Round 2, Day 8: A Message to the Perpetual Scale-Stepper

I went to my parent's house to make dinner tonight. An opened bag of potato chips watched me the whole freaking time. Snacking while I make dinner used to be a normal thing for me. I'm not usually hungry when I do it. Even if it's a healthy snack, like carrot sticks, it's mostly mindless eating, so it is a habit I'd like to break. I've been trying to use any waiting times (letting something simmer, oven cooking times, etc.) to do something more productive like cleaning up the kitchen from my inevitable dinner-making messes. It's been helping with the mindless eating while I cook and helping make the end-of-meal clean up not nearly as tedious. 

Part of the Whole30 plan is to stay away from scales and tape measures for the entire 30 days. The reasons behind this are something I whole-heartedly agree with (if you are a habitual weigher, read this explanation. It's amazing). No one's worth or health should be determined by a number. I can't tell you how freeing it has been to not even think about stepping on a scale. Back a few weeks ago when I was counting calories, I was more than a little scale-obsessed. Sometimes I would weigh myself a few times a day just to see if there was any change. My entire day would be determined by the number on that piece of metal and plastic. It's the worst kind of prison. 

I totally get it; the curiosity to see results is sometimes overwhelming. I asked my husband to hide the scale (along with all the junkfood we had in our house), which he so kindly did for me. I really don't have an option to find out my weight right now and see if I've made any progress, but I'm absolutely OK with that. Without the scale to measure my "progress", I've become much more aware of how my efforts are making me feel, and that's wonderful. I've noticed that I'm sleeping better (especially on the nights when Little Miss Toddler sleeps for longer stretches), I have more energy, my skin is clearing up, and I have less and less of a desire to eat things that take away from this feeling and from my hard work. That is so much more motivational than stressing over a 1lb gain.

What I ate:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with onion, spinach and bell pepper with a side of chicken apple breakfast sausages

Lunch: Strawberries and a LARA bar on the go; we were late to church. . . 

Dinner: Melissa's Chicken Hash, because I just had to make that for my family!