Non-Scale Victories

One thing that I have to keep reminding myself on my fitness journey is that the non-scale victories are as important as the scale victories.

Lately, my weight has been consistently hovering around the 186 range. And it’s been hanging out there for like two and a half months. And that’s been really really really frustrating.

The only thing that really kept me going was the fact that my workouts were feeling really good and I was seeing a lot of improvement with muscle development and strength improvements.

I was feeling super strong and confident in my lifts. I managed to get almost all the way down in all of my squats, bench 90 pounds for 3, AND do a dip!

While none of those may sound like major milestones, they were huge moments for me.

Especially that dip.

Dips are freaking hard for me and I’ve been working really hard to get my strength up to a point where I can do a full one.

These non-scale victories were helping me push through the irritation that was coming with the number on the scale not going down. But I was slowly getting to the point where that frustration was eating away at my confidence.

But this weekend I had a MAJOR NSV that has reignited my motivation. I noticed that my jeans were fitting a little looser than normal. The waist was getting kind of saggy and gapped a little.

At first, I thought it was a fluke. After all, these were my size 10 jeans. There was no way I had gotten small enough in 3 months to warrant going down another jean size. But my curiosity got the best of me and after I finished up my Saturday lift, I went over to Old Navy to try on new jeans.

I grabbed the size 8 talls skeptically and ventured over to the dressing rooms. As I pulled them on, I thought “There is no way I am a size 8. I’ve never been a size 8 in my life.”

But lo and behold, I pulled them up and buttoned them easily and viola! Size 8 jeans fit me.

I almost cried. Single digit pant sizes had been a major NSV goal of mine since I started the keto and weightlifting thing 8 months ago. I also tried on a dress, shirt, and sweater and had to get a size small in all of them. Size SMALL!

That was insane to me. And is still insane to be now.

As I sit here now in my size 8 jeans, I am still floored that they fit. This was never something that I thought I was going to be able to do. I never thought I was going to be able to drop 4 (almost 5) pant sizes in 8 months. I never thought I was going to be wearing a size small anything. I never thought I would have to buy so many new clothes in such a short amount of time.

I have achieved more with keto and lifting in the last 8 months that I even planned to. I dropped 33 pounds, 4 pant sizes, 2 shirt sizes, got my lifts up to 135 on squats and 90 on bench press, can do a dip, have worked hard to get my squats lower, and became more confident in myself and my progress.

It may be hard to keep going in a fitness and weight-loss journey when you aren’t seeing the numbers on the scale go down, but make sure that you are marking the non-scale progress as carefully as the scale progress. Sometimes its just the right boost you need to keep going.

Also, here’s some motivation for your Monday. The pictures below were hard for me to string together. From the day I graduated college in May of 2015 all the way through today. 2 years later, and I think I am finally able to see that I am making progress.

One day at a time.

Just keep moving forward.