About the scale

[cheryl2586 3,053]

I read this article this morning and this is why you need to stop weighing yourself every day. I copied and pasted it so that those who have phones as their source of internet can read it with no issues. Break up with your scale its hurting you more then you think.

5 Reasons to Break Up With Your Scale

1. Scale weight fluctuates wildly.

It’s good to measure things to track progress – and if you weighed yourself monthly, that might help you spot a trend in your body weight (gaining, losing or maintaining). But over the course of a day (or a few hours!) your weight can fluctuate by as many as five pounds – sometimes more. food and beverage intake, time of day, dietary choices and activity levels all factor into that number on the dial. (And we won’t even mention clothes, because we’re pretty sure most of you are obsessive enough to weigh yourself naked.) You can lose two pounds just by going to the bathroom – and gain it right back by eating a big meal.

Those fluctuations are not representative of body fat lost or gained. But seeing a number jump up by four pounds sure does a mental number on you, doesn’t it? Weighing yourself daily tells you nothing about your big-picture trend, and only serves to reinforce the next four points.

2. Scale weight says nothing of health.

That number on a scale says nothing about whether you’re moving in the right direction with your health. You want to get skinny? We can make you skinny. Cut your daily calories in half and spend two hours a day doing low-intensity cardio. That’ll make you skinny… for about a month. Until your willpower runs out (as those behaviors aren’t at all sustainable), and your messed-up metabolism fights back. At which point, you gain all the weight back and then some. But hey, for a few weeks, you were skinny!

Is gaining or losing five pounds moving you in the direction of better health? It’s impossible to say, because that number tells you very little about what’s going on with your relationship with food, hormones, digestive health or inflammatory status. And those are the factors that impact your health far more directly than body weight.

3. The scale blinds you to real results.

By focusing so much of your attention on that number in the scale, you effectively miss out on observing the other, more significant, results of your efforts. You’re sleeping better, have more energy, are less moody or depressed. Your cravings have dissipated, you recover faster from exercise, your symptoms or medical condition have greatly improved. And yet, your program is a “failure,” because the number on the scale hasn’t moved enough for your liking?

Re-read point #2, and tell us which factors speak more to your health – the scale weight, or everything else?Those results could be motivating you to continue with your new eating habits – but until you get your head out of the scale, you’ll never be able to see the health progress you’ve actually been making.

4. The scale keeps you stuck on on food.

You associate that number on the scale with one major factor – food. Maybe exercise factors in too – after all, if you ate less (or differently) and exercised more (or differently), that number would start to move. Wouldn’t it? Not so fast. There are other health factors at play here – sleep, recovery from activity, psychological stress and health history – all of which play a major role in body composition. But no one looks at the scale and thinks, “Darn it – I need to get more sleep.”

Now would be a good time to revisit the Whole9 Health Equation. If you didn’t experience the Whole30 results you were hoping to see, perhaps it’s time to look at some other factors. All of our Health Equation variables factor into weight loss and body composition – but none of them are reflected in the number on the scale.

5. The scale maintains control of your self-esteem.

This is perhaps the most important reason of all to break up with your scale. It’s psychologically unhealthy to allow a number – any number – to determine your worth, your value or your self-image. And yet, that’s exactly what happens to people who are overly invested in their scale. It’s tragic that your daily weigh-in determines whether you have a good day or bad day, or whether or not you feel good about yourself. The scale results can take you from confident to self-loathing in under 5 seconds, but what the scale is telling you is not real.

If this is your scenario, ditching the scale is the only way to get back to a healthy sense of self-worth. Let your actions, your intentions, your efforts and your grace influence how you feel about yourself. A $20 hunk of plastic from Target should not be the determining factor in your self-esteem.

Dear Scale, It’s Not Me, It’s You.

If you’ve got an unhealthy relationship with the scale, the only way to get back to a good place is to ditch it altogether. Donate it to Goodwill, recycle it or take it out back and give it a proper beat-down, Office Space-style. Because the sooner you ditch the idea that the scale is your ultimate measure of success, the healthier and happier you’ll be.

Need some inspiration from someone who is using the Whole30 to become wholly healthy?

Edited September 7, 2014 by cheryl2586

[pink dahlia 2,513]

Well said.

[gowalking 10,790]

Great post Cheryl!

[m4nurse 19]

Great post but unfortunately I'd still like to see the numbers move in the right direction ⬇️

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

Ack! I'm on the fence about it. I see the merits of ditching the scale. However, I avoided the scale for years. Once I started losing weight this year, the losses buoyed me up. I got a little "high" every couple of days watching the numbers drop. This month, not so much. My food has been all over the map and I'm down and up and down and up the same five pounds. I'm afraid to stop weighing because I'm afraid I'll give in to overeating every day.

I'm still tracking my food in MyFitnessPal and being very thorough. Not too happy when the numbers show I've eaten 1500 calories or sometimes more when my doctor wanted me to be consuming so much less. I haven't asked my doctor's office for any eating guidelines lately. Afraid they'll say 800 calories a day again. I haven't talked to the NUT in months.

I've been thinking of trying the 5:2 fasting thing this week. Maybe I'll go for it tomorrow and Thursday and ditch the scale until next Sunday.

Ok no scale until next Sunday. Yikes. Haven't not weighed since my vacation in May.

[alotlessofme 3]

The scale keeps me in check. When I put it away, I gained.

[SandyM 1,956]

Ack! I'm on the fence about it. I see the merits of ditching the scale. However, I avoided the scale for years. Once I started losing weight this year, the losses buoyed me up. I got a little "high" every couple of days watching the numbers drop. This month, not so much. My food has been all over the map and I'm down and up and down and up the same five pounds. I'm afraid to stop weighing because I'm afraid I'll give in to overeating every day.

I'm still tracking my food in MyFitnessPal and being very thorough. Not too happy when the numbers show I've eaten 1500 calories or sometimes more when my doctor wanted me to be consuming so much less. I haven't asked my doctor's office for any eating guidelines lately. Afraid they'll say 800 calories a day again. I haven't talked to the NUT in months.

I've been thinking of trying the 5:2 fasting thing this week. Maybe I'll go for it tomorrow and Thursday and ditch the scale until next Sunday.

Ok no scale until next Sunday. Yikes. Haven't not weighed since my vacation in May.

I do the 5;2 on Mondays and Thursdays. I think I'm going to make the same pact as you and not weigh til Sunday. Heck, if it works out I may put em away for the rest of the month

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

I started a thread for my 5:2 and no-weigh week here:

http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/318937-starting-52-and-no-scale-this-week/

All are welcome!

[alotlessofme 3]

What is 5:2

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

What is 5:2

I'm no expert. All I know is what I've read here from other WLS patients. But it's a modified intermittent fast. Basically you fast twice a week and eat normally the other five days. YouTube has a lot of videos. For the fasting days women eat or drink 500 calories. Men 600. That's it. Mondays and Thursdays seem like popular days for the fasting. For some reason it gives the body a reset and helps weight loss. I thought I'd try it since it's easy and not too different from when I have to go on liquids after a band adjustment. Just calorie driven rather than liquid driven.

[alotlessofme 3]

Ok. Maybe I'll try that today.

[alotlessofme 3]

Thanks

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

I haven't weighed myself since reading this post and I feel so much better. I've also been in better control of my food.

How crazy am I? I would weigh myself right after waking up and going to the bathroom. Before I even took my blood pressure medicine (water in the cup adds to the weight right?) or did anything at all, I hopped on to see if I should feel good or feel bad today.

This week I decided to wait a week. Ditching the scale altogether was too scary. So I promised myself no weighing until Sunday. The difference is that I get up and start my day and feel good. My food has been straight and knowing that, it doesn't matter what the number is. Because in the long run I will lose the pounds. If I don't lose the pounds then the food isn't straight.

So simple but such a difference in outlook.

Edited September 10, 2014 by JustWatchMe

[alotlessofme 3]

I have a weekly habit with the scale, it makes me crazy but accountable too.