190; Non Scale Victories

I'm back to posting that number in the title of my posts.  It's a good reminder of where I am.

Non scale victories.  They're important.  When I started losing weight, it was all about the numbers.  And by numbers, I mean the scale number.  After you've started losing weight and seeing results, it's all in that number on the scale.  But the longer you go the harder it is to get that scale to move.  That's when the non scale victories come into play.

A few that made me smile: 

• Running my first mile without stopping.
• Getting into regular sizes at the store.
• Drinking 125 ounces of water a day and not craving soda any longer.
• Having my towel fit all the way around my body.
• Being able to put my foot up on the dashboard in the car to tie my shoes and breathing at the same time.
• Choosing fruit over the dessert and stopping at one helping instead of going back for more.
• Seeing my weights in Body Pump double from when I started.

If you Google Non Scale Victories you'll see lots of blogs and articles about this.  It's important to realize that the scale isn't always where it's at.  For quite a while I wasn't losing any weight.  Yet I was exercising, watching what I ate and lifting weights.  It was clear that I had more muscle than when I started and I was proud of that, but the scale kept disappointing me.  Then Pete pointed out that I was likely losing fat and gaining muscle.  So even though the scale wasn't giving me changes, my body was really changing.

The thing that struck me in the last 24 hours was the NSV about the towel and the gym this morning.

For years, I've had the same towels.  And I'd have to wrap them around me so that the opening was at the side of my thigh and didn't show any private parts.  When I could stop and realize that I no longer had to be careful how I wrapped that towel because it more than covered me, I realized just how much I lost.  This morning, after not being at the gym steady for 2 months, I got on that treadmill.  50 minutes and 3.5 miles and 550 calories.  My body remembers the actions of running and how to do it so it wasn't a struggle to do it.  The muscle memory that I have is pretty cool!

So when you're thinking that you're not getting anywhere in the battle to get healthy, stop and examine other areas and ask yourself what NSVs have you reached?