5 Tips to Stay Motivated on Your Health Journey

Have you ever tried to get healthy but been discouraged by the numbers on your scale? 

This was something that plagued me for a long time, and truthfully it does pop up for me every so often even now. 

We have become so trained to equate weight loss with success and health, but true wellness is so much more complex than just the numbers on that scale.

• Why won’t these numbers move?
• Why am I failing?
• Am I just doing everything wrong?
• Will I ever actually be healthy?

These questions and so many more like them ran through my head on a loop. 

Unfortunately for so many of us, we are conditioned by society and our medical system to believe that the best measure of health has to do with our overall weight. 

While weight, and being overweight, is an important metric to look at when it comes to health, it is not the only one that matters. 

When it comes to overall health, and I mean all aspects of health – mental, physical, and spiritual – the numbers on your scale aren’t telling you the whole story and when looked at in isolation, are doing you more harm than good.

Your health and well-being are so much more than just a number on a scale.

Knowing who I am through God has played a huge role in changing how I see myself, despite what the scale tells me. 

Another big driver in my change of outlook has been my focus on “non-scale” victories.

What is a “non-scale” victory and why is that even important to the concepts of health and wellness?

When I say non-scale victory, what I really mean is looking at those things that are wins, little or big, that have nothing to do with the numbers you see when you step on a scale. 

Losing sight of your victories in all aspects of your life while you are on your health and wellness journey can be disastrous and demotivating.

Figuring out what success looks like to you can be difficult.

However, identifying those non-scale victories is the key to keeping yourself motivated and encouraged to keep moving forward on your path to improved wellness. 

These simple tips can help you get started identifying your non-scale victories so that you can truly understand your “whys” for being on your journey:

1. Pray. Turn your heart to God and ask him for guidance. It’s through God’s strength that you will find strength to keep moving forward.
2. Take 15-30 minutes to write down different strength or wellness goals. They can be small, but you want to be specific. These become especially important so that you can stay motivated when things get hard, or you start to feel discouraged. 
3. Take some “Before” pictures. These are just for you and are so helpful. Pictures don’t lie and taking “before” pictures and then taking monthly progress pictures can show you how much your body has changed even if the scale hasn’t moved much for you.
4. Take your body measurements. Like the pictures, these will truly show you the magnitude of your changes in body composition. While your weight might not be changing as fast as you want, your overall body fat may be reduced while your lean muscle mass is increasing, both of which are positive indicators of improved health.
5. Celebrate your non-scale victories. It’s so important to celebrate your wins, regardless of how big or small you think they are. Try to focus your celebrations on spending quality time with your loved ones or even spending time with yourself versus celebrating with a reward of food.

Changing your lifestyle is hard but focusing on establishing and celebrating non-scale victories will help get you through those tough times.

Non-scale victories are those tangible improvements that you can feel and experience that have nothing to do with what you see reflected on the scale. 

Weight can be influenced by things like water retention, stress, or any number of things throughout the day or week. 

I’m not saying that weight doesn’t matter when it comes to health, because in a lot of ways, it does.

What I am saying is that it is not the only thing that matters nor is it the most important thing to look at when it comes to whether you are getting healthier or are truly healing your body. 

Focus on the improvements in your strength, body composition, physical independence, endurance, mental health, and clarity, and how you are physically feeling. 

Your weight will move eventually but shifting your mindset to focus on all those other aspects of health, those non-scale victories, will help you on the path to long-term success.