Let's talk smack about my scale

jlgrebe

I've been on the "look at the scale train" for way too long and I'm officially jumping off! In the past 12 months alone, I've went from 145 in January, to 126 in June (which was one pound from my first goal weight), and now I'm back up to 140 today. This process involved extreme "dieting", then extreme running, then extreme lifting, then extreme fried food eating.

I think jumping on the scale and seeing a loss would make me say, "Oh wow, you totally deserve half that white pizza, girl!", and seeing a huge gain would make me say, "Aaaaaand you're going to run ten miles today."

Does this happen to anyone else? I feel like I should focus more on staying consistent with my routine and just patiently wait for results, instead of waiting for the scale to tell me I'm doing a good/bad job. Have any of you successful folks ditched your scale for a similar reason?

Freyja2023

I have just recently did the same. I was beginning to feel like the number on the scale was controlling my moods and energy level. So I decided it was time to 'break-up' for a while. Right now I am only tracking my inches lost. Maybe in a month or so I will try the scale again, but find that I am doing much better not worrying about the number it shows me. I must confess though that I had to hid the darn thing out in the woodshed in order to not peek.

jlgrebe

I texted my fiance and said when I get home, it better be gone. I don't even want to know where it is! lol

ninerbuff

In society, more people make judgements about people's appearance than their actual weight. Obviously when someone looks overweight, they may comment about it, but if someone looks good, weight isn't the discussion.
I always tell clients, if you look the way you want, can wear the clothes you want to wear, and get the compliments you desire, then does it really matter what the scale says?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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jgnatca

I've commented several times how much I hate the scale, but I'm seriously thinking of getting the Fitbit scale and weigh myself daily for a six week period. AAAND track it on something like HappyScale. I want to see if I can find a pattern to my weight loss.

Then I will put it away again.

I weigh myself once a week and try and tell myself it does not matter.

jlgrebe

That's my new line of thinking ninerbuff.

shadowloss

As part of my journey, I've committed to weighing myself every day and I can tell you it is both good and bad! I track my results on an excel sheet that I created to see any trends.

The good: It tells me with little deviation when I've been "naughty or nice". I can look at the trend and see that every Tuesday my weight goes up. Why, because I had a few cocktails on Fri and Sat, which limited my ability to shove stuff in my mouth. It also tells me I'm retaining water because of the drinking etc... Then by Friday, it is back to where I think it should be. Yep, takes an entire week to catch up, which SUCKS!

The Bad: It tells me when I've been "naughty", which unfortunately happens each weekend. It also pisses me off on a regular basis when I think I'm doing the right things, but it's not moving.

What I have to remember is that it is only a gauge of what is happening. It doesn't measure how my cloths fit, it doesn't measure how people see me, it doesn't measure the muscle gain, it's only "1" of the items that I use to identify progress. Just like everything else, this process is 80% mental.

So if your more content with not weighing, and that works for you, then awesome. However, if weighing only pisses you off to remind you your head is not in the game, then keep it out and let it piss you off daily until you figure out how to reach your goals. What ever you do, if you want to achieve your goals and are willing to do the work, find something to measure your progress or before you know it, your back at square 1.

Bredaia99

I only weigh once a month now because I noticed that weighing myself would trigger a binge, no matter what the scale said. If the numbers went down, I would "reward" myself with eating too much. If the numbers went up, I would just throw my hands up in the air and eat whatever I wanted because it didn't matter anyway.

My biggest hindrance in reaching my goals is a lack of consistency, so I think weighing and measuring myself just once a month might be the key to consistently logging and exercising and making better food choices.

999tigger

I am a daily weigher or whenever I feel like it. I like my scale its just one of the measures I use, but its how you handle the data. I like plotting to see my progress. I look for the trend and dont worry about fluctuations unless they last for more than a few weeks. Im working hard at the moment so I expect it to pay off and its rewarding if the number moves. Its an incentive to move it down as well as an alert if it doesnt move or moves back up. I just keep on doing the good things and work harder.

I can reward myself whenever I want, it makes sense to tie it into a weight target, but at the moment im protective of the loss and focused, so dont bother as of yet. I can see it gets frustrating if it doesnt move, which is why you use other methods as well, but its only data and you have to do the things needed to make it move the way you want. Thats not up to the scale.

Stabeest just tighten your logging and record your exercise times, durations and lifting weights. A schedule can help with consistency. Make progress that way.

Oh and btw people should weigh as little or often as suits them.

emuravyeva

My scale's batteries recently ran out, which initially made me sad (but I am far too lazy to go out and buy a new set of those expensive flat batteries). But now that I know I can't rely on the scale, I have become more consistent with everything else and I'm *feeling* the results more than seeing them (on the tiny screen). It's a nice feeling!

jlgrebe

stabeest wrote: »

I only weigh once a month now because I noticed that weighing myself would trigger a binge, no matter what the scale said. If the numbers went down, I would "reward" myself with eating too much. If the numbers went up, I would just throw my hands up in the air and eat whatever I wanted because it didn't matter anyway.

My biggest hindrance in reaching my goals is a lack of consistency, so I think weighing and measuring myself just once a month might be the key to consistently logging and exercising and making better food choices.

I totally agree. I do the same thing!

Truittmark84

I think the conversation is intruiging. I (like shadowloss) weigh every day. However, I only record my weight once a week. My goal is to lose 1.5 - 2 lbs every single week. If I accomplish that goal every single week, until I reach my end goal, I cannot help but be successful. However, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned consistency. I went from 295 in May of 2010 to 225 in January 2011. But then I went back up to 250 by October, after several "attempts" I have begun in earnest again recently in august (273) and my goal is 1-derland. My years of experience of failing tells me that binge dieting, binge eating, does not work for me. What does work for me? I try to log every single day. Do i forget, yep! Just oner the weekend I was out on business and happened to fail to log for 3 days. But I came back and still was able to see a loss. So back to work!

canadianlbs

jyankie wrote: »

This process involved extreme "dieting", then extreme running, then extreme lifting, then extreme fried food eating.

HAH. me right now, it's the fruit-juice gummi bears. let's just don't even take ourselves there.

Have any of you successful folks ditched your scale for a similar reason?

i liked my scale a whole lot when i first signed onto mfp and started consistently logging all the food that i ate, because results did go kind of nicely with me maintaining a deficit. but i started lifting 'heavy' (for me) back in june, and more recently i lost interest in logging my food. over time since then i've also just kind of slowly lost interest in what the scale says. partly because it's quit moving downwards, i guess ;-) but also because i'm kind of finding i no longer care all that much.

i still keep an eye on my weight, but it's mostly because i'm back to eating by the seat of my pants nowadays and just letting my weight drift upwards for far too long was what got me 20+pounds overweight in the first place. also, i have a project called 'squat own bodyweight for 5x5 by next birthday' and i kind of don't want 'bodyweight' to mean more than 135 pounds so i'm watching it for that reason as well.

but i'm using the scale number more as an early-warning of a trend that i'd want to arrest if it starts to happen, than because i want it to tell me if i'm losing weight.