Yesterday I hit my goal weight. Actually, this morning I dropped a pound below it. 

So why am I not giving those first two sentences big emojis and exclamation points and all of that digital fanfare?

Here’s why. That number is kinda meaningless. It’s just data.

That number hasn’t brought me permanent happiness. It hasn’t given me the lasting relief that the diet industry and media has oh-so-subtly (i.e., not subtly at all) proclaimed that it will. 

And I’m going to drop a truth bomb on you here, beauties and cuties…when you hit your goal weight it’s not going to bring you any of that, either.

Oh sure, it might give you a thrill for the entire day. Woo-hoo!! I did it!! Yay, me!!

And you should ABSOLUTELY celebrate your success! That’s amazing. You worked hard for it, and you should be incredibly proud of yourself. I’ll be right there showering you with praise in spirit, too.

But I’d like to make you aware that your life isn’t going to change that much. You’ll still have days where you don’t love your body. You’ll still have days filled with frustration, anger, or sadness. You’ll still forget your phone at home or misplace your car keys. You’ll still get your heart broken.

You might even find yourself overeating and climbing back up the scale and not knowing why.

I’ll tell you why that happens…it’s because the journey to the goal is more satisfying than actually reaching the goal. 

Once we hit that goal, we often find ourselves thinking…now what?

And if you haven’t been working on being kind to yourself on the way down, you’re much more likely to find those old eating habits sneaking back in.

What it’s given me is a sense that I’m moving in the right direction. (And evidence that I haven’t been able to or even wanted to eat very much since my surgery last month.)

Full disclosure: I’ve lost ten pounds since the day of my surgery, and I’m actually not excited about it. 

Why not? A few reasons:

1. The scale number doesn’t dictate my mood anymore.

2. I’m fully aware of that loss being mostly muscle mass, since I haven’t been able to weight train since December 4.

3. My body doesn’t look any different than it did a month ago. Actually, it looks kinda worse. My skin is sagging way more than it ever has in the past, because I lost the weight so quickly.

4. I’ve been having to expend a lot more energy than I would prefer to manage my depression through all of this. And some days I haven’t been able to manage it at all.

At this stage I’m more interested in body recomposition, which is about focusing on nutrition and movement/exercise for fat loss and muscle strength. 

I’d like to get stronger and lose body fat, particularly visceral fat. That’s the fat around your organs, and that’s the fat that starts increasing during menopause (which now that I’ve had a hysterectomy I’m just that much further into.) 

Ten years ago I got into the best shape of my life. I had muscle definition, I looked great (especially for being 40), and I was super active. I was training six days a week, participating in 10K trail runs, half marathons, and I even did a Tough Mudder.

And I barely appreciated any of it because I was still so focused on that g**d*** scale number. 

I refuse to do that to myself anymore. 

I’m at the point where my health is more important than my weight, my clothing size, or what I look like naked. (Yes, really.)

And if you’d told me ten years ago that I’d think so differently about it now, I definitely would’ve flipped you the bird.

As I’ve been shifting my focus on my health (both physical and mental) more and more, I’m learning how to redefine what I think weight loss success is.

To me it’s creating a plan to start slowly and methodically rebuilding my strength when I’m cleared to do so by my doctor.

It’s knowing that I can sit through an urge to eat when I’m not hungry and survive those restless, edgy feelings.

It’s acknowledging the ability to hear my negative thoughts and respond to them with kindness. 

Those thoughts are still there; but now that I’ve practiced what I preach so much, I’m able to shift the narrative with ease. It’s become my habit to counter those thoughts with encouragement and support rather than just believing them and piling more on top the way I used to.

And it’s knowing, in my inner place of knowing that I’ve written about so much, that cycles come and go. That I’ll eventually go back to eating more, and when I do, I’ll have urges to overeat again. That sometimes I will overeat again. 

But when I do, I will forgive myself and move on, not spiral into weeks of f*ck it eating and binging the way that I did before.

 

I’ve gone on and on about myself for a reason. (Well, the main reason is that I love to talk about myself, haha!)

I’d like you to know that it’s possible for you to redefine what weight loss success means for you, too. That the scale doesn’t have to define your success, your mood, your self-worth.

Here are some things you can try today:

You can download my free guide and start practicing the steps I’ve outlined in it.

You can do one small thing today, like putting a little less food on your plate at dinner, and then celebrate the f*** out of it instead of berating yourself for not doing more. 

Maybe you need time to learn how to do this. You’ve probably done every diet plan under the sun without trying the one thing that actually works…common sense. Maybe you need time to figure this out. 

Maybe you can do more after you’ve practiced drinking more water by leaving a glass by your coffee maker or a bottle on your desk at work.

Maybe you can do more after you’ve reread my guide, gone through a few of my social media posts, or listened to an episode of a podcast that I’ve recommended (see links below).

One of my clients said to me this week…actually, a few of them said something like this: “I know what to do, I just don’t do it, and I don’t know why.”

This is what I said to every one of them, and I’m offering it to you now. Maybe you ARE doing it, but you’re not giving yourself any credit for it because the micro-steps you’re taking “aren’t good enough.”

Any progress is good progress. And as I’ve said ad nauseam: Practice makes progress, because perfect isn’t a thing.

You can email me anytime for that free guide, with questions, or even for a little encouragement. Click this link for the guide: 5 Simple Ways to Revolutionize Your Weight Loss

Love & hugs,

Dana

P.S. Please don’t forget to practice speaking kindly to yourself. That’s the most important thing because once you’re really being kind to yourself, you start believing that you deserve to be healthy. It’s all connected. ✌🏼💙💜 

Podcasts I recommend:

This one’s the one that changed everything for me from my mentor Corrine: Losing 100 Pounds With Corrine

This is my friend Jenn Watt’s podcast. It focuses on the ADHD connection and weight loss, but she’s got some great information that you might find helpful: Losing Weight With ADHD

And as always, my future bestie Mel Robbins’ podcast for mindset coaching: The Mel Robbins Podcast