My post this week is going to be shorter than normal, but I hope thought provoking.

I was recently asked this question when discussing wanting to lose a little weight. I said I want to weigh XXX.  The person, whom I will not name, asked me this in response, “How will your life be different if you weighed that weight?”  That’s really a great question. I thought about it…

Would my family be different? No.

Would my friends be different? No.

Would I be married to someone else? No!

Would I  have a different job? Nope.

Will I still have the same problems? Yes.

Will weight loss solve any of these problems? No.

Would I be happier? Maybe.

HOW this will make me happier? Not sure.

These answers really made me think about that number on the scale.

For a long time I used to believe that I walked around with the number I weighed floating above my head. I thought everyone who looked at me knew if I was up a few pounds or down a few pounds on any given day. If you’ve ever participated in the Weight Watchers  you probably know this feeling very well. Days you liked the number on the scale you’d walk around on top of the world. Yet other days you’d walk around feeling like crap. Angry at yourself, the scale and life in general.

I also used to have a “cutoff number.” I’m sure everyone has one. It’s the number on the scale that takes you from a “good place” to a “bad place.” That one pound holds a lot of weight (pun intended.) We can weigh one thing and feel good but just 1 pound up, feel horrible. Insanity, I know.

But again, all this scale talk is crazy talk when I try to answer the question, “How will my life be different if I weighed a certain weight?”

Anyone who has planned a wedding or any important event knows that creating the guest list is hard work.

So one of the things I did when I got married was make a mental pie chart of the parts of me that defined me. (my job, college, high school, ect.) I did this because the people who were influential during these important parts of my life was who I wanted at my wedding.

So to answer the tough question of “How will my life be different if I weighed a certain weight?” I made another pie chart to see where the number on the scale fits into a description of me.

This simple technique puts a lot of things into perspective. Sure we may want to lose weight for health reasons, so more of our clothes fit, so we feel more confident in certain clothes- but not to change anything in our lives. Anytime you step on the scale and you don’t like what you see, remember your pie chart and how nothing will change in your life if you were a lower number. It’s actually liberating.

Because no matter what the scale says, you step off that scale and step into the exact same life <3