Why Throwing Out Your Scale Is a Good Idea

Hi friends! In today’s episode, I wanted to share a quick tip with you that is guaranteed to have a positive effect on your health - throw out your bathroom scale! For real. 

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Okay, maybe you don’t have to throw it away but do get it out of your bathroom. Maybe put in the back of your closet or under your dresser - somewhere where you won’t see it every day. 

This topic has been coming up often in my coaching sessions lately. Almost everyone I’ve talked to recently has been frustrated because they’ve gained a few pounds over the past few months and don’t see it coming back off, and I’m going to tell you some of the same things that I shared with them. 

• These past few months have been strange for everyone. COVID = stress, and when we are stressed our bodies go into “fight or flight mode”. Losing weight is not a priority for your body when it’s stressed - surviving is. Our bodies can’t tell the difference between being stressed about a pandemic and being chased by a wild animal. It just produces stress hormones and acts accordingly, which often leads to our bodies holding onto weight for protection. This will likely resolve once the stress has calmed down or we learn how to manage it and our bodies can return to a more relaxed state. 

• Weighing every day will only frustrate you! Our weight fluctuates for many different reasons throughout the day, week, and month. For example, hormones, salt or water intake, and inflammation can all make our weight shift up or down a bit and that is completely normal. Most of us would never even notice it, but if you are weighing every day, you will likely see that fluctuation and think that it’s due to something you did or didn’t do. 

• Weighing every day will make you focus on the wrong things. It is not emotionally or physically healthy to obsess about our weight or every single thing we eat, but if you find yourself continually worrying about the number on the scale, that is likely what you will do. This can lead to an unhealthy obsession and more stress (read - more weight gain).

Weighing every day will most likely sabotage your weight loss goals.

If you are going to weigh yourself or wanting to use your weight as a measurement for progress, I personally recommend only weighing yourself 1 x per month or at the very most every 2 weeks (When you do weigh yourself, make sure you are weighing at the same time of day, day of the month, wearing the same amount of clothing, etc.)

Ultimately focus on non-scale victories to track success and progress. A few examples are:

• The way your clothes fit

• The way your rings fit

• The condition/growth of your skin, hair, and nails

• Your energy level

• Your mental/emotional state

• Your amount of cravings for sweet/greasy foods

• If you are consistently doing things that help you to feel good

Remember, you could reach your goal weight and still be miserable and not feel good. A number is not the goal. A number doesn’t define health. You get to define that for yourself. You are worth far more than a number. 

Listen to your body. Appreciate your body and the gift of health. Go throw out your scale! 

Staying Sane and Finding Joy During Quarantine

Hi friends! I hope you are doing well wherever you are. We are still in the middle of the COVID_19 crisis and in week 4 of staying at home. I both can’t believe it’s already been four weeks and also feel like it’s been four months since life felt normal. I know for many of us the novelty and newness of this new way of life has worn off and we might be feeling like we’re going to go crazy if things don’t change soon, so on that note, I wanted to talk to you today about ways that we can stay sane and choose joy during this time. 

Here are a few of the things that I’ve been trying to incorporate into my new normal almost every day:

• Getting outdoors 

• Listening to uplifting music (some of my current favorites: Renew Your Mind, Remind Your Soul playlist, Spring Favs playlist, Ellie Holcomb’s Sing Albums - Creation Songs and Remembering Songs for kiddos)

• Doing a lot of laughing listening to funny podcasts and Insta-stories (current favs - That Sounds Fun podcast by Annie Downs and The Made Up Morning Show on Jess Connolly’s Instagram account) 

• Making sure I’m getting enough exercise and sleep 

• Making myself drink more water (not coffee all day) 

• Doing a few things to make the weekend feel different 

I reached out to my followers on Instagram and asked what has been helping them. Here are a few other ideas that they had: 

• Daily walks 

• Listening to uplifting or encouraging podcasts

• Getting dressed every day

• Being intentional with their time/making to-do lists 

• Limiting tv and screen time

• Only checking in on the news 1-2 times per day

• Following a loose schedule for the day 

This season is going to look different for all of us. For some of us, we have tons of time on our hands right now and this could be a perfect opportunity to start something new or take on a project you’ve been putting off. For others of us, life has become extremely full and hectic juggling working from home, caring for kids, cooking multiple meals a day - and it’s probably not the time to start something new. No matter the exact details of our situation, the truth is that all of us will benefit from intentional adding activities or rhythms into our day-to-day that will keep us centered on the right things, help us stay sane, and help us feel the joy that can be found, even in this hard season. 

I hope that this episode has encouraged you to choose some of these ideas to implement into your own life. Hang in there, friends - we will get through this! 

For more healthy living encouragement, mixed with some very real-life moments, follow me on Instagram.

Have a great rest of your day friends! Talk soon!

What Covid_19 Has Taught Me about a Healthy Lifestyle

Hi friends! I’m going to be super transparent with you today. I don’t really want to record this episode. I’m weary, I’ve been fighting anxiety more than I want to admit and honestly, I’ve struggled with if I even need to continue putting out content right now because just about everything feels trivial in comparison to this virus and the effect it’s having on people’s lives. 

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As I’m typing this my husband, who is supposed to be working from home, is out on an on-site trying to help another company be able to work remotely, so they can stay afloat. Businesses are closing, everyone has to stay away from each other, people are getting sick and losing their jobs and some even their lives. It almost seems silly to come on here and talk to you about a healthy lifestyle - about what you eat or if you’re exercising or how you’re coping with the stress, but as these thoughts have been turning over inside my head, I keep coming back to this idea: During this pandemic, what has been made very clear to me is that the things I did and cared about from a vanity standpoint didn’t matter to me much at all anymore, but the rhythms and habits that I have put into place that make a difference in my mental and emotional health have never been more important. 

Even the really good things that I still believe are good and are beneficial to your health in the long run - like buying organic and trying to reduce toxin exposure, for example, just took a back seat, because, for the first time in my whole life, I entertained the thought that there might not be enough (and just let me add how much of an eye-opener this has been for me around the idea of privilege and how some people deal with these fears and realities every day - pandemic or not). However, the things that stood out to me, that have become necessary in order to keep some kind of control over my thoughts and emotions became front and center of my idea of a healthy lifestyle. Things like: 

• Having a daily quiet time and drawing near to God. Letting Him speak to my heart and mind the truth of His word has kept my mind centered where it needs to be. It’s allowed me to filter all my feelings through a lens of truth knowing that God is still good and nothing about Him has changed. 

• Moving my body and getting my heart rate up every day. There is a noticeable shift in my mental state when I do this. Not that it’s all better and fixed but I am able to think more logically about things and not just emotionally. Exercise has many benefits to our health but I’m more convinced now than ever that it’s greatest benefit is to our mental health.

• Getting enough sleep. This one has probably been the most impactful because it’s the one I’ve struggled with the most. Anxious thoughts flood my mind at night and make me really not want to go to sleep some nights and I can tell such a difference the next day based on how much I slept - not just mentally but physically too! 

Obviously, I still believe that eating nutritious food is important and protecting your gut health and the immune system is crazy important, especially now, and both of those things also have an impact on your mental health as well. 

I think this has just been a really good reminder for me that so much of our daily struggles can start in our minds and during a time like this when there is so much uncertainty, anxiety, and stress if we don’t make protecting our mindsets a priority, we’re likely going to stop caring about a lot of other things that help keep us healthy. 

(**Disclaimer - I’m not really talking about mental illness or chemical imbalances here. While some of these things may be helpful if you or someone you know is struggling with those issues, these things in no way replace a need for medicines or therapy.) 

So if you’re really struggling with your mindset and you don’t feel like you’re in a good mental/emotional state, take the steps - do the things - that can help with that first. Move your body, connect with God, laugh, sleep, connect with other humans (in a safe way). I think sometimes we have to choose to do the thing, and then the feeling and motivation will come later.  

I hope this has helped encourage you and I hope that you and your families are doing well. We will get through this crazy time and my hope and prayer is that we all choose to come out of it a little better than we were before. 

Hang in there, friends! Talk soon!