Your scales. They have to go.

So many of us are hopping on the scales every Monday or even every morning, and waiting to be answered, ‘Are you a good person today or a bad person today?’ ‘How are you allowed to feel today – will it be virtuous or will it be worthless?’

We ask a piece of glass or plastic for validation, and then let it run our day and dictate our food choices.

Why? Why do we try to validate ourselves with a number on the scales?

That number doesn’t tell you how smart you are, how aligned you are in your life choices, how good your ethics and morals are, what a kind person you are, how beautiful you are, how fit or strong you are, how generous and loving you are...

So why are we so hooked on this number?

What is it actually telling us? Our effect on gravity!

It doesn’t even tell us if we are gaining muscle and losing fat. It just tells us how heavy we are.

And here’s another thing – if you’re exercising using weights, your body will be changing. You’re likely to look slimmer but weigh heavier. All the scales know is a number dictated by gravity.

This is possibly the single most important thing you absolutely have to do in order to welcome in a happy relationship with food and your body – break up with your scales. Recognize that it is a toxic relationship that always leaves you feeling bad.

Trust me, I feel you, I’ve been there. I know it’s hard and you want to skip this part and pretend you don’t have to do this. But there’s just no way around this one. If you are struggling to love your body, struggling to find that healthy lifestyle you know is waiting for you, and you are still weighing yourself compulsively, then you are taking one step forwards and two steps back.

You are asking to be validated by a piece of plastic or metal or glass.

Even if you think the scales don’t impact your happiness, chances are, they do. Because they are making you compare yourself to the number you had a year ago, five years ago, two weeks ago or yesterday morning.

And guess what. We are moving forwards, people, not back! If you keep comparing yourself now to your old self, before you had a baby, when you were at college or when you were on that beach holiday, do you see how much that is holding you back from stepping into the life you want? If you’re constantly looking backwards and not forwards?

You’re in a brand new chapter now, Goddess, away from dieting, away from misery. You are creating a beautiful abundant lifestyle with no rules. How happy do you want to feel?

So, if I haven’t made it clear enough:

BREAK UP WITH YOUR SCALES!

If you aren’t brave enough to throw them out in the trash, just take out the battery and chuck that away.

Or, if you really do need even more baby steps, just get someone to hide them somewhere so you can’t find them. Or put them in a different room, somewhere you never go. Or, put them in a box and then put the box somewhere you can’t reach.

But mainly, just freaking do it! Just get rid of them and break that habit however which way you can.

Important Aside

If your medical practitioner has told you that you must weigh yourself for medical reasons, then do not ignore them, but please – only a maximum of once every few weeks.

Consistently weighing yourself at the same time will do nothing but leave you stuck.

It’s also so important to realise that your weight fluctuates day to day, hour to hour even, depending on your stress levels, water intake, how much you’ve sweated, your digestion, your time of the month, your exercise of choice... so it’s really not a good idea to keep checking on that number.

The best way to track your progress is just to notice how you feel in your body and in your clothes. And notice how your body feels when you wake up and get out of bed first thing in the morning.

Goal weight – sexy as f*ck!

Editor’s Note: Get more inspiration from Mel Wells in her book The Goddess Revolution, which is out now.