Do You Have a Love/Hate Relationship with your Scale?

Hi, it's Jennifer Dent, your health and success coach here, and I, um, have a quick little message for you about your scale and do you have a love-hate relationship with your scale. But first of all, I want to explain a little bit about myself and who I am and what I do. I am a health and success coach for women who are tired of dieting, tired of being on the diet roller coaster, tired of trying things that don't work. I am a certified holistic health coach and a certified transformational coach. So it's not just what you're putting into your mouth that is the reason why you are keeping the weight on, but it is how you're living your life. And as a holistic health coach, we can look at all of those areas. So today I want to talk to you about your scale and your relationship with your scale. So, some people love to get on the scale every day, and depending on who you ask, what expert you ask, they say, "Oh, I get on the scale twice a day, once in the morning and once at night," or, "Three times a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once at night." It varies, and you have other people who say, "I never get on the scale. I don't even own a scale. Why would I need to get on the scale? I just go by how I feel and how I look." So, I'm in the middle, right? I am in the middle of the belief of, using a scale. And I have a very long-sorted history with the relationship with the scale as well. So this is why I am sharing this information with you today. And maybe you can resonate. So, excuse me, in the past I have always, always, always been addicted to my scale. Hey Rosetta, thanks for joining. One of the problems I had with my scale is that I let it dictate my attitude for the day. So in the morning I would get up and hop on the scale and look at that number, and if the number didn't reflect what I thought it should be or what I wanted it to be, then I would just be in a foul mood the rest of the day. And actually, that kills your motivation, and it totally killed mine. So I'm glad you agree. Um, that was my previous relationship with the scale. Now that I have grown and evolved and I have gotten my dieting urges under control and I don't diet anymore, I have a much better relationship with the scale. Um, one, I do go by my photos and how I look and how I feel, which is awesome, but I also realize that I love the data, right? I love the data of seeing the number. I love, um, seeing the body fat percentage, whatever that is. So I actually like getting on the scale now. But I don't let the number on the scale dictate how I'm going to feel the rest of the day. To me, it is just information. It's just data. It is what it is. It has no control over my emotions. It has no control over what I do for the rest of the day. It is like, "Oh, okay, so the number's up a little bit, so maybe I will not eat carbs today, or maybe I'll increase my water intake." Or maybe I will, you know, throw in an extra 30 minutes on the treadmill, or, you know, whatever, lift some more weights. It just gives me information to make the next logical step in my healthy journey. So when you're looking at your scale, if you are a person who lets that number dictate your emotions, if you're a person who lets that number, um, tell you whether you're gonna have a good day or not, whether if that number sends you off of the wagon and like into a bowl of M&Ms. If you're that person and you can't deal with the number, don't get on the scale. Actually, I would suggest getting off of the scale, throwing the scale away. There was one woman in the group, she had an issue like every week she was very disappointed because she was trying to lose like 5 pounds or something and the scale was not moving and she was just like devastated, and I was like, whoa, okay, back up. I think you need to get rid of your scale. It's not serving you in any way. It's not helping you in any way. It's just putting you in a really bad mood, in a bad place. So she did get rid of the scale. Now, um, the other point I wanted to mention is that I have a client that I'm working with, and we actually did a livestream video Um, you can look for that on this page. Her name is Naisha, Dr. Naisha Harris-Cherry, and she does not use a scale at all. She's like, I'm finished counting, I'm finished with counting calories and points and all this stuff. She's like, I don't get on the scale because I know it makes me feel terrible. So she is losing weight intuitively. She is watching the amount of sugar she consumes, and she is losing the weight. And the reason why she knows she's losing the weight is because her family, her husband, her grandmother, her sisters are all like, "You look like you're losing weight." When I coach with her, we coach virtually via video. I can look and see her face is a lot thinner. And she's like, "Yeah, I think I am losing weight." And she can tell when she's in yoga class, you know, her clothes fit differently, her poses are different. And for her, that is a good gauge of where she is with her weight. So, are you in Camp A, where you hate your scale, but you're addicted to getting on it because you just need to see a number, right? You need to see that number. Or are you like, "Eh, I don't really need a scale, like, I'm cool, I look at myself in other ways." Find out what works best for you, alright? Find out what works best for you. I, over time, found out what works best for me. Um, I had a scale back in the day. In fact, I had a really expensive scale. Oh my goodness, I spent so much money on scales. It had like, it showed your weight, it showed your muscular, muscular skeletal number, um, it showed your body fat. It had two body fat connectors. It had that one through your feet and the one on your hands. It showed how much, um, water was in your body. Like, it showed everything. and I hated it because it still didn't give me the number that I wanted. So when I was able to release the, uh, dependency of the scale telling me whether I was healthy or not, then I can get on the scale now with no problem. Like, pfft, no big deal. It's just information. It's just data. It is what it is. It helps me make a decision about what I need to do going forward, but you know, I like to get on the scale when I come back from vacation. Because I know the number's gonna be up, but I just wanna confirm that. Like, okay, number is up this much, all right, cool. So what are we gonna do now, Jennifer? What are we gonna do to get that number back down? And I know exactly what my body responds to. I know exactly what to do. And that is the joy of having a good relationship with your scale. So that's it, that's all I had to say about the scale. If you are, interested in— oh, almost forgot. Um, if you're interested, I mentioned my previous client Naisha is doing nothing but tracking her sugar grams and she's losing weight while she's doing some other things. She's working with me for one, but, um, she's— the only thing she's tracking— she's not getting on the scale, she's not tracking calories, she's not tracking points because she's a Weight Watchers dropout. Um, she's only tracking her sugar grams. And so I realized that a lot of us, especially women, it is so easy to consume 70, 80, 100 grams of sugar a day just by eating quote-unquote healthy foods. Um, in fact, I'll tell you a quick little story. I shared with this in my free accountability group, but I was in Target yesterday and I'm always on the hunt for like healthy nutritious bars I can keep in my purse or keep in the car. And Cliff— the Cliff Company— nice. Love Clif Bars. Like, that was my jam. Love, love, love Clif Bars. They have a new one out called— I stopped eating them because they have so much sugar in them. They're like candy bars, and they're really made for— and actually, if you ever hear an interview by the owner of the company, he's like a distance cycler. So somebody who rides 100 miles at a time on a bike, they need a lot of carbohydrates, a lot of sugar, and a lot of energy to keep those glucose levels levels up and to keep on going. But for the average woman who sits at a computer all day and does a little bit of walking and some exercising, you don't need to have those tasty Clif Bars and all that sugar and carbs on a regular basis. So anyway, back to the Clif Bar. They have a new brand out, it's like Clif Protein or whatever. So I'm all about, you know, protein snacks. Low-carbohydrate, high-protein snacks. Pick up the box, look at— and I took a picture of it and put it in the group— and looked at the label. 24 grams of sugar per bar. Now that is more sugar than I think a Snickers bar has, like 22 grams of sugar. That's ridiculous, right? Ridiculous. But for the average person who's like, oh, it's high in protein and it looks healthy and it's from the Cliff Company, you think that is something you need to eat. Nun, nun, nun. So I realize that a lot of us eat a lot of sugar, and one of the things that helped, really helped me release the weight a couple of years ago was really tracking my sugar grams and getting very consistent with my workouts and doing strength training. So I created this quiz. It's a 2-minute quiz. Actually, it probably will take you less than 2 minutes. I call it the Sugar Quiz. You can take it to see where you are with your sugar consumption. You will get a sugar score at the end, and I give you instructions on what you should do based on your sugar score. Um, so I will post that link. Actually, I think you can go to bit.ly.com/jennifer— or /jenniferdent-sugar-quiz, or quiz. I can't think of it off the top of my head, but anyway, I'll post it below. You can check it out. It is open and running for business. So I hope you enjoyed this message about your scale. If you— if it resonated with you, if you feel like you're going to make some changes, you're going to get rid of your scale, or you're going to look at it more objectively of just data, it's just a number, let me know. I would love to hear, um, what your thoughts are. Alrighty, I'm out. Deuces. Have a luxe day.