Celebrate your victories, not just the numbers
Have you ever heard of Non Scale Victories? It’s often shortened to NSV. You’ll find a lot of talk about this if you hang out on social media long enough. And these are really something worth celebrating.
My weight loss clients come to see me because they want to lose weight. And they do. But what they also come away with is so much more: NSVs.
I always focus on slow but sure weight loss for so many reasons. Here are a few: Fast weight loss is what you get with a very low calorie diet or even that very trendy ketogenic diet that is incredibly high fat and very, very low on carbs. Both are a quick fix but they are also not only difficult to do, but more than anything they are difficult to maintain.
With low calorie diets specifically, you are hungry all the time. AND, you run the risk of slowing down your metabolism. How? The body senses starvation, goes into self preservation mode where it economises and burns fewer calories. This means it’s also highly likely that, in spite of your best efforts, when you go back to eating normally, you’ll put all the weight on (and then some) once you stop the diet.
And you will stop, just as people stop going to diet clubs. When you’re in your own little world of slimming or watching your weight, you can’t help but ask yourself ‘when is it the end?’ or ‘when can I stop?’
Another downside to fast weight loss is the increased risk for gallstones. Now no one wants that!
When you learn to balance your blood sugar levels (don’t worry, you don’t need a PhD to understand how it works and neither is it super restrictive), the weight loss does happen, but there are also some other unexpected results.
One client, who had struggled to sleep for more than four hours at a stretch, was sleeping the whole night through after working with me for only a few weeks.
Another client who was a self-confessed grazer who ate all day long found that, after just a few weeks, she no longer even needed a morning snack. It was truly liberating for her not to be constantly thinking about food.
Then there was the client who had suffered from headaches for years. By changing the way she ate, she was amazed to realise when she came for her next consultation, that she hadn’t even had one for a few weeks!
On top of all that, when you work with a coach on fixing your diet and making some simple lifestyle changes (which is code for putting yourself first for a change), you really can rediscover your inner sparkle.
These are just a few examples of these NSVs. Although what had initially had those clients pick up the phone was the desire to lose weight, what they gained was so much more. Many even tell me that their NSVs are worth more to them than weight loss. They just hadn’t gone to seek help for their ails, because they hadn’t thought that diet would make a difference. But it does, I see it happen every day.