A Different Transformation
Sometimes I hear that people find the holidays stressful because of all of the food “treats” that are readily available. My advice is to be mindful of your choices, and think about if you really want to eat something. If you do, then eat it and thoroughly enjoy it. Don’t feel any guilt about it. One day or one weekend is not going to derail the efforts you are making the rest of the time. You are the sum of the steps you take the majority of the time.
That’s sort of a segue to the main topic of this week’s newsletter: don’t let the scale be your main marker of success. Sure, it is a tool that gives you some objective information, but it doesn’t tell you anything else except your relationship with gravity. It doesn’t reveal how much of that is fat vs muscle vs fluid. It doesn’t reflect your mood or how you are sleeping or how your joints feel or how much energy you have.
The 2 pictures of me above were taken almost 5 years apart and a lot more has changed during that time than just the colour of my hair. 😄
In the first picture, I was so tired because of chronic iron deficiency, not getting enough sleep, and not making time for myself. I found my workouts exhausting. I was pushing through my days and I didn’t even realize that until I started to feel better.
In the second picture, I weigh about 20 lbs more, and I am so much healthier, stronger, energetic (I’ve fixed my iron 👏) and happier now.
If I was to base my success solely on the number of the scale, then I would have the first picture as my goal. There’s no way I want to go back to how I felt then though.
Each week in my FASTer Way groups, we celebrate our “non-scale” victories - things like less joint pain, better sleep, improved digestion, more positive mood, and increased energy to enjoy life. Changes in the scale will come over time as your body gets leaner and stronger, but…. a quick gain or drop on the scale from day to day is not coming from fat. It’s likely a fluid shift due to hormones or alcohol or what you ate.
My goal is to help you build muscle so you can be stronger in your daily life and to rev up your metabolism so you can be leaner and healthier. That takes time. You don’t build muscle overnight or even in a week. As that shift starts happening, you may see little or no change in your weight, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a lot of change happening.
Dropping weight quickly is not going to result in muscle gain, it’s not going to be sustainable, it’s not going to be accompanied with non scale victories AND it’s not a reflection of better health.
I know how frustrating it is when your clothes don’t fit and you feel like you’ve tried everything but nothing seems to be working. If that’s you, I encourage you to buy some clothes you feel good in, lace up your running shoes to lift some weights along with me, and plan your meals to meet your macro goals (THIS is the most important part by far) using the MANY recipes I will provide you with. Trust the process, use me as your coach to guide you, and watch the magic happen! You have nothing to lose and so much to gain by trying a new approach.
The foundation to a life where you feel great starts with the right nutrition and exercise. The other important piece is to make sure you aren’t suffering from iron or other nutrient deficiencies (it was SO hard to do what I knew I needed to do when I was exhausted all the time) and that’s what I can help with through my one one-on-one consults. Book one here
My next online new client fitness and nutrition group will be starting soon. If you’d like to learn more, click the link below.