My love/hate relationship with the wireless scale - How to motivate!

Stacivogue

I have a love/hate relationship with my aria scale. It's great when i am just starting out - or if I'm afraid of what the scale might say. I just put a post-it note over the window and weigh myself and then i don't check it for a week. After a week's time, i look at the chart and see...oh, that wasn't so bad. I'm still making progress.

However, now that I've been pretty serious about making a positive change in my diet and exercising, it can be disheartening to see the scale go up. Even if I KNOW it's probably just water weight, or maybe I built some extra muscle...
But what would drive me CRAZY was when I would gain that pound, and MFP politely did not mention it, and then two days later MFP would grandly announce that i'd lost 1 lbs since my last weigh in! Then I'd get all of these likes.

So, I put a second user on the aria scale. When I go up, I just let it link to the second account (unless I really overdid it and went to a wedding or something - because i do have to accountable for gains of that sort).

That way MFP just states when I really lose weight - and I can celebrate without being all annoyed that it keeps announcing that I've lost the same darn pound every day for a week.

Then, after several weeks go by, I go ahead into the fitbit site and "check" all of the weighings - adding them to my history.

So - then i can look back and say- "See, i went up and down and up and down but in the grand scheme of things, that little gain did not stop my overall progress."

And all of a sudden, the scale does not:
1) dictate my mood for the rest of the day
2) give me an excuse to eat poorly because "why bother"

And it does:
1) help me

charleykayesmom

Here is a helpful thing I have learned to do with a calendar. IF you must weigh everyday (which I also do), write the weight down on a calendar each day. Instead of looking at the weights and if you are losing or gaining each day since you flucuate so much...each week circle the day you were the lowest. that will give you a better idea of where you are at and if you are losing or not. You can't obsess oer a scale...really meausuring yourself is the best way to track progress and how your clothes fit. I used to obsess over the lbs and since I started measuring it has changed my whole mindset.

CurlyCockney

I've have the same experience with my Withings Smart Body Analyzer, although I've discovered that even though MFP doesn't show the increase on my timeline it does show it on my tracker.

I use TrendWeight to see graphs and predictions, and as long as the overall trend is going the right way I'm happy.

tegtmeyerd

I had the same problem, so I just turned off the notifications to my timeline. Now if I want to add a loss, I just enter it myself as a status. So much easier than the yo-yo since I weigh daily to see my trends...

Stacivogue

Yay! I am not alone. I love obsessing with like minded people. We are all nuts, but in a positive way, as in, nuts are good for you.

editorgrrl

CurlyCockney wrote: »

I use TrendWeight to see graphs and predictions, and as long as the overall trend is going the right way I'm happy.

Definitely sync your Fitbit account with http://trendweight.com

It's free, and unlike MFP's "in five weeks" nonsense, it's accurate! TW shows you your trend without the "noise" from water weight. I lost the weight & have maintained for a year thanks to TW, MFP & Fitbit.

Stacivogue

I actually use the Tactio Health App - it logs my exercise, mood, blood pressure (when i go to doctor), syncs to the wireless scale and synchs my steps. the only thing it doesnt do i sync my food, but that's ok - i use MFP for that.