Is An Obsession with Numbers Killing Your Results?
Have you ever stopped to consider if we're too fixated on the numbers—the scale, our pace, the weight on the bar, our steps, our calories, macros, or our body fat percentage? And if so, is this obsession helping or hurting us?
Of course, monitoring can be valuable. You've heard the saying that what gets measured gets managed.
If you don't track your calories, how will you know if you are eating too many (or too few)?
If you don't monitor your weight, how can you be sure it doesn't get out of hand?
It's not the numbers themselves; it's our emotional attachment to them. When we get emotionally attached to a number, the problems begin.
It took me a long time to detach my emotions from the number on the scale. I spent my entire adult life believing that a lower number on the scale was better, and if those numbers rose, that was a reason to be emotionally distraught. It is hard to undo thirty years (or more) of mental conditioning.
A long time ago, long before I was into fitness or knew anything about nutrition, I was in a K-Mart (bear with me) with my then-boyfriend (now husband) and his friend. I stepped on one of those scales where you drop in a quarter, and it gave you a little printout of your weight. Now, friends, my memory is not quite sharp enough twenty-five-ish years later to remember what that little piece of paper revealed, but I am willing to wager the number is less than what I weigh now. I remember vividly that when I saw that number, I immediately burst into tears in the middle of K-Mart!
Talk about an emotional attachment to a number. I am 100% sure I was nowhere near the definition of overweight.
Then, I spent the next few decades being happy when that number went down and feeling sad (or bad) when it went up.
It wasn't until I started lifting weights seriously that I began to intellectually understand that if my goal was to gain muscle, then the number on the scale could increase, which would be a good result of my training. Muscles are denser than fat and take up less space in the body, so when building muscle, you can weigh more but fit into smaller pants. But knowing this intellectually doesn't change those ingrained emotional responses.
If the number on the scale went down, even though this could be directly opposed my stated goal of building muscle, I would still secretly be happy about it. I couldn't help it. My emotional brain thought that the number down equals happiness. As I said, thirty years of mental conditioning is hard to break.
I had to step off the scale and focus on non-scale victories to overcome my obsession. Today, I have no idea what I weigh; I could probably guess within five to eight pounds, but I no longer have the emotional attachment to the daily ups and downs. I monitor my weight by how my clothes fit and how I look in the mirror. I'm mentally healthier for it. I’ve managed to maintain my weight without obsessing over the scale.
When my doctor commented at my annual physical that I weighed two pounds more than the previous year, I responded, "It's probably muscle." and resisted the urge to flex for her. That's real growth.
The problem with fixating on the numbers is that often, these outcomes are out of our control. Sure, we can control what we eat, how much we exercise, and how many hours we allot to sleep each night, but these are not guarantees of a specific outcome on the scale. Fat loss isn't a math problem.
It's ironic, but when we try to force results and become obsessed and emotionally attached to outcomes that are out of our control, the stress makes it more challenging, potentially sabotaging the results.
But when we let go of the result, focus on our actions, and learn to enjoy the process no matter the outcome, we release the burden and are more likely to achieve the desired outcome.
Of course, the scale is an issue for many people, but it's not just the scale. We fixate on the numbers in many different ways. For us runners, sometimes it's our pace. I admit I do the same thing with my running pace that I used to do with the scale. I tell myself I will run slower some days to manage recovery better. Still, I'm secretly happy when my results reveal that I ran faster than intended (even though this directly conflicts with my stated goal). No. One. Cares. About. Your. Pace. But. You. I've been wondering if it might be best to lose the watch for a while like I lost the scale to mentally free myself from the burden of numbers.
What about you? Do you get emotionally attached? Is it the scale, your pace, your calorie intake? Have you ever considered that when in a stressed, controlling, and fixated mindset, freeing yourself from the burden of numbers could potentially improve your results?
It may sound counterintuitive, but caring less could yield better outcomes. Approaching your goals and actions from a place of joy, gratitude, and acceptance could bring better results. How might your outcomes be different if you could relax and release expectations?
What about an experiment? Let go of control, expectation, fixation, and stress of a specific number or results, and see where it leads you. If this little experiment doesn't yield results, you can always go back, but if you've never tried letting go, what can it hurt? After all, if it seems like you've been banging your head against the wall while not making progress, you don't get different results by doing the same things. If nothing else, it could be a needed mental break.
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