When women decide they want to lose weight, they usually have a number in mind.
“I want to lose X lbs” or “I want to weight Y kg”
In reality, they’re not interested in that number at all!
They are interested in what they think that number will give
them.
They want what they think that number will make them feel.
So what is your “ideal weight”?
My experience with “ideal weight”
“but you’re still 5kg over your “ideal weight””
said the health practitioner to me yesterday morning, and then we
laughed.
My doctors do an ‘over 40s health check’ under the new guidelines
to check your overall health, cholesterol and blood sugar mainly.
I got my results yesterday.
I’ll be honest, I was quite nervous!
What if my levels were out – did that mean I was a failed health
professional myself??? Anyway, that’s a whole other blog.
As it turned out, my levels were all fine and my “weight is
within guidelines”….
… the fact that the form on the computer asks the nurse to tell
me the line at the top of this post is just LUDICROUS.
Although we laughed about it there was a time when this statement
would have BOTHERED ME HUGELY.
If I’m honest, in my head I already had her suggested number as
an ‘ideal’ and the conversation triggered where that thought had
come from….
What does the number of the scales actually make us feel?
I can remember as a teenager, working out my “ideal weight” on the BMI scale and thinking it meant I had to be that exact weight. PLUS not being that weight….OR BELOW IT….meant I was fat and all sorts of other derogatory terms.
I can remember not too many years back feeling ‘amazing’ because I achieved that weight again – along with my lowest body fat percentage (having successfully swapped an obsession with the scales for an obsession with calliper readings).
Being a bit older and wiser now, I can also remember the TORTURE
I was putting myself through at both of these times in my life. I
had ticked the one box of being the ‘ideal weight’ but that was
the only box I had ticked.
On both those occasions, I had disordered eating patters, low
self-esteem and was ever-anxious about my body-weight and size.
Looking back now, I don’t view either of these occasions as
“happy times”.
So when ladies come to me with lines like:
“IF I COULD JUST GET MY WEIGHT DOWN TO X”
“I’LL DO ANYTHING TO LOSE Y LBS”
“I’D JUST FEEL SO MUCH MORE CONFIDENT IF I COULD WEAR A SIZE Z”
“I JUST KNOW I’LL FEEL HAPPIER ONCE I WEIGH……”
I DON’T offer solutions.
I DON’T sell diet plans or intense exercise programmes.
I DON’T sign them up for coaching packages, promising to deliver
their dreams to the real world.
I simply ask them “WHY?”
There is always a reason why the particular number they quote is
important to them.
I believe that having a goal – or more particularly a series of
goals and I agree that measurements along the way helps to ensure
you are on track and can provide motivation too
BUT
If the reasoning behind your goal is fundamentally flawed, rather
than finding happiness, you’ll more likely to build a whole heap
more MISERY for yourself
Trust me on this. I’ve been there – twice. It’s not somewhere I
want to coach people towards.
Sometimes the ‘Why’ discussion can take a whole session –
sometimes we work on it over weeks, a course or dedicated programme.
I’ll be honest and upfront right now – there is no magic number,
no “ideal weight”.
You are uniquely individual – you cannot be defined, shaped or
confined by one number alone.
The number you are striving for may not give you the happiness &
confidence in your own body you truly want. That may come from
something else. It may still involve losing weight, but with a
different focus, different goal, different mindset and different
support system.
So whilst the fitness industry marketing machine will lure you in
with promises of getting you to that “ideal weight” and all the
supposed rainbows and happiness that exist there, I’ll continue
to ask “Why?”.
If you want support to find a goal that will motivate & lift you,
plus receive specialist coaching to help you achieve it CLICK
HERE and let’s arrange a talk about where you are now and where
you’d like to get to.
Lisa