Step 9: I Stopped Worshiping the Scale

I have been writing about 10 of the steps I took to go from overweight and in pain to a fit powerlifter. Today I will cover step 9, I stopped worshiping the scale. This is a very important post. We live in a society that tells women they should be bound by numbers…you should weigh this much, you should have this size waist, you should have this size chest, you should wear this size clothing….the expectations go on and on!

I allowed myself to become a victim of these ridiculous standards. I was very heavy after my last child, tipping the scales at nearly 190, so yes, I needed to loose weight. I had joined a weight loss group, and the competition was on to be the biggest looser. I went from never weighing myself because I hated looking at the number to weighing my self every day, and even to weighing myself 3 or 4 times a day. I was determined to loose the most weight in my group, and I did actually. I lost 50 pounds and yes, I won the contest.

This daily weighing became an obsession. I started doing chronic cardio, pushing myself on my elliptical every day for at least an hour. The scale became a daily part of my routine. I HAD to weigh myself daily, and I freaked out if I gained ANY weight. I started getting anxiety from it. I was 140 pounds, still not the desired weight for my 5’4″ size, which baffled me because I was wearing a size 2 in jeans. So what on earth would I look like at 130? I have no idea, a toothpick with a muffin top perhaps?

Well. Even though I was in a size 2, and pretty thin in my opinion, I was not happy with how I looked, and it seemed like I was not getting where I wanted to be with my fitness. I was skinny fat…no muscle and floppy.  SOOO I made the decision to begin weightlifting because I wanted to build muscle. This is where things got very interesting….I slowly started gaining weight….the scale just kept going up. It concerned me, but on the other hand, my body started looking better. My once non-existent butt started getting some shape, I started building traps, my muffin top started disappearing….I could actually wear jeans without overflow on the top! And I could see some biceps…..and that was kind of cool! I went from 140 to 157…and I was actually kind of proud of it! Below, in pink shirt at 140 vs. today, between 151 and 156. In pink shirt, I was size 2 and still had muffin top. Bottom pic is me showing off my new muscle!

I visited my doctor recently. The nurse weighed me, and I came in at 154….the poor nurse looked confused. She looked at me, looked at the BMI chart, looked at me again….finally I told her “I powerlift”. With a sigh of relief, she said “Oh, well there you go”.  So, according to the traditional BMI chart, I am overweight. My doctor came in, she showed him the numbers. He knows I powerlift and said “Oh, we use a different chart for people like you”. He proceeded to look at another chart, and tells me that I probably don’t want to get below 145 pounds, because that would mean I am loosing muscle. He actually encouraged me to keep my weight up. I have said this before, muscle weighs more than fat, so it is important to really imprint the following image into our brains……

So, yes I do still weigh myself. My goal is not to get the smallest number possible, my goal is to get as close as I can to the bottom of my weight class, without dropping a weight class and without loosing any strength. This gives me the highest coefficient possible. I feel I do that best at about 150 to 151 pounds. And the other weight I worry about? Those weights on the barbell of course!!!

So, I don’t aim to be as skinny as I can be any longer. I aim to be as strong as I can be, at a weight that doesn’t take my strength. I eat in a way that allows me to do that, and I use herbs to loose any water weight I accumulate from muscle repair. Society tells me I should be super skinny with a thigh gap….uhhhhmmmm no! I, along with all the women in the gym I look up to, aim to actually increase our thigh size, and increase our butt size, and increase our arm size, and increase our back size…because strong is sexy, skinny is for the birds!