I’m afraid to weigh myself lest I didn’t lose weight!

GiftedHealth

What if I didn’t lose a pound or two? I would be devastated. I’m not going to weigh myself lest.

Crochetluvr

You don't have to weigh yourself....some people don't. They simply wait and use the fit of their clothing as their guide. Or they don't weigh themselves often. I weigh every morning. Weight fluctuates naturally and that's normal. You decide what works best for you. There is no right or wrong. 🙂

ninerbuff

Although to lose body fat, you'd HAVE to lose weight, the number on the scale reflects just weight. Not fat loss (although some have bioimpedence readers). Water retention is common and causes fluctuations based on things like sodium intake, stress, etc.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 40 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

robertw486

Here is a great old thread by @ninberbuff. Pay attention to the people that charted weight loss trends vs food intake. Nothing happens instantly, stays stable long, or always makes sense in weight loss.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10196160/scale-stress-syndrome/p1

AnnPT77

It's fine not to weigh yourself, if it's too stressful for you. I do have some concerns, but not exactly about that.

One thing that is about that: Maybe I'm wrong, but if you'd be devastated if your plan wasn't working, it suggests to me that you're finding the process is taking effort and attention from you, maybe even is difficult or unpleasant. If any of that is true, it seems like it would be quite dismaying - maybe devastating - to stick with it a long time and discover that the current plan wasn't working at all, all that work and maybe unpleasantness for no result.

It seems like it would be better to have some kind of check to know whether the plan is working, versus whether the plan needs some tweaking in order to be successful. That check doesn't need to be the bodyweight scale, and nothing is perfect, but some other options are tape measurement or fit of a particular piece of clothing, as others have said.

With any of those things, IMO there are some things to know to avoid feeling devastated when it's not really necessary to feel that, because "devastated" is pretty unpleasant. (Can you tell that I personally don't like things that are unpleasant? )

First, it takes at least 4-6 weeks to know whether a new weight loss approach is working, or at least one full menstrual cycle for those who have them (to compare body weight at the same relative point in at least 2 different cycles, because hormonal water retention really can be that weird).

That amount of time, sticking pretty close to compliance with our eating/activity plan, will give us enough data to average out over the whole time, and know the actual effect. Shorter time period? Distorted by shifts in water retention and waste in the digestive tract, so not accurate or realistic.

Yup, requires patience. If our plan is so unpleasant that we can't see sticking with it that long, that's already a problem, IMO. Losing any meaningful total amount of weight is going to take weeks to months, maybe even a small number of years if extremely obese. That means finding something we can stick with long enough to accomplish that without unbearable unpleasantness along the way. Sure, we may have the occasional off day or two, we're human, but to progress will take persistence and patience, realistically.

A slower loss rate with less restrictive or unpleasant rules can get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than some unpleasant or even punitive-feeling approach that causes bouts of deprivation-triggered over-eating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether.

Implication: Pick a relatively easy plan that can still lead to success. Change is necessary. Misery isn't necessary, and is counter-productive as well as unpleasant.

In general, weight loss isn't some kind of melodrama about good and evil, in which any slip on our part exposes some horrible character flaw. Bodyweight isn't a measure of our self-worth, it's just a snapshot of our body's momentary relationship with gravity. Weight loss doesn't need to be a process where we suffer for the "sin" of being overweight.

Metrics - weights, measurements, clothes fit, whatever - are important for making sure our plan is working. Pursuing a plan that isn't working is pointless. Metrics help us know whether the plan is working. If they don't end up where we were aiming, that's not a personal failure, it's a learning opportunity that helps us adjust the plan to take better aim on success, and that's all.

This whole process is more like a fun, productive science fair experiment for grown-ups. IMO, the aim isn't just weight loss, the aim is finding relatively happy new long term habits that first get us to goal weight, and - more importantly and possibly more difficultly - keep us there long term.

Successful weight loss, IME, is a series of mini-experiments: Plan, try the plan, check the results, adjust the plan, repeat the test, . . . until success. Not all mini-experiments succeed. As long as we improve the plan, and keep going, we'll succeed.

If you don't want to weigh yourself, don't. But I'd encourage you to have some metric that lets you know whether the process is working after that 4-6 weeks/one cycle. I'd also encourage you not to be "devastated" if there's not instant success, but rather to think through the "why", adjust your plan to work better, and doggedly keep going. That'll work.

Best wishes: The quality of life improvement from weight loss success is worth the effort!

Ihatemyjobmotivation

GiftedHealth wrote: »

What if I didn’t lose a pound or two? I would be devastated. I’m not going to weigh myself lest.

I used to feel like this, so I started weighing myself at least once a week on the day I don't feel bloated from little to no sleep from the previous workday. Still, even with that change, I have still lost little to no weight or put on water weight after eating less and exercising more consistently up to the weigh-in, so I tell myself now that so long as I am eating at a calorie-deficit and consistently exercising, I will eventually reach my goal weight. Perhaps, my body is bloated from muscle soreness or adjusting/rearranging things as I put in the work. And so long as I remain consistent in putting in the work, I am sure that will ultimately be losing, not gaining. Likewise, my advice to you is to make sure you remain consistent with diet and exercise because so long as you do that, there is no way for you to be gaining weight, unless you are trying to gain muscles or something.