Measuring Success Beyond the Scale

Throughout her 20s and 30s, Lisa Dove, a product purchasing manager in Vernon Hills, Illinois, prided herself on eating nutritiously and exercising. But once she began having kids, things changed. For more than a decade, these longtime healthy habits seemed unachievable. By the time the pandemic hit in 2020, she weighed almost 300 pounds. “After my third kid, everything went downhill,” says Dove. “When you juggle a career and children, your needs come last. I never had time to take care of myself, and I gained weight as a result.”

Over half of American adults say that they want to lose weight, but they are unsure how to do it. For some, access to healthy foods is virtually nonexistent, while for others, busy lifestyles and long commutes make it hard to squeeze in a gym session. 

“Adding fuel to the fire is a diet industry with a focus on certain foods as good and others as bad,” says Tara Schmidt, M. Ed., RDN, LD, an instructor of nutrition at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “All this does is normalize restrictive dieting, which backfires,” she explains. Research suggests that over 80% of people who follow a weight-loss diet regain all of the weight they originally lost within five years. “People blame themselves,” says Schmidt. “They assume that the reason they’re not successful is lack of self-discipline, when in reality they’re trying to hold themselves up to unattainable standards.”

That’s one reason why Dove’s efforts to lose weight often failed. “I’d focus on the fact that I wanted to lose over 100 pounds, and I’d just give up because it seemed so daunting and unrealistic,” she says. Dove’s successful weight-loss journey began in a completely unexpected way during the pandemic lockdown. After the sudden death of her pet, Dove remembers, “I was so upset that I’d sneak out for short walks away from my family so that I could be alone to cry.” Over the next couple of months, she went from barely being able to go a half-mile to speed-walking 2 miles. “It was a small step, but one that pushed me down the path to embrace a healthier lifestyle,” she says.

As Dove’s fitness improved, she found that she instinctively took steps toward healthier eating. “We grilled a lot at home, so I would just throw chicken, steak or fish on the grill and season it with spices instead of butter or heavy sauces,” she says. She also began to watch her portion sizes. “In the past, I’d sit in front of the TV and eat an entire Costco bag of nuts,” she recalls. “I began reading labels to learn what a real portion size was and then followed it accordingly. That way, I wasn’t depriving myself of anything I wanted to eat—I was just eating smaller amounts of my favorite foods.” Since the start of the pandemic, Dove has lost almost 150 pounds. 

Dove’s story shows that weight loss is possible if you focus less on the number on the scale and more on your overall well-being. After all, weight is only one measure of health. Sleeping better, feeling fewer aches and pains, having more energy, lowering blood sugar or improving cholesterol levels can all go a long way in living a healthier, happier life. 

That isn’t to say that it isn’t OK to want to improve your health through weight loss. “But when you only focus on weight, as Dove did initially, you risk damaging your relationship with food and body image,” stresses Schmidt. 

Understanding Diet Culture

Whether it’s the transformational weight-loss videos on TikTok, or the latest celebrity-endorsed crash diet, there’s an unmistakable message that if you’re thinner, you’ll be happier. There’s a name for this phenomenon: Diet culture.“Diet culture is the expectation that dieting is the norm—that dieting for weight loss is something everyone ‘should’ do,” says Marney White, Ph.D., M.S., a professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut, and a clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders. 

But diet culture extends to more than just weight loss. It also includes the idea that there’s only one definition of “healthy.” Schmidt explains that seeing picture-perfect meals on Instagram can make you feel like you’re not eating “healthy enough” or “good enough.” “But there’s no one ‘right’ way to go about healthy living, including weight loss,” she says. 

Unfortunately, diet culture is based on unrealistic expectations, adds White. “It tells people that not only should they aim to control their body size and shape to get to an unrealistic standard, they should also do so through a variety of behaviors which are often unhealthy, and don’t even have any scientific basis,” she stresses. One study found that the most viewed content on TikTok around food, nutrition and weight perpetuated a toxic diet culture without any expert voices to give it balance. What’s more, a 2024 survey found that only about 2% of the content in TikTok nutrition videos was accurate according to public health and nutrition guidelines.

Diet culture was one reason why Dove was hesitant to join a gym when she was at her heaviest. “I’d see TikTok videos of impossibly fit women doing Boot Camp, and I’d beat myself up mentally for not looking like that,” she says. “I stayed away from gyms for 10 years because I was so ashamed of my body.”

When people embrace diet culture, they often adopt an “all or nothing” mindset when it comes to health behaviors like diet and exercise. “This ‘all or nothing’ stance is encouraged by diet culture when people hear things like ‘all carbs are bad’—or even categorizing foods into healthy and unhealthy,” says White. As a result, people often feel guilt and shame around food choices. These emotions frequently lead to restrictive and then binge-eating behavior, she notes. “Trying to follow such a rigid diet is unrealistic and sets people up to fail,” adds White. 

For these reasons—and many more—diet culture can leave people stuck in a cycle of unhealthy behaviors and cause them to lose sight of what’s actually important for health. Of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom. From online support groups to dietitians sharing their top budget-friendly recipes on Instagram, social media and the internet can also help navigate around roadblocks you encounter. You just have to be savvy about what you read and who you listen to. 

The Barriers to Healthy Lifestyle Changes 

“There are a number of barriers to healthy lifestyle changes, but stress ranks among the top of them, says Theresa Gentile, M.S., RD, a nutritionist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “We have a lot of stress in our lives juggling work and home responsibilities,” she explains. “But when you’re stressed, you’re more likely to crave comfort foods that are high in sugar or salt. They temporarily make you feel better, but they don’t address the underlying stress that’s causing you to overeat in the first place.”

When you lead a busy life, it’s hard to plan and cook healthy meals, adds Julia Moss, RD, a nutritionist at the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s doubly hard if you have family members at home who aren’t on board to make healthy lifestyle changes, too,” she says. “If you’re a working parent, for example, the sorts of meals you may want to make to improve your diet aren’t exactly things that your kids may be eager to eat.” 

The biggest barrier to healthy lifestyle changes for Dove was a lack of time. “It was easier to grab pizza or McDonald’s in between shuffling my girls to after-school activities rather than make us all a healthy meal,” she recalls. “As for exercise, forget it. I could never fit it in.”

Even if you can find a moment to cook, you may find the increasing cost of food hard to navigate. Almost half of all Americans view healthy food as expensive, according to a 2022 survey. “Sadly, wealth often equals health,” says Pamela Peeke, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland and author of The Hunger Fix: The Science & Solution for Food Addiction. She explains that it impacts not just what you eat but how active you are. “If you can’t afford a new pair of sneakers, you aren’t taking a whole lot of walks,” she points out. 

One thing that helped Dove was packing healthy snacks whenever she was on the go. She made sure she had nutritious bites, like fruit with peanut butter, to eat whenever she had a late evening attending kids’ activities. She also made a point of scheduling exercise in her daily routine. 

Mapping Out a Strategy 

As with any journey in life, it’s important to map out a plan for how to get there—after all, you wouldn’t go on a cross-country road trip and not have stops along the way. The key is making a plan that’s realistic. Whether you’re trying to lose weight or improve your blood sugar levels, overhauling your lifestyle overnight can leave you feeling overwhelmed and make it harder to stay motivated. “Small steps are the ones that are often most effective when it comes to long-term weight loss,” says Peeke. These can be little choices, such as limiting foods low in nutrients and adding in bursts of movement when you can, she explains. 

Another helpful tip is not to start from scratch. “It’s a good idea to work on improving what you have rather than completely reinventing your menu wheel,” says Gentile. When Dove set out to make changes to her daily menus, she sat down with her husband. “He’s the cook in the family, so we came up with some changes to make our dinners more healthful,” she says. These simple swaps included seasoning chicken or steak with spices, rather than sauces high in saturated fat and sodium, before throwing them on the grill and frequently choosing grilled or roasted vegetables over refined starchy sides like bread or pasta. 

The same strategy holds true for physical activity. “Start with something realistic, that won’t require that you totally upend your schedule,” advises White. If you’ve been sedentary, make a goal to get up from your desk at lunchtime every day and walk around the block or to the other side of the building. Next week, add another walk break, and the following week, add a third. “Make it a goal to add 500 steps, or roughly a quarter-mile, to your daily activity each week,” suggests Peeke. While you may have heard that 10,000 steps a day is ideal, one study found that even 2,000 steps a day reduced the risk of death from any cause. 

Keep in mind that physical activity doesn’t have to look like spending an hour at the gym or donning walking shoes. It can also include hobbies that bring you joy, like gardening or dancing, or chores that you need to do anyway, like mowing the lawn or vacuuming. 

Finding these windows of movement throughout your day can go a long way in achieving your health goals. Not only can it help with weight loss, but being more physically active has also been shown to help improve sleep quality, lower stress levels, improve blood sugar management and maintain independence as you age.

Striking the Balance

When Dove worked at home during the pandemic, she was able to exercise during her lunch hour. But once she returned to her office, she scrambled to find a new time to exercise. “The evenings weren’t an option because I’d have to miss my kids’ after-school sports games,” she says. “But I also knew that it was important to my overall health, mood and energy to stay active.” She was able to work out a compromise with her husband that allowed her to hit the gym at 6 a.m. while he got the kids up and ready for school. “It was hard, because I’m not really a morning person, but it was the compromise that made sense,” she said. 

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, lower your blood sugar levels or have more energy during the day, figuring out how to achieve your health goals can sometimes feel like putting together a puzzle. If you’re aware of the pieces you need, it can just take a little trial and error to figure out how they all fit together. 

However, finding a balance between your health goals and your lifestyle isn’t something you have to navigate on your own. Research shows that people who have a support network, whether it’s an online support group, a group of friends or a professional health coach, tend to be more successful in losing weight than those who go at it alone. For instance, you can join a support group on Facebook where they share recipes and exercise tips. Some people swear by them, saying they help provide encouragement and ideas to one another. Plus, you can make some friends along the way. 

Lastly, keep in mind that even the best laid-out plan will need to be adjusted from time to time. Holidays, vacations, weather, sick kids at home and emergencies at work are just some of the curveballs that can get in the way of your carefully planned routine. Rather than throwing your progress out the window, know that it’s OK to compromise. Maybe you only have time for a 20-minute workout instead of an hour. Or maybe you go out for pizza to celebrate your kid’s soccer game win and move the home-cooked dinner you’d planned to the next night. 

The Bottom Line

“When it comes to weight loss, slow and steady wins the race,” says Schmidt. Busy schedules, budget constraints and unrealistic expectations can make achieving your health goals feel nearly impossible. Rather than overhauling your lifestyle overnight, focus on small changes, like eating more vegetables at dinner, meeting a friend for a walk or going to sleep 30 minutes earlier. “There’s no need to invent the wheel here,” says Peeke.

It’s also important to reflect on what’s truly important for your overall well-being. “It’s not just about how much you weigh or what size you can fit into: It’s whether your body can do the things you love to do, whether it’s taking your dog for a hike or running around with your kids,” stresses Peeke. At the end of the day, the goal of a healthier lifestyle is to live a fuller, healthier, happier life—something that no scale can measure.