Memorializing the Journey…Not the Scale

I wanted to be about 10 pounds lighter for our vacation trip.

I had worked so hard (for about 18 months) to get down to my pre-pregancy weight, but even my pre-pregancy weight was not enough…if I could lose 10 pounds more, I would get closer to my goal. And of course my goal was this elusive weight marker…the thinnest I have ever been…the only time in my life when I have been able to wear single digit size pants and s/m size tops…it was for about one year of my life. But of course, since it was attained once, it has been the benchmark ever since.

But I didn’t lose the 10 pounds…and I’m pretty sure, in the stressful lead up to our vacation, I gained even more weight.

I felt defeated. Because part of the vacation routine is capturing the memories with family pictures. And I just didn’t want to look back and see my puffy face and ill fitting clothes.

Oh, hello, inner critic.

But I had this profound moment while on the Hawaii beach. After expertly dodging the camera for a while, I realized that I had no pictures on the beach with my sweet little girl. I had no pictures because I was listening to this critical voice demanding that I should not memorialize my weight loss failure.

Oh, no. That will not do.

I had limited my success to a number on a scale. But what the scale didn’t show was my radically rehabilitated emotional health, my freedom from dark depression, my victory over crippling anxiety, and my defeat over fear. And that…that needed to be captured on camera.

I needed to memorialize how far in the journey I had come.

So, I pulled my daughter in close and we said, “cheese.”

I don’t know where you are with the scale, but I just want to encourage you to not let that be the only thing you look at. There is more to who you are and more progress on your journey than those numbers.

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