You Are Not Your Metrics

It’s been a week of diligent exercise, mindful eating, consciously making better decisions, and here I am, stood barefooted, about to step on the scales to see that all important weight-drop that my effort surely deserves. Instead, all I see is the same number as last week staring back at me - no change. Frustration sets in…

Had all my effort been for nothing? It feels as if every early morning run before anyone else in the house is even awake, every swapped takeaway for a home-cooked meal, and the countless kilos lifted in my gym sessions, has all simply vanished into thin air - all because a digital display hadn’t budged.

Sound familiar?

In our quest for health and fitness, many of us become fixated on numbers: the calories consumed, the kilos lost, the body fat percentage reduced. We track, measure, and quantify, believing that these metrics, and these alone, tell us the whole story of our health and fitness. But do they?

Now, I openly admit to having a personal bias in this discussion. I currently have a Whoop strap and an Apple Watch. I used an Oura Ring nightly for over 5 years. I have paid for annual subscriptions for nutritional trackers, meditation and journaling Apps. As well as heavily investing into technology with clients through the IFT Coaching App. Partly to understand current trends in health and fitness, partly because I like the “numbers” side of things. Yet one of my most consistent phrases with clients with it comes to technology, and tracking metrics specifically, is “You have to be able to separate yourself from the numbers!”.

Imagine a company that obsesses over daily stock prices. Each dip sends the board of directors into panic; each rise brings temporarily elation and hopes for a brighter tomorrow. Decisions are made hastily to influence short-term performance, often at the expense of long-term stability. I’m sure clients who work within this sector, or similar, will attest that focusing solely on immediate financial reports can lead to poor strategic choices. Top level investors know that true growth is measured in years, not days.

Our bodies operate in much the same way. Weight fluctuates due to a myriad of factors: hydration levels, hormonal changes, even the time of day. Focusing on these numbers can be hugely misleading. It’s like checking your bank account every hour expecting to see significant growth - unlikely and potentially disheartening.

When we reduce our health and fitness to mere metrics, we overlook the more profound, less tangible benefit of our efforts. The things behind the curtain that we don’t get to see. It’s almost impossible to quantify the increase in stamina you may feel chasing your kids around a park.

Likewise, could you give me a metric that accurately portrays the clearer mind you feel having just finished a Pilates class? Or the improved mood you feel from actually cooking a balanced nutrition meal for you and your family? - these are successes that no scale can measure.

There have been numerous examples over the past few years of working with clients who start resistance training for the first time, and can feel the strength improvements, posture changes, growing in confidence in the introductory months. Yet if we were to look just at their BMI, a somewhat useful but reductionist measurement, there may have been no significant or tangible change from where they started.

Yet if they had focused solely on that metric, and that metric alone, they would likely abandoned have the very behaviours (resistance training, increasing protein intake and daily movement, sleeping more) that where enhancing their lives in favour of a radical calorie deficit.

My goal as a coach is to help individuals choose to value these intangibles as equally as they may value the numbers being tracked over time.

In the natural world we see this consistently. Growth isn’t linear or repeatably measurable. For example, a tree’s trunk doesn’t grow taller every single day; energy may be expended on strengthening it’s roots or expanding its branches. Similarly, our bodies need time to adjust, recover and adapt. We are a multi-system organism. Progress isn’t always visible or quantifiable.

Yet this isn’t to say that metrics have no place. They can be incredibly insightful benchmarks that help us set targets, track progress and measure outcomes. But they should be tools, not dictators. A compass to guide us, not a judge to condemn us.

Think back to our financial analogy. Successful investors look beyond short-term fluctuations. They assess a company’s fundamentals, market position, and growth potential. They understand day-to-day changes are less important than the overall trend.

We can adopt a similar mindset with our health and fitness. Instead of zeroing in on daily weigh-ins, or meal-by-meal calorie counts, we can observe broader patterns over longer time horizons. Weekly averages rather than daily. longer-term trends in bodyweight rather than short-term fluctuations. Subjective measures as equally as objective ones.

Are we feeling more energetic? Waking up more refreshed than usual? Managing stress more effectively? - these are significant leading indicators of overall well-being.

Moreover, we also need to recognise that we are all unique. Genetics, lifestyle, and personal history will all play a significant role in how we responds to exercise or nutrition. Comparing our metrics to others is like comparing apples to oranges. What works for one person may not for another.

We cannot separate the psychological impact from the physiological. When we tie our self-worth to numbers, we’re at risk of riding a never-ending emotional roller coaster that is being dictated to by variables that are often outside of our control. It would be so easy in the circumstance to slip into periods of discouragement and disillusion resulting in individuals abandoning health pursuits completely, simply because an often unreliable bathroom scale is determining their self-worth.

I’ve seen both sides of this with clients in various forms over the years. Yet the one repeatable outcome for the positive that we can make, is to stop obsessing over the scale, the calorie target, the resting heart rate or recovery score, and pay equal attention to how they may feel in that moment. Perspectives shift dramatically when this occurs.

“OK, so my recovery score wasn’t great last night, my bodyweight is a little up, and I didn’t hit my protein target yesterday. But I’ve got a gym-session this morning and I’m going to smash it regardless!!”.

In his book Anti-fragile, the author Nassim Taleb talks about the concept of anti-fragility, those systems that are beyond resilience and robustness, and that actually get better through exposure to stress. As humans, the goal is to be anti-fragile. (FYI… Kelly Clarkson also hit the nail on the head with the 2011 hit - “Stronger”)

In the end, you are not your metrics. You are instead the sum of your experiences, efforts, and choices. Numbers can inform you but they shouldn’t define you.

So they next time you’re tempted to let the scale, tracking device, or App dictate your worth, take a step back. Look at the bigger picture. Appreciate the huge amount of complexity that is involved in these single metric numbers, and most importantly, recognise the progress you’re making regardless of where you’re at in your journey on that day.

After all, the most important measure of health and happiness are felt, not calculated.