An overwhelming majority of Intrepids, and prospective Intrepids, put weight loss as a health goal on their initial waivers, but the longer you’re with us you come to find that we rarely focus on what the scale reads, instead putting much more of emphasis on how you look, feel, eat, and lift.  Our friends over at Whole 9 just have a way of putting things so they just make sense, and their latest post entitled “5 Reasons to Break Up with Your Scale” discusses the unhealthy relationship most of us have with our scales, our fixation with body weight as an indicator of health, and the strong case for ridding your life of the scale completely! Dallas and Melissa aren’t strangers for going against the mainstream grain, but ditching the scale altogether is a strong proposition for a society that has come to idolize 90′s small men and skinny-fat women.  But I think their message is not only long overdue, but applicable for everyone to keep the focus on more relevant indicators of health like your relationship with food, hormones, digestive health or inflammatory status (not to mention your sanity).  Here’s 5 reasons why Whole 9 says you should part ways with your scale:

1. Scale weight fluctuates wildly.  This is especially true over the course of a day or the span of a few days.
2. Scale weight says nothing of health.  As I mentioned earlier the number on the scale speaks nothing to what we consider to be more important indicators of health.
3. The scale blinds you to real results.  Fixating on what your scale reads more often than not leads you to miss all the other benefits to your new eating and lifestyle changes.  It’s not uncommon to experience better sleep, be more energetic during your day, find yourself less moody and having less cravings.  Things that can often go overlooked if you lock in on your body weight as your primary measure of success.
4. The scale keeps you stuck on food.  The number on the scale typically gets associated with the food we ate and to a lesser degree the amount of exercise we did.  By locking in on your weight, you’re often oblivious to other factors that can be impacting your health like your recovery (or lack thereof), stress, and sleep amount/quality.
5. The scale maintains control of your self-esteem.  Last but certainly not least, it’s psychologically unhealthy to allow a number – any number – to determine your worth, your value or your self-image.  Nothing is more mentally draining than not seeing the progress you had hoped in terms of weight loss if you’re primary seeing your body weight as your measure of success.  Nevermind the fact that you’ve come into your own with your strength training and you can visibly see that your waistline is trimmer, your pants size has gone down by 1 to 2 sizes, and you feel stronger and more energetic in your workouts… but I think you see where I’m going with this.  This relates back to point #3 where fixating on your weight can blind you to other results.  Strength training is particularly effective at increasing muscle mass (which many of us conveniently forget weighs more than fat) and bone density, all of which tend to offset the body fat you’ve lost making your scale even more unnecessary as a reliable measure of health.

Again, please read the entire Whole 9 post here.  In the words of Whole 9, “the sooner you ditch the idea that the scale is your ultimate measure of success, the healthier and happier you’ll be.”  Body weight is definitely one metric to help you see if you’re on the right track but weighing yourself every day or every few days leads one into obsessive territory pretty quick.  If this is the case with you, you’re better off donating your scale to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army, or if you have a turmoiled history with your scale take Dallas and Melissa’s advice and take it out to an isolated area where you can go use this Office Space scene as your inspiration.

WOD 3.07.12

Deadlift 1×5/Wendeler

5 Rounds:
100m Sprint
5 Power Cleans
10 V-ups
Rest 30 seconds