weight go up depending on where you start.
We talk all the time about finding other ways to measure progress. Use performance, nailing a chin up, deadlifting your bodyweight; or find an old pair of pants that used to fit and put those on every few weeks.
*We still have a scale. It's just in a secret location.