Too many people put all the emphasis on a single metric for success when adopting a healthier lifestyle: the scale. While a person’s weight is a good, solid, and measurable metric to track, it shouldn’t be not only the sole metric, but even the one with the most emphasis.

I learned almost 8 years ago that health is a collection of different data points that, together, paint the whole picture. Weight, my emotional health, how I feel in my skin, how my clothes fit and feel, how my joints feel; these all put together tell me how I’m doing. The funniest thing about it is that I even mentioned weight first in my little list, and that’s because it’s the easiest data point to acquire. Just step on a scale, and *BOOM* there it is. But how do I feel? How do my clothes fit? My empotional wellbeing? Those are much more subjective, but honestly, they’re more important.

Case in point: this morning, my weight was up. Unexplainebly up by more than I liked, but the crazy part is that my pants haven’t fit so well in months. As for the shirt I put on, it’s another one that was skin-tight just two and a half weeks ago. Today? It fit perfectly. Then, there’s how I feel emotionally. I’m a little tired from not getting enough sleep, but otherwise, I’m doing great. I can feel the progress, and I feel that the sugar addiction is almost all gone. There is a mental clarity that comes with being off sugar, and it makes everything feel hyper-real as compared to a few weeks ago. I love that feeling!

So, the scale may not have been my friend today, but the way my clothes fit, the lack of pain in my joints and my back, and my emotional clarity all told me that I’m well on the right path, and I need to keep going.