Melissa Timmer on how to measure progress without scales

Melissa Timmer lost a HUGE 37 kilos in just 18 months following The Healthy Mummy’s 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge! And she looks incredible!

This stunning mama is now passionate about empowering other mums to achieve their weight and health goals and regain their confidence – and she’s got some fantastic tips on how to measure progress without the scales, plus she shows us exactly how to take measurements and good progress pics.

Melissa top tips on what to do when scales don’t move.

“This is such a tricky topic and can be really hard to stay motivated when you don’t see a certain number you may hoped for,” says Melissa. “We have to remember that success is not measured by a number.”

A lot of things can factor to your success:

• Your energy levels may have increased
• You may be feeling fitter and stronger
• You could have increased improvement to your organs that you don’t see.
• You might be saving money.
• You may feel happier within yourself.
• You may have noticed some other non-scale victories ( even though the scales haven’t moved you may have changed body shape, lost cms, gained muscle, clothes fitting better).

“Although it is important to know how much you weigh a number doesn’t mean you will look a particular way, you may have a vision in your mind of how you would love to look, we often attach a number to that vision.”

“For example, you might imagine yourself with less of a tummy and think that if you lose 5 kg that’s what your body will look like,” says Melissa.

“Unfortunately, we can’t target specific areas for fat loss, although we can target specific areas for muscle growth and tone.”

Here are two pics of Melissa with a 10kg difference, but yet the pic where she’s at her heaviest is on the right because she’s lot more toned, stronger and fitter than the pic on the left.

“Using scales is more of a guide line and a better way to maintain weight that using it for weight loss.

If your exercising just to lose weight and then don’t see the scales move you might feel deflated and feel like you have gone to a lot of effort for nothing.”

What you don’t see on the scales is:

• How much fitter your getting
• The muscle your gaining
• How much each workout is helping you burn calories
• Keeping your body from possible diseases or long term health problems
• Releasing good endorphins to make you feel better about yourself

“Our weight can fluctuate due to, hormones, lack of sleep, stress, water weight, muscle.

So the next time you jump on the scales to track your progress, if you know it’s going to get you down and make you doubt about why your doing this, think about all the benefits your body is receiving from all the little things you do and remember it’s not all about weight loss, it’s lifestyle change and we want to live our best life, not a short one with yo yo diets in hope for a number in your head.

Numbers are just numbers that’s all they are they don’t make you YOU !!”