Letting of the Scale of Judgment - What I Do Differently & Better Next Time

Do you weigh yourself every day? 

Does it kill your mood or emotional joy if the scale number is not to your liking? 

In this post I am journaling and being real, raw, and authentic to my experience. Perhaps these ideas will resonate with you in some respect. The intention is to share something I encounter and this can possibly assist you remember that:

• You are wonderful with or without specific weight.
• You are loved and lovable regardless of your appearance or weight. 
• You are worthy and worth respecting, and most important worth your own self-respect. 

What does this mean to you?

This is meant to bring to air the thoughts and emotions that invade our inner personal space and wreak havoc on inner-peace; hence we want to focus on more from the inside out.

We just cannot base your goodness on factors like weight, fat gain/loss, muscle gain/loss, appearance etc.  You are more than that. 

We want to have deeply stable and healthy self-esteem and no longer judge ourselves based on the scale number. Let's not allow a single number determine whether you feel good or bad or if you have a great or poor day.

You deserve - I deserve - We all Deserve better than that but first we have to realize that and really accept it. 

It whittles down to thoughts we think that cause us to feel bad about ourselves, our body, and to criticize an aspect of yourself or your appearance. 

It's hard to escape our body and appearance because we are constantly exposed to it - we are living and carrying our body, and hence we must learn to develop, sustain and enjoy a harmonious and peaceful, loving relationship with your eternal vehicle through life. The only constant is the physical corpus you carry around with your consciousness. It's remarkable to appreciate the phrase "Your Body is your Temple".

These are just words that may seem trite or overused yet they are accurate. Your physical body is the house, or temple, vessel, vehicle and the portal with which and through which you literally interact and engage with the external physical world and all its manifold physical experiences. Your body carries you through life. Isn't that important enough to matter in terms of respecting our body in all its glory, whatever size and shape, it is?

Journal Entry that Day

Dear Lord, Dear Self,

Taking this time to reflect and write down my thoughts as my emotions and feelings felt a bit obscure and heavy since this morning.
I woke up feeling great after a wonderful night's sleep.
But things changed in my feelings and mindset when I weighed myself and saw that my weight went back up to what it was 2 days ago.
....
Nevertheless, I had eaten fine and well yesterday. My basic raw fruits and veggies daily intake.
Today thought my weight was back up again...
Feels bizarre. I felt a bit surprised and frustrated and kind of discouraged because I'm not sure what I did wrong or what factored into that extra weight gain.
I've been at this weight before and I have learned to not spas out or become discouraged or let that negatively influence my mood, feelings and emotional calm for the rest of the day.
It would be a shame for a simple number on an electronic device to disturb my ease and joy so much that it upends the rest of my day.

What about you? Has this every happened to you and do you ever fight with the scale? We are all fighting our own struggles and face our own limiting thoughts. It's a life's journey to understand and overcome those self-imposed limits.

But still, there is also the light voice that says, "Hey, that's OK. Just let it go. Focus on today and stay on your track. Don't let that get you down and off plan. You are doing great and you did feel good. Take it day by day, one at a time, and execute your plan and desired focus for today starting new and fresh and actually DOING IT :-). Don't let this become an excuse or a reason for you to self-sabotage and backslide for no huge reason. You got this! :-)💪💝"

This is the kind, loving voice which combats the pesky, negative ones that hurt us so much.

When you catch yourself starting to go into Negative-Thoughts Land 

Turning into a sour mood? It helps to write down your thoughts to better understand what is actually your thought process which has caused a decline in your positive mood. 

'Troublesome' thoughts that circled my mind:

• "What the hell!😞😖 All this effort and restraint and self-control, deprivation and self-management and still I just can't win??
• I might as well stop caring and give in to the other foods - cooked, packaged, bars, etc - that I'm missing out on. 
• What's the use? So much effort and conscientiousness and I still can't seem to get this number under control.

This above reflects the thought stream of the OFF VOICE.
Sound familiar?

These thoughts are very subtle and sheer and sometime very loud, mean and jarring. However, we must always be vigilant, especially with those that are light and sheer that ebb and undulate lightly through the open window of Insecurity.


I'm not alone and you are not alone in having types of thoughts; so many women and men struggle with their weight, appearance and want to lose weight. Millions of people worldwide are running this race! Exerting self-control every day on the journey towards more personal satisfaction and self-acceptance - which is manifested as a scale weight! It's a bit crazy and startling considering we are more than a weight and no specific weight or number is every going to satiate and appease the deeper-rooted need of being loved, self-appreciation and oneness with our divinity.

We are so much more!
Brains, feelings, love, sensitivity, emotions, spirit, joy, sharing and warmth, family, etc. Energy, power, creativity, self-expression.

I carried on with my morning, went out on my walk feeling that slight persistent confusion about the number on the scale but just letting it be - it is done and it is what it is?

Must let go of self-shaming & Low Self-Esteem

1. It is only a digit on an electronic device. It's not the evil or enemy.
2. It does not reflect your/my value or intelligence or worthiness.
3. The scale weight does not and should not determine my happiness on any day because that is unstable and a slippery slope. It is conditional happiness. And eventually can turn into conditional self-love, or self-abhorrence and this latter manifestation is neither mentally nor physically healthy.
4. A daily measurement is NOT an accurate measure of your percentage fat loss. It does show your water retention, sodium levels in the body, bowel weight (food in your intestines before being eliminated); it does reflect whether you slept enough or not.

No person's value, importance, or worth depends or stems from what they weigh. It just doesn't.

Cramming Food? The main lunch meal...

It was primarily mango and today perhaps I overdid it. They were super delicious however I often tend to have just a little more. They were great whilst eating and I don't think I 'binged' on them because I finished my meal feeling satiated, full, complete and satisfied but not overly full. 

However, I felt also subsequently that it was too much mango at that sitting and it may have generated some gastric juices that felt uncomfortable. I didn't really need the 2 extra mini mangoes. They were not going to go bad and I was no longer hungry at that point. 
However, the other brain and other part of me - what Dr. Glenn Livingston, PhD Psychologist & Author, ignominiously labels as "The Pig" wanted more of that good stuff. 
It happens from time to time - stuffing or 'cramming' food despite already feeling fed and full.

Dr. Doug Lisle, Evolutionary Psychologist and co-Author, has discussed and presented at length about called this non-pathological mechanism the "Conditioned Cram" whereby due to our evolutionary history of being hunters and gatherers and going for long periods of time without adequate food (i. hunger) this biology and primal brain seeks to consume more, or hoard more, calories once feeding does become available.

In the modern world this has been a factor in overeating because most of us in the modern world do not face a food shortage.  Rather, we have been self- and environmentally conditioned to be most attracted to calorie-rich, dense, low-nutrient, highly-palatable foods.
These engineered and processed foods trick our primal brain-centered satiation hormones and mechanisms and so we feel empty when logically and technically we are well fed; and simultaneously we think we want more and more to fill the 'need'.
We continue to put more food in our mouth.

Ironically,what triggers the cramming then is the fullness itself which hits and lights up the switch to continue putting more in - cramming more food in despite discomfort and already being noticeably full.

An Antidote to Cramming Food?:

Having learned from various health experts, nutritionists, psychologists:

• Step #1: Do not restrict, fast or go for long periods of time intentionally starving your body. Do not put your body into a state of caloric depletion whereby it thinks that food is scarce, calories are for a limited time only, and that once you open the door to eating or feeding again it becomes a floodgate where you are programmed to eat to extreme fullness in order to compensate for periods of false starvation. We need to nourish our bodies with enough calories and nutrients on a consistent basis, reliably and stably.

• Next steps in this process counter and defeat overeating or binge-eating tendency behavior is:

• Have a regular source of incoming calories/nutrition/nutrients throughout the day

• Don't fast or starve yourself 

• Break down your meal frequency to 3-6 times per day, a schedule that works for you. Such as 3 regular meals and 1-3 'snacks'.

• Feed yourself with nourishing, nutrient-rich, fiber-rich, whole foods. This matters immensely because when we are eating processed, chemically-laden, factory-engineered foods with MSG, natural flavours, fillers, chemicals, white sugar, gluten, wheat, etc. we are giving our body EMPTY CALORIES which do not register adequately in the brain and hormones and hence can cause you to feel and think that you are still hungry despite having eaten more than enough, and this is true even for those who binge and still do not feel full. This is because the food substance is not real food - it is artificially constructed "edible food-like substances" {term originally coined by Michael Pollan}.

Just to be clear I don't think or consider today's meal eating was a 'binge' but rather a reflection of a type of behavior that could quickly escalate into binge eating in anyone conditioned or programmed, or even from pathological reasons. 

Lessons Learned - What I will do Differently & Better Next Time:

• Mindfully and intentionally will never eat more than X grams in 1 lunch meal and only at lunch. 

• Ensure that my lunch meal maxes out at an adequate-for-me # of calories by 3:00pm. So that if I go to the office in the afternoon for work, I still have space and mental and physical comfort to consumer a snack of veg+fruit, and avoid overeating later in the day. Regular, consistent and healthful nutrition flowing in.

• Other consideration for you, the Reader: If a food is not healthy or you can't control yourself with it, or it has apparent negative consequences on your health it may be a good idea to stop completely consuming that food item. Or, cut it out for a certain time...perhaps 1 month, and see how you feel. I still have plenty of mangoes at home which I can ultimately freeze and wait for them in the future. 

• Just put the food down! The next time you hear that voice: 'Have 1 more, have 2 more' 😈😈😈😠or 'it's just too good' etc. etc. ...   Remember that you can tell that voice to Shut Up and let it know: NO! We had more than plenty and we don't need to stuff our face and our beautiful body with more than is adequate already. It's not like my body is a garbage bin or huge hamper to be jammed with old, musty clothes.

• THE GOAL AND higher PREFERENCE is to be light, flowing, calm, and ongoing sustained energy throughout the day.

We have 2 competing voices in our head and we must learn to distinguish which is (1) the health-oriented, stable, reasoned voice - and which (2) is the overstepping-bounds and good reason and good health-Voice is.  Light & Dark?
Otherwise, ignoring the 'Voice or PULL to Overeat' means ignoring the impulse of the primal, instinctual animal brain when it no longer serves us in that moment of modern life.

Final Thoughts:

We can have more peace and calm and joy in our daily lives when we learn to appreciate and transcend these primal junk or garbage ideas, and embrace and live out the inspired impulses that will lead to great self satisfaction, harmony with our bodies and inner & outer wellness in mind, body and spirit. 

You deserve to be happy, and you deserve to be proud of who you are and to feel happy in your daily life and for us to not make a big deal or create even more future problems for ourselves.

We can step forward now and have more wisdom to know the difference, and the courage to accept what is true, good and what is out of our control...and to release what does not serve us.

Blessings & Namaste,
Jennifer