10 Off-The-Scale Measures That Are Off-The-Charts Important For Your Fitness Journey

When we embark on the journey of body transformation, so often the scale is the golden measure of our progress.

Scientifically, it makes sense.

To some extent, we need to track by numbers how much weight is lost, how body fat is being recomposed into lean muscle, etc.

But, my experience tells me otherwise.

Every person I’ve helped lose weight, gain muscle, and/or sculpt their body achieved the fastest success while keeping the focus internal, not external.

It’s literally been a direct positive correlation between not using the scale and sculpting their bodies as they see fit!

The truth, my friends, is that physical transformation is an ART and a science. When we focus on the art, the results feed off of the inspiration we fill ourselves up with.

This is why I am suggesting that you experiment with shifting your focus to these non-numerical, feeling-based measures of progress on your fitness journey:
1. SELF-CONFIDENCE: Do you have more stable, robust trust in yourself? Have you experienced moments of ‘awe’ by showing yourself how much more you are capable of than you previously thought? Are you more comfortable seeing yourself and being seen by others?
2. JOY: are you having fun? Learning? Smiling more in and out of training sessions?
3. FEELING FIT: Do you feel stronger? More powerful? More agile?
4. FEELING SEXY: Do you feel desirable to yourself? Has your libido increased? Can you feel/see the sparkling essence you have within?
5. HAPPY IN THE HABITAT OF YOUR HEAD: Are you worrying less and wondering more? Are you less afraid of failure and more excited about being engaged in the process/journey? Able to highlight and celebrate wins along the way?
6. MENTAL FOCUS + RESILIENCY: Are you setting your mind on having a positive experience wherever you go? Able to name and tackle areas for growth instead of getting stuck on the missed reps or missed sessions? Focused on your path rather than comparing yourself to others?
7. BODY AWARENESS: Do you know your stronger points and weaker links? Can you feel which muscles are working per exercise? Do you know how to pivot on a whim if the designated muscle groups for a workout are under recovered yet you still want to train smart and well?
8. CONSISTENCY: Are you showing up and doing the work more days than not? Have you built enough momentum with your habits to not have to motivate yourself before you start most sessions? 9. HOW YOUR CLOTHES FIT: Are you happier in your clothes? Excited by the way certain pieces show off your muscles rather than keeping your body in the shadows?
10. ENERGY + ENTHUSIASM: Do you feel fuller with life force? Do you have a fire in your belly to do better and experience more, in and out of the gym? Do you feel excited and free about the possibilities of your life?

Not one of these measures can be described with a number.

They are all rewards we can track within.

Focusing on these great emotional and cognitive benefits creates more desire to train and stay immersed in our processes of self-betterment.

In my experience, clients who come to me “needing” to use a scale to track progress had bigger fishes to fry (or sautée).

Feeling your progress from the inside-out will be your continued source of inspiration.

On Prioritizing Ambition Over Ambivalence

‘Ambition’ = about action

‘Ambivalence’ = seeing value in both ways/sides

One foot in and one foot out.

Your head is in and your heart is somewhere else.

You love what you have but isn’t the grass greener on the other side?

These are some phrases that imply ambivalence.

For some reason, I’ve had shame around feeling ambivalent for a lot of my life.

This shame was given a great hug last night, when my dad let me in on a little secret: “everybody, no matter how confident they appear on the outside, is experiencing some level of ambivalence about what they are doing.”

I felt human, and not alone.

Even the professional athlete who is banking millions of dollars a year playing a sport s/he at one time was infatuated...and still may be infatuated with, probably considers a handful of other career paths s/he could be on.

Commitment and decisions require that we cut off other options. In fact, by it’s direct definition ‘decide’ means ‘to cut off.’

It can be painful.

Committing to one course of action.

It requires sacrifice.

It also requires trust and faith--in the prosperity of that course of action.

Yet, isn’t it necessary?

Without action, all options remain unexplored, and all success remains never experienced or tasted. 

I am reminded of the quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

It’s awesome to want success in multiple avenues of life, and that is entirely possible.

But, to meander in your mind about which one is the best without taking steps and putting in the blood, sweat, and tears to make progress on any path at all, is to waste your precious life.

This brings me back to the title of this post.

Ambivalence is not only okay, it is human. But without ambition--or placing the onus on the actions you are ‘about’--or emphatic about taking, to bring some success...from path a or b or c or zz to life, no progress will be made, all of the figs will shrivel and drop, and our bellies and spirits will be left unfed.

Where in your life might an ambition over ambivalence mindset benefit you?