Scale phobia

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briggsykim
briggsykim Posts: 75 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Does anyone else here have legit anxiety about weighing themselves?

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  • briggsykim
    briggsykim Posts: 75 Member
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    It is all I can do to weigh myself or take measurements once a week.
  • vivmom2014
    vivmom2014 Posts: 1,647 Member
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    I get it. I don't weigh too often, but it is important to know where you're at every couple of weeks I'd say.
  • briggsykim
    briggsykim Posts: 75 Member
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    I agree completely! I still do it , but not without great anxiety over it.
  • cate320
    cate320 Posts: 130 Member
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    The first time was hard, but I figured I couldn't make a change until I faced the truth.

    Now I weigh myself like twice a day, because I like charting the trends :)
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,192 Member
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    Weighing your food with a kitchen scale so you are logging the correct amounts is far more important than weighing yourself. If you are accurate with your logging, weight once a month is even fine. If you stress out about it work at making your logging as accurate as you can, and weigh yourself less often.
  • pebble4321
    pebble4321 Posts: 1,132 Member
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    Why? It's just a number, and it's always going to fluctuate due to a number of factors - not just what you eat or drink or whether you've been to the bathroom, but some things that are well out ofyour control like monthly, hormonal changes.
    I find that weighing myself every day and recording the number in an app that averages out my weight works well for me. I can see the trend over time, and know that a higher number on a single day isn't a reason to panic and give up.
    However, if it makes you that anxious, then don't weigh yourself. Use your clothes as a guide for how your weight is going. Or just set your goals to be eating in a certain way (keep under x calories, eat x fruit and veg each day, fit in x minutes of exercise, or so many steps) and take the focus off the scale.
  • 85Cardinals
    85Cardinals Posts: 733 Member
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    I'm not really *afraid* of it, but I do keep it in the bathroom closet just to be safe.
  • Shana67
    Shana67 Posts: 680 Member
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    Yes, I totally used to be like this. But, by avoiding the scale and weighing myself, I gained 30 lbs. I'm tall (5'9"), so that weight gain doesn't "look" like as much as you would think.

    Anyhow. I now weigh myself daily. It is very motivating for me, and keeps me on track.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    I get a bit nervous before I step on the scales. But I still weigh myself everyday and track my weight with Trendweight. Using the TW app takes a lot of the anxiety out of it.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    edited April 2016
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    Christine_72 wrote: »
    I get a bit nervous before I step on the scales. But I still weigh myself everyday and track my weight with Trendweight. Using the TW app takes a lot of the anxiety out of it.

    Indeed. Weighing every day reduces the anxiety for me. It makes sense, doesn't it, to use exposure as desensitization treatment for this phobia as any other phobia. Besides, you can know for sure that a big jump from one day to the next can't possibly be fat. Big jumps are water/poo, small creeps are fat. If you do use the scale, it's better to weigh daily or monthly than the usually touted weekly.
  • jmidd97
    jmidd97 Posts: 84 Member
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    I was just thinking about this. I realised quite recently that one reason I've failed so often with weight loss/fitness is because I just couldn't bring myself to weigh or measure. And without that I had very little that actually motivated me to continue, so I would usually just give up.
  • Lesleerogers7
    Lesleerogers7 Posts: 2 Member
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    I absolutely understand--as a culture, we view our weight as a standard for our beauty and our health. In reality (as mentioned by others,) our weight fluctuates with our fluid retention, our lean muscle vs body fat, etc. For me, I have to put the scale away and only use it occasionally, or else those fluctuations get to my head.
    Although the evidence of weight loss can be encouraging, a lack of progress can be devastating. I would encourage you to put less "weight" (pardon the pun! Haha) on what your scale says, and more on the lifestyle changes you are pursuing (walking 10,000 steps, staying hydrated, balancing your calories, portion control, etc.)
    Take care!
  • leahcollett1
    leahcollett1 Posts: 807 Member
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    briggsykim wrote: »
    Does anyone else here have legit anxiety about weighing themselves?

    every thursday like clockwork my stomach does somersaults i get weighed at a group at 5.30pm so i literally spend the whole day in a mental mess.
  • briggsykim
    briggsykim Posts: 75 Member
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    85Cardinals wrote: »
    I'm not really *afraid* of it, but I do keep it in the bathroom closet just to be safe.[/
    Lol!!! So do I
  • Fursian
    Fursian Posts: 526 Member
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    Is the anxiety stemming from 'whole days spent with a black cloud overhead' because of slight gains on the scale, so you're maybe anticipating this every weigh-in?

    If so, one of the things that can combat this is if you know you're being as accurate as you can with your food weighing and logging (using a food scale), the times the scale does show a gain, you can be more relaxed knowing that it is just water retention and not actual fat gain. Also knowing the numbers behind the lbs helps to lessen a scales power, learning that 3500 calories is about 1 lb, and you surely didn't go over maintenance by this much.

    Once I knew this, scale gains had no bearing on my day.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
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    Yep, it's why I weigh every few months and have for years!

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