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Here are some factors of fitness that matter beyond the weighing scale:
1. Physical:
If there is any physical activity that you are working on – lifting weights, playing a game of badminton every week, going for a run/walk every night, then the progress or scale at which you achieve more while doing these activities, is a big win. The rush of lifting something heavier than you did last week, is like no other. The happiness of not panting and being more swift after a game is tremendous. The feeling of being stronger and faster outweighs the number on the scale. Slowly, you will begin to notice these achievements are as a result of your adequate diet and the nutrition and quantity of food you fuel yourself with.
2. Health:
As someone who frequently works with women with PCOS, irregular cycles, hormonal imbalances or migraine pains, I see how frustrating it is when they try their hardest to get healthier. For a lot of them, it’s not about the number on the scale. It is about not having to deal with painful periods, feeling relief in their pain each day, being able to stick to a plan for longer without getting sick, etc. Health is greater than fitness. Improving your digestion, gut health and sleep cycles through your diet can greatly affect not just your physical but mental health too.
3. Mental health:
While mental benefits are only apparent when you are consciously focused on noticing them, this is one of the most crucial and apparent non-scale victory that goes a long way. Better mood, lift in focus at work, successfully accomplishing a lot more in the same amount of time, are all signs that when you nourish your body, your mind feels the effects. But when you starve to achieve a certain weight on the scale, you are tired, lethargic and are constantly cranky.
4. Mindset:
Progress in your mind set can spill over to other aspects. If you obsess about food and experience constant guilt over food, it is going to affect your mental health more than you realize momentarily. Focus on nutrition, improvement in your relationship with food and learning about food by eating right will actually make this a lot more sustainable for you. Changes in mindset will mostly be your slowest victory of all but it will eventually be the magic wand you were looking for all this while.
Focus on non-scale victories is more likely to keep you motivated in the long-term than checking weight every day. These are the little victories which will keep you on a sustainable plan for life.
