Ways to measure progress (instead of weight loss)

We are so used to measuring progress with numbers (on the scale, calories earned/burned, clothing sizes) that it can be hard to recognize all the progress you are making when these numbers are no longer serving us.
There are so many other ways to progress when you switch value systems. Your evolution deserves recognition, too.

Here are some ways you can start thinking about progress outside of a diet mindset:

• Ability to eat spontaneously (impromptu ice cream cones, accepting last minute dinner invitations, friend stopping over with food to share, etc)

• More mental space (not thinking about food constantly between meals)

• Reduced intensity and duration of body image meltdowns

• Experience of eating past fullness and allowing it to exist without becoming a binge.

• That bag of chips has been in your pantry for over a week and you almost forgot.

• Increased recognition of emotions as they're happening.

• Moments of neutral or compassionate self-talk after a binge.

• Ability to grieve/get rid of clothes that make you feel bad.

• Reaching out for support more frequently.

• Keeping non-food related promises to yourself.

• Increased frequency of engagement in life even if you binged.

• Getting in the pictures; wearing the bathing suit.

• Setting more boundaries (saying NO to things you don’t have time/energy/capacity to do, asserting your needs, speaking up about diet conversation, stating a zero tolerance policy for body-related comments, etc.)
  

You can use this list as a starting point to create your own, personalized list of progress markers. (This is also something that we can work on together in coaching sessions.) How do you want to measure success now? What do you want that to look like? Make it as concrete/specific as possible. For example, "eating spontaneously" means "saying yes to my kids on summer afternoons when they ask to get ice cream cones after camp."

How about you? What are your wins?