I want to start with a question.
Confidence without the Scale, Podcast 227.
I want to start with a question. How much power does the scale have over your day?
Not just over your weight, but over your mood, your confidence, your motivation, and how you treat yourself after that weigh-in.
For so many women, the scale doesn't just mean…
a measurement of their weight. It decides whether the day is good,
Whether it's bad,
And I want to say this clearly right from the start.
The scale is one piece of data.
But somewhere along the way, it quietly became the authority on how women feel about themselves.
Today, we're going to talk about how to build confidence without outsourcing it to the scale.
Not by avoiding the scale, and not by pretending it doesn't exist, but by changing the role that it plays.
So confidence can finally live somewhere stable.
Most women don't realize how much meaning they've given the scale.
It doesn't just say, this is your weight, here's your number.
It says things like, you're doing it right!
You messed up. You should feel proud, or…
girl, you should feel disappointed.
The scale has become a scoreboard, not just for weight, but for effort and worth and success.
And the hardest part? Women step on the scale looking for reassurance.
And when the number doesn't give it,
confidence collapses.
That's not because you're too attached, or…
too emotional, it's because confidence has been outsourced.
outsourced to that number on the scale.
Here's the problem with letting the scale hold your confidence.
The scale is influenced by a lot of things.
water and hormones.
Salt, stress, sleep, digestion, inflammation, even timing in the day.
So, when confidence depends on it,
Confidence becomes unstable.
up… if you're up that day, you feel good. If you're down, I must be doing something wrong.
And suddenly you're questioning habits that are actually supporting you.
That's not motivating. It's destabilizing.
Confidence is stabilizing.
That was a fun word. Confidence was never meant
to live in a fluctuating number.
This is something I've been saying all month, and it matters here. Confidence and self-trust are not personality traits.
They are not rewards for being good enough.
They are foundational human needs.
When we don't feel confident or safe with ourselves, everything feels harder.
Food decisions, consistency,
Patience, self-talk, and when confidence
disappears? What usually follows?
Control. Restriction.
pressure and speed. We need it faster, we need it done faster. More, more, more.
Women don't get suddenly strict because they're motivated. They get strict because they feel unsafe.
Here's the shift. Most women have never been taught.
Confidence isn't built by results.
Not really. Real internal confidence grows from the evidence you assign meaning to.
So, not just the outcomes.
Like what the scale says.
If confidence only comes from outcomes, it disappears the moment the outcome changes.
And real confidence is built by behavior that you trust.
So, things like…
Eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're satisfied.
following through on small promises.
Responding instead of reacting.
Coming back after a hard day.
Those are quiet wins.
But they matter, because confidence grows from evidence, not just outcomes.
And that evidence doesn't get erased just because the scale gives you a number that you don't like.
One number doesn't get to override all the small things that you've been doing.
This is where nuance matters, okay?
the scale isn't bad.
And it's not forbidden, and you don't need to avoid it forever.
It's simply one piece of data.
Data doesn't tell you how to feel. It doesn't tell you who you are.
And it doesn't get to erase your effort.
When the scale is used well, it asks…
questions instead of making declarations.
You might say, what might be influencing this today? Or how does this line up with what my habits have been?
Or what information can I gather without overreacting?
When the scale becomes neutral, it stops being threatening.
This is something I see all the time with women I work with. When they stop letting the scale lead…
They eat more consistently.
They're not trying to make up for things. They take better care of themselves.
They stop panicking over fluctuations.
They stop abandoning the habits that actually are working.
And something interesting happens.
The scale often becomes more stable.
Not because they're forcing it, and not because they're controlling harder, but because they're no longer fighting their body.
And this part is important.
Confidence didn't come from the number changing. The number changed
after confidence stabilized.
I love that part.
One of the most powerful shapes women make is this.
They stop waiting for permission to feel proud. They start noticing things, like, I showed up!
Maybe not perfect, but girl, I showed up today.
I listened to myself.
I did not spiral, or I came back.
After a mistake. I came back after a hard day.
But I want to be honest, this was hard for me before I could allow confidence,
I fought it. I minimized these moments. I picked them apart.
I made them feel small and insignificant.
I convinced myself that noticing small wins meant that I was justifying bad behavior.
That if I let myself feel proud, I was letting myself off the hook.
So instead of saying, I showed up,
And I'm learning. I said, I showed up, but…
I made a mistake. And that butt erased everything. I was so afraid of being wrong, doing it wrong, failing, and that kept it.
Me from trying.
When I learned to tell the whole story, the whole story, nothing but the truth kind of thing,
Things changed. I showed up, and…
I'm learning. It wasn't perfect, and…
It still moved me forward.
I struggled AND.
I stayed with it. That and kept the win intact.
It also felt believable.
It allowed me to stay in learning and curiosity and compassion instead of fear.
fear of making it all…
wrong, or doing something terrible that was unforgivable and…
too far to come back from.
And that's when confidence, it all started to unlock.
When confidence no longer depends on the scale,
food feels calmer. Habits feel easier.
Progress feels sustainable.
You don't need to white-knuckle consistency.
You don't need to punish yourself into results.
You move forward because it feels safe to do so.
And safety, not pressure, is what allows bodies to change sustainably.
If the scale has been deciding how you feel about yourself, I want you to know this.
You don't need to get rid of the scale to rebuild confidence.
You just need to take your confidence back.
By telling the whole story, that truthful whole story.
Not just the parts the scale tells you.
Confidence was never meant to live in a number.
It was always meant to live in you.
in how you care for yourself, how you respond, and how you keep showing up.
And if you want help learning how to build confidence without letting the scale run the show, that's exactly the work I do with women every day.
Not by ignoring the scale, but by putting it back in its proper place.