Help! I'm frustrated!

laurenjoy84
laurenjoy84 Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
I was down 35 pounds in April. I went on spring break and only gained two pounds so I felt confident I knew what I was doing. These past two weeks I'm up 10 pounds since April I've had some cheat days between then but not everyday by any means maybe once or twice a week. I weigh myself every morning and if I'm down two pounds from the prior day I squeeze in a snack or two, the past couple days I've gone up four pounds over night. I weigh myself to make sure my diet is working.....How do I stay away from the scale?

Replies

  • ansmit4642014
    ansmit4642014 Posts: 67 Member
    Don't get on the scale. Take pictures and measure yourself with a tape measure. It might be muscle or water weight. Watching the scale go up can be very disheartening.
  • laurenjoy84
    laurenjoy84 Posts: 2 Member
    Good idea thank you!
  • Akmauser
    Akmauser Posts: 51 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    Daily weighing can ruin your weight loss journey, at least for some people. It goes without saying that weight loss is not linear. Do you record your calories on your cheat days? One cheat day can cancel out all the good work of the previous week. I would put that scale out of sight. Good luck on your goals!

    Good information. I weighed myself every day the first week and nearly went mad. Then went to every week (Sunday morning), but now I am weighing in every 4 weeks. Sometimes I'm curious and probably should weigh myself more often.

    As for cheat days, I personally only eat at maintenance or slightly under and never above.
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,752 Member
    I'd personally stick to weighing every day, tracking my weight on a trending app, and not just eating more or less depending on whether I gained or not.

    Weight loss is not linear. Using it as a daily gauge for calorie intake isn't the best idea, especially as your trend seems to be going up not down. Start logging accurately, no "cheats" and see how you go...
  • lovelyhulett
    lovelyhulett Posts: 37 Member
    I totally agree with taking pictures to compare. I used to weigh myself every week and would get frustrated if I didn't see a difference on the scale. So now I stopped doing that.
  • smile4me1954
    smile4me1954 Posts: 1 Member
    Forget the mistakes. We are all human and have to live our lives. Just focus on getting back on program. Try setting a mini goal of 4 or 5 pounds and only weigh yourself once a week. Good luck
  • Sloth2016
    Sloth2016 Posts: 846 Member
    Pity the poor weight scale. Forced to live on the floor and be stepped on by people...

    And it's no wonder, because all the weight scale can tell you is - wait for it - your relationship with earth's gravity at that moment in time. Yes it's true. Move to the moon or Saturn and your numbers would be completely different. It cannot tell you whether you've been bad or good, naughty or nice. It cannot tell you your percentage body fat or other composition. It cannot tell you whether you are healthy or not. Republican or Democrat or Whig.

    It's just a weight scale.

    So, toss if out if you want. Or step on it if you want to do that. Daily if you'd like - it won't hurt you - but remember, where you are in life and how you are doing healthwise, require more subtle means to discern.
  • Wotan48
    Wotan48 Posts: 36 Member
    Measure yourself. I am a recovering bulimic, so I understand the scale obsession. Weigh yourself once a week, same time and same day. If you have some place you can weigh yourself , other than your place, that be ideal, cause than you can throw your scale out. Also , go by how your clothes fit ! hope it helps
  • nofeatnodefeat
    nofeatnodefeat Posts: 5 Member
    Same situation for me :-( I now brought a weighing scale and looking at my weight once a week is very important and helpful..
  • CaladriaNapea
    CaladriaNapea Posts: 140 Member
    When I tried to lose weight in college I used to weigh myself weekly, and it was horrible. I thought my weight for the week was a strict evaluation of my fat loss (or not) for that week. Thus if I weighed in and had lost several pounds--yay, I was a fantastic human being! I should eat some more ice cream because I am so fantastic. If the scale staid the same or went down then I was a failure at life and ate as little as humanly possible for as long as possible until I was starving and then binged.

    This time around I weigh myself daily, and it's amazing. I use a weight trending app (I use Libra because I have Android, but you can use HappyScale for iPhone or TrendWeight for a regular computer) that averages out my weights over the last week to show whether I am trending up, down, or the same. This has really helped me to see individual weigh-ins in perspective, as your weight is not just a reflection of your fat loss (that's only a tiny portion of it), but also your salt intake, hormones ( . . . yay TOM!), constipation, the amount of food processing in your system, and even whether or not you have a sunburn. For me, weighing in daily helps me gather data dn treat my weight simply as that: a data point. It helps me to see how my weight loss is doing, but it does not reflect my success as a human being (or even necessarily at weight loss).

    What changed between college-me and now-me is really not how frequently I weigh in, however. What changed is my perspective.

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