Helloooooo!

*In my Jerry Seinfeld voice* La la la!

Um, don't mind me.

I haven't written in a very long time, BUT we shan't dwell on it. On to the next thing. Tomorrow will begin my new blog series entitled "Scale Free September," which is very ambitious because it will mean lots more blogging for me, plus more activity (exercise) in my life, plus starting school, plus work as usual, plus physical therapy (relatively new addition), plus starting to volunteer at my local domestic violence rescue shelter, plus church and family and friends. :)  No complaining here, it's all awesome stuff.

So let me explain. Scale Free September is inspired by a few of my imaginary bff's from the internet. My favorite fitness and clean-eating blogger is Erika Kendall of blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com. I learn tons and tons from her blog, and agree 100% with her ideas, nope, FACTS about the right ways to get healthy and create a healthy lifestyle by being active and eating natural, clean, unprocessed foods. Plus she inspired me to start cooking in the past year. That's a big step. Erika lead a Scale Free Summer, but I was not in a place for that yet. I feel ready to make the step now for myself.

My other inspiration is a gorgeous girl named Honorine. Really that's her name. You can find her on Instagram @honorcurves, honoring her curves and everyone else's. I've had the honor (no other word fits as well) of becoming her digital cyber friend, and I get to enjoy her daily pep talks pumping me up to love everything about my jiggly beautiful body, no matter how it shrinks and grows. While I've long been one on board with improvement, I've always had appreciation and affection for what is me RIGHT NOW.  To make it simple, I'm hot stuff and I know it, and Miss Honor Curves, is about spreading that same philosophy to a world of women of all sizes and shapes. One more thing, she does not weigh herself. I've been attached to weighing myself so regularly for so long, I thought: What a brave and admirable outlook on things. I've got to try that.

A few notes about my relationship to the scale, and my personal reasons for a journey without it:

I have gone through a full gammut of being weight-obsessed and just weight-conscious in my life, but weight (the actual number) has always been a defining factor for who Stephanie is. During my earlier college years, I kept a scale in the kitchen (not a food scale, a people scale), and weighed myself before and after each meal, in addition to each morning and each night. I also spent 2-3 hours in the gym most days, ate fruit snacks or toast if I ate, passed out in classes, and my grades sucked. I was the lightest I've ever been in my adult (or teenage) life! I also thought I was huge. HUGE. Like morbidly obese. Like I looked in the mirror and hated it and cried. Like I got ready for school in the morning for 2 or 3 hours, got dressed 4 or 5 times, couldn't do it, and went back to bed, and then went to the gym later.  Like I would have a full melt down if an occasion called for a swimsuit.

That was 30 or 35 pounds lighter than now, and now I'm in bikinis, shorts, leggings, tanks, crop tops, naked, whatever I feel like for summer occasions. So yes I've grown up and come a long way with regards to my body image, thankfully.

But I still tend to continually live with a mindset of envisioning some golden number I need to see on the scale.  Lately it's been just "what I weighed last summer" (169), because last summer was perfect and amazing, and I felt great at that weight. I do in all reality feel like right around there is a great realistic healthy weight for me. It was easy to maintain for over a year, which is an accomplishment for a fluctuater like me. I'd like to stabilize somewhere steady through the healthy habits I've developed, and then just see that at my check ups at the doctor, and not give it more thought than that. I don't want to be so co-dependent with my scale. I shouldn't need to check in daily-weekly-whatever.

My other reason to break up with the scale is that I think other measurements can be a lot more effective than weight to measure the progress of health, which is what I'm going for.  Since my appearance already makes me happy now, I get to forget about fat or skinny, and focus on health.  I'll be using a measuring tape and body fat percentage, once at the beginning and once at the end of September, to check any change.  Other than that, the plan is just focus on healthy habits and feeling good, and see what happens.  It is NOT a weekly weight goal.  It is not reward-myself-for-weighing THIS. It is not I-can't-wear-that-until-I-weigh-THAT. 

My goodbye weigh-in today was 183.6. I lost 17 pounds this summer, and that's an accomplishment to not be overlooked, because I did it the right way this time.  I'm giving my frenemy The Scale to my roommate Megan now, to hold onto for safekeeping, in case I need it for an unforeseen reason in the future.

The elements of Scale Free September will be introduced with more detail tomorrow, along with my measurements to start. I'm excited to be so freeeeeeeee. Wheeeee!!!!

Join in or follow along using #scalefreeseptember on Instagram and Twitter.

Love,
Stephie xoxo