Calories, the scale, BMI. The way you (and your doctor) measure your health and your choices are not just not serving you, they’re leading you astray. What if we started to measure choices regarding our health based on listening to our bodies or communicating with our bodies, rather than adhering to outdated rules? Tune in to this episode to redefine your yardstick. This week, Jenn is talking about creating your own yardstick when it comes to your health journey. There is so much information available to people about which workouts are the right ones to do, and how you should eat, how much you should or shouldn’t eat, that we often lose sense of what our individual bodies need to be in our best health. Jenn walks through a variety of topics ranging from exercise, diets, portion sizes, creating your own metrics of success and more throughout this episode. Tune in to hear Jenn share some great tangible ideas on how to ensure your goals and the metrics you use to measure your progress are right for you, and what choices to make when creating your own benchmarks. The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast is hosted by Jenn Trepeck, discussing wellness and weight loss for real life, clearing up the myths, misinformation, bad science & marketing surrounding our nutrition knowledge and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store. IN THIS EPISODE: ● [5:54] What are things that we measure when it comes to our health?● [8:12] How can you better measure your workouts? ● [14:40] How do you measure your food? ● [26:23] How do you know appropriate portion sizes?● [31:48] How can you make the best choices for your individual self?● [35:15] How do we avoid using social media and societal norms and get stuck in a cycle of comparison?● [38:47] How do you know if what you are doing is actually working?● [41:09] Why do doctors use BMI, where did it come from and what is a better metric to use instead?● [43:38] Are the scales out there accurate to account for your body fat %?● [47:05] Jenn shares alternative benchmarks to measure success and progress. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ● [17:38] Calories should not be on your yardstick of measuring how much food you should intake. Instead, the measurement on your yardstick can be that you are going to eat the colors of the rainbow throughout the week.● [35:20] Don’t let social media create your benchmark for your health. Instead, tune in to your body and see if you have energy, if you are feeling good, if you are improving how you choose foods, if you are eating the rainbow, if you are getting nutrition every day, and if you are making progress over your behaviors. ● [39:39] The number on the scale includes your bones and your organs and water and your brain and muscle and fat and all of these other things. Measuring only the number on the scale going down, does not indicate health. QUOTES: [12:37] “We’re then looking at other people and making whatever they’re doing or not doing, whatever is happening for them or not happening for them, something about us and our progress. Which is frankly apples and oranges.” - Jenn Trepeck[12:52] “I think a lot of the devices create the metrics that we then all think we ‘should be using.’ Maybe it’s worth either adjusting some of those things in your device or maybe opting out of some of them if they’re not serving you in a way that’s helping you feel positive and energized, or maybe there’s a different way to use the tool.” - Jenn Trepeck[15:12] “When it comes to food, calories is a terrible yardstick.” - Jenn Trepeck[19:00] “Percent daily value was based on number one, a 2,000 calorie diet, and number two, based on a person not deteriorating into rickets and scurvy. So it was originally designed in the time of war based on how our military was being fed.” - Jenn Trepeck[22:08] “It’s a choice, Everything is a choice. There are choices that will move us in the  direction of our goal faster than other choices.” - Jenn Trepeck[34:14] “What if we started to measure our choices based on listening to our bodies or communicating with our bodies, rather than on some set of rules and adhering to those rules?” - Jenn Trepeck[37:37] “When we think about the choices that we’re making, oftentimes people will say well this is easier, the metric of ease. Maybe we start to look or redefine ease to distinguish between ease in the moment or ease in the long run. In the moment it might be easier to buy the Reese’s cups in the grocery store checkout, but if that choice brings with it guilt and shame and thinking about those Reese's cups for a week, was it really easier? To me, I find it easier to not give myself reasons to beat myself up” - Jenn Trepeck [47:05] “Things you might want to consider as other benchmarks for success and progress - quality sleep, how we manage or handle stress, or energy and our self confidence. What if you check in on those things every day, on eating the rainbow, where might that leave you? How would you feel? That’s health.” - Jenn TrepeckRESOURCES:Perception vs. Reality Episode Become A Member of Salad with a Side of FriesJenn’s Free Menu PlanA Salad With a Side of FriesA Salad With A Side Of Fries MerchA Salad With a Side of Fries Instagram