Body Success Beyond the Scale

How do you judge your body success? If your answer was a dress size or the skill, well, this episode is for you. We're talking about body success beyond the skill. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello my dear friends, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Today is a beautiful day here in Charlotte. Everything is turning green, flowers are coming out. I love this time of year. I find that this is the time of year of blooming, of transformation. It's very symbolic to me, the springtime. It's where the winter has ended and now things are coming to life and life just feels a little bit lighter in the spring for me. No matter where I am in the world, no matter what I'm going through, there is something beautiful on a spiritual level to this season. And so I hope that wherever you are, you're feeling a little lightness, a little joy. You are noticing the beauty that surrounds you and that you're really appreciating where you are in your life right now.

I also wanted to let you know that I have something very exciting coming up next week actually. And for those of you who struggle with your weight, who have maybe struggled for years and you keep turning to diets and shots and pills, and you feel like this is a never-ending struggle and you don't know how to get out of it, I want to invite you to a webinar that I'm doing called The Slim Secret. Yes, it's a secret. But it won't be a secret if you come to this webinar. And I'm going to be sharing the big shift that I had to personally make, and now I've coached many other women around making it that has led to lasting peace with our bodies and what I call our happy weights. And when I use the word slim, I know that that word can be triggering to some people because maybe you're thinking, I don't want to be skinny, I don't want to be slim. And listen, that is not what I'm talking about.

If you even look at the definition of the word slim, it's to rid of the excess, to slim down. And when it comes to weight, there's a lot of stuff like unconscious stuff, subconscious stuff that is weighing us down that we don't even realize is keeping us from creating this relationship with our bodies and the result that we want. And until you figure out what that is and you address that, you will continue to struggle with your weight. As someone who struggled for years, I gained over 70 pounds, I yo-yo dieted, I ended up developing an eating disorder and I thought that there would never be a day where it wasn't a struggle. And then I look at my life now, this was the piece that was missing. Because right now in my life and for years, I feel at peace with my body. I don't obsess about food.

I don't even get on a scale every so often when I go to the doctor's office. And all of that energy that I used to put into trying to have the perfect body, trying to lose weight, it has been freed up to enjoy my life more, to learn new things, to put my work out in the world. And that's the thing that people don't realize. We have a limited amount of energy, and how much of yours is going into obsessing, hating, resisting, trying so hard to lose weight. What would you do with all of that energy if that was no longer a problem? And sometimes the answer to that question is scary. I know for me it was so scary because I had dieted for so long. I had this thought when I decided that I was done with the whole diet culture, I was like, "But what am I going to do with my time?" I realized that it had become this obsession that was all-consuming.

And that's the kind of stuff I love to work with women around, figuring out what that is, and let's focus there. But until you address this one thing that I'm going to be covering in the Slim Secret webinar, it will forever be a struggle. I don't even care if you lose the weight. How many of us have lost the weight and we're terrified of gaining it back? And it's because of this one missing thing. So I would love for you to come and join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/secret, 60 minutes that will change how you think about your body, losing weight, and most importantly, your relationship with yourself. I am so excited to teach this webinar. And my intention is that when you attend, you are going to unlock something that you didn't even know was the real issue, and you're going to have some tools to help you begin to unravel maybe this thing that you have struggled with for years. So again, head over to schoolofselfimage.com/secret and I will see you at the webinar.

Now, speaking of bodies, speaking of weight loss, I want to talk about body success beyond the scale. Because how many of you use the scale as a measurement of how successful you are with your body? So for example, you get on the scale and it reads a certain number and you tell a story that you're doing great. And if it reads another number, you tell yourself the story that you're not doing great. That was my life for years, and it was exactly the thing that kept me stuck in the cycle that didn't serve me. It caused me to be very discouraged on most days when the scale wasn't reading what I thought it was supposed to read. And then it gave me this false sense of accomplishment when I'd lost a pound or two.

And I say false because oftentimes I would be so full of fear that it was going to come back. And then let's just face it, a two-pound weight loss could be just some water weight. And the problem was I was focused on external measurements for my own success. And it's not that we can't have metrics and things that we're striving for, but when we use those metrics to beat ourselves up or to feel worthy, we're setting ourselves up for failure. It never works long-term. And so when I was in this pattern of using external things to measure my success, I just had this epiphany that there had to be a better way. There had to be a better way to gauge how I was really doing. Because just because you lose weight doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to feel better. And if you think about the reason why we want anything including weight loss is because we're after a feeling.

You think, oh, when I lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, then I'm going to feel, what? What is it for you? Confident, sexy, worthy, beautiful. But guess what? Those things don't come from the outside, they come from within. And so for me, it really started to change when I changed how I judged my success. And I started to base my success beyond the scale by how I felt both emotionally and physically. Because there was a time y'all where I literally starved myself down to a size two and I felt weak and I felt afraid because I knew it wasn't sustainable. I knew I couldn't keep it up because of the way I had gone about it. But when I started to base my success on how do I feel today? Do I feel confident? Do I feel proud? Do I feel joyful? Do I feel grateful? And then I started to focus on how my body felt.

Am I feeling stronger? Am I feeling more energized? That gave me something that I could bring back to my immediate control. That I didn't have to wait until one day when I've lost weight to feel like a successful human. I could begin to feel successful today by how I show up today. And this is so important you all, because so many of us have tied our emotional state for one day when, and you're constantly focused on the goal. And because you're not there yet, you're constantly feeling the scarcity and the lack of not having it yet. And that energy keeps you from creating the emotions that you need to create that are going to keep you inspired, determined. You feel let down, you feel discouraged when you're constantly focused on, I am not there yet. And let me tell you, that is just a thought.

I am not there yet is a thought that keeps you from being there yet because where you want to be is actually a feeling that I'm not there yet will never get you to. So how do you create body success beyond the scale, beyond the externals? And the way I do it, and this was the way that changed everything for me, is that I tie my success to what I have control over in this moment. And that is how I think, how I feel, and how I show up. So for example, instead of saying I will be successful with my body when I weigh a certain amount or I wear a certain size, I will say, I will be successful with my body today if I speak kindly to her, if I drink an extra glass of water, if I go for that mile walk, if I make it to the gym today. I'm doing things for my body that I have control over in this moment, in this day.

And then if I don't show up for one of those things, let's say I don't go to the gym today, I will create success with my body by being kind to myself and figuring out why. Why didn't I go? I have this belief that we're successful even when we fail if we use those failures to grow us. And so even if you fail at something, if you don't show up, if you take a moment and stop to consider why and learn more about yourself, I consider that a huge success because you will carry that lesson over with you. And then if you win, if you have a huge success, it's a day where you follow the orders that you've given yourself because out of self-love and out of wanting the best for yourself, you get to feel the goodness of that as well. But as long as you're tying your body success with a size or a number on the scale, I want you to hear me. That is not a measurement that supports you in the long run.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't get on a scale or you shouldn't look at your dress size. It's all feedback. But the way women have used this against themselves is not okay. Using it as a measurement of am I a good person or am I bad, am I worthy or am I not worthy, am I a success or am I failure. I feel like it's done way more damage than good. Now, if you can get on the scale and use it as a way to get to know your brain and all the stuff that comes up and working through it that way, that's different. But that's not how we use these external measures. They literally become measuring sticks for our worthiness, for our deservingness, of our success as a human being. And what if that's the very thing that's holding you back?

What if you began to tie your success with how you feel each day, with the actions that you take that support your mind, your body, and your spirit? And on those days where maybe you're not so kind, on those days where maybe you don't show up. Even in those moments, if you just stop and you watch yourself and you gain a new level of awareness, to me, again, I think that is a huge success. And I will tell you, this work is what led to me losing the weight one last time. This is the work that got me out of diet culture. This is the work that freed up my energy to go out there and create a business and to learn new things and to enjoy my life more. Because as long as the scale was my measurement of success, the way I got to feel day to day was up and down, because that's the way the scale is.

You don't weigh the same every single day. Some days you gain some weight, some days you lose some weight. But beyond the scale is a way for you to measure your success that will lead to a much more fulfilling life. Measure how you feel, measure how your body feels, measure how you're showing up for yourself today, and use all of this as simply data to learn and to grow. Because at the end of the day, what we're all after is we just want to feel better. And you'll never feel better as long as the skill or a dress size is your measurement of success. You'll never feel better when you've set up your world and your paradigm that you can only feel good if you look a certain way. Because looks change, right? Our bodies change. But when you create that intrinsic success and you measure your success by how you treat yourself, by how you feel, by how you're showing up for yourself, and even when you don't, you don't use that as a way to beat yourself up, but you use it as a way to learn and to grow.

That's when life becomes way more fun and more fulfilling. And it just so happens for the hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of women at this point that I've supported in losing weight for the last time, it eventually leads you to the result that you're after, which is weight loss. But the way we go about it is so different. It's sustainable, it's effective, and it's way more fun. And when things are fun, you're more likely to show up for them, right? So if this is an area that you struggle with, if this is something that you want to finally be done with, if this is something that you have tried to achieve and have failed over and over and you think that it's just not possible for you, I want to tell you that you're wrong. And the reason why I know you're wrong is because I've worked with women who had that exact same story.

Some women have struggled with this for decades, and they come into the membership and before you know it, they're losing weight. And they're telling me it's different than any time before. And that's because we're not dishing out meal plans or exercise routines. You all probably know every diet on the planet if you struggle in this area and you know that experts say you should move your body more. So that's not what's missing for you. What's missing is something deeper. And that's exactly what I'm going to cover on the Slim Secret. This is work that I've been doing for 15 years. In fact, when I started as a coach, my work was around weight loss because it was an area that I had struggled with for so many years. And when I finally figured it out, I realized I don't need another diet. I don't need some other expert telling me what to eat. I need to learn something completely different. And that thing is what I'm going to be revealing on this webinar.

So again, if you are a woman who struggles with your weight, you struggle with your body, you're constantly obsessing over good foods and bad foods and workouts, and you're just tired and you really want a way out, come and join us. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/secret and I will see you on the webinar. And one last thing. If you've been judging your body success by the skill or your dress size, I want you to consider that there's a success that's beyond that, that is way more effective, way more kind. And the cool thing is you get to feel like a success every single day because it's not dependent on some future goal. It's not dependent on a number. It's something that you get to create in this moment by how you treat yourself, by the little things that you're doing to support your health and your well-being, and your vitality.

You don't have to wait to feel better. In fact, I often say, wait, W-A-I-T leads to weight, W-E-I-G-H-T. It's time to stop waiting to feel better. It's time to stop waiting for the scale to read a certain number. You get to feel better now. And when you do, when you have the tools to do that, what you realize is that when you feel better, you treat yourself better. And when you treat yourself better, you end up creating what it is that you want. And one last thing, even when my body is tired, even when I'm not feeling great, even when I haven't had my eight glasses of water, or I might eat something that doesn't feel good in my body, I still get to feel successful. I don't need to use those moments to beat myself up. In those moments, I just express gratitude to my body for doing the best it can.

I extend myself a lot of grace for being a human and not being perfect. And so I want you to realize that you get to feel successful every single day depending on how you look at yourself, how you treat yourself, the lens in which you view yourself. You're not here to be perfect, you're here to enjoy your life, to enjoy your body, to learn, and to grow. And you will never, ever achieve that again, as long as you're using all of these outside measurements as to whether you're good or you're bad. Can we just be done with that? Can we create new measurements of success that can coexist with our humanity, with our imperfect ways of being sometimes? Can we create measures of success that honor our different seasons in life? Can we create measures of success that allow us to feel it every single day, not in some future destination that we're constantly reminding ourselves that we're not there yet and using that as a tool to feel bad?

The answer is we can. And it's something that I want you all to think about. How do you want to judge your body success? And choose very carefully. Make sure you're choosing a definition of success that inspires you, that gives you back control of your daily life, that doesn't set it up so that you can only feel successful one day when. The way to create success is to feel successful now. And right now you can look for evidence of how your body is a huge success. Look at how it supports you. Look at how it breathes you. Look at how it allows you to experience the world. Look at the parts of your body that you actually love, and then extend grace and extend compassion to the parts of yourself that maybe you can't quite love yet only because of thoughts in your head, but I won't go there. But let's create definitions of body success that support, that celebrate, and that helps us to feel good today. Have a beautiful week, my friends. And I hope to see you on the webinar next week. Schoolofselfimage.com/secret. Take care. Cheers.

Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style, and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.