reformed scale avoider/hater

elisa123gal
elisa123gal Posts: 4,324 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
To my friends who avoid the scale as I have; reconsider. I have preached trying on tight clothes and how that works and one can get discouraged and give up when weighing...so not using the scale is fine if you have another strategy.

However, this morning in a moment of bravery; I decided to weigh myself. I was mystified when I came across a pair of old jeans that no way fit when I tried them on. I was alarmed, as I have been obviously fooling myself into thinking I'm only three to five pounds away from my goal weight I achieved two years ago. Like many of us.. I regained some weight during the first months of the lockdown.

I've been working to get it off without the scale. Yes, I've been eating bits of dark chocolate.. and dabs of sour cream.. and a bit of this and that.. thinking I was slinking down the entire time.

Well.. I may be getting smaller but not as small as I was kidding myself. Numbers don't lie. not the case. The number on the scale was a nice truth slap.

I am born again. My butt is getting on that scale every day and facing the truth.

Replies

  • Fit_Happens_2021
    Fit_Happens_2021 Posts: 303 Member
    edited January 2021
    Daily weigh-ins can be very motivating for some people, and if that works for you go for it!!
    Good job getting back to it :)
    When I weigh myself daily I start obsessing as I see the scale shoot up and down over the week and get frustrated. So I find that weekly or monthly work better for me to see real progress.
    If it goes longer than a month without weighing myself then I know I am slumping into avoidance.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    There's no one right way on lots of this stuff. One way works for one person until it stops working. So the tight jeans worked for you until they didn't, and then you adapted to a different tool. Nothing wrong with that. Same with food scales. Lots of people lose fine by estimating when they have a big deficit and lots to lose, but as they near goal and shift to smaller deficits, that stops working. They adopt a new tool--food scale. Nothing wrong with that either. Do what works, and adapt when it it doesn't anymore. Good luck, OP!
  • LisaGetsMoving
    LisaGetsMoving Posts: 664 Member
    Ten years ago I lost 50 pounds through a much too restrictive diet and much too much attention to getting on the scale. I became OCD about purity in diet and getting on the damn scale. One day in a moment of clarity, after getting on the scale for the 5th time in one day, I threw the scale away. I learned how to relax a little about my food choices too, and maintained my weight loss for about two years. I ended up getting too relaxed, and along with some health problems that made it difficult to move freely, and the lockdown of the past year, I've ended up gaining all of it back, plus some. So I bought a scale this year, but I know better now. It's painful if you avoid it too long, it's painful if you give it too much attention, and it's painful to get too wrapped up in a number. I'm going to keep it in it's rightful relationship, that of an occasional tool.
  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,324 Member
    GrammaLisaGetsMoving wrote: »
    Ten years ago I lost 50 pounds through a much too restrictive diet and much too much attention to getting on the scale. I became OCD about purity in diet and getting on the damn scale. One day in a moment of clarity, after getting on the scale for the 5th time in one day, I threw the scale away. I learned how to relax a little about my food choices too, and maintained my weight loss for about two years. I ended up getting too relaxed, and along with some health problems that made it difficult to move freely, and the lockdown of the past year, I've ended up gaining all of it back, plus some. So I bought a scale this year, but I know better now. It's painful if you avoid it too long, it's painful if you give it too much attention, and it's painful to get too wrapped up in a number. I'm going to keep it in it's rightful relationship, that of an occasional tool.

    I'll disclose, that when I lost my weight, I weighed myself the entire time. However, I grew weary of the scale as I neared my goal weight.. just because of diet fatigue. So, I stopped using the scale and continued eating on plan and got to a size I loved. So, I thought I could maintain without the scale and have not weighed since.

    That was a mistake... I always learn from looking back.. now I realize when I get the diet fatigue. to perhaps lessen the weigh ins.. but for sure..weigh weekly when I get back to my goal.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    Y'know, I've weighed myself daily for years, I think more than a decade . . . even while obese and not trying to lose weight. (No obsession, it's just one of several ways in which I'm a data geek. 😉) I started MFP nearly 6 years ago, already with a decent understanding of my personal daily weight fluctuations, for which I came to be grateful as I went along. It helped me not stress about the scale and its vagaries: It's just a momentary snapshot of my body's current relationship with gravity, not a measure of my self-worth.

    I know that not everyone's able to look at it that way, and I'm not saying that anyone else *should*, helpful though I do find it for me. There are so many things about weight management - including whether one ought to even attempt it at all - that work out better when they're personalized to our own individual needs. People who are very stressed by the scale may be better served by weighing only at longer intervals, or not at all.

    I think @ahoy_m8 said some very smart things up there a few posts back: "There's no one right way on lots of this stuff. . . . Do what works, and adapt when it it doesn't anymore."

  • elmusho1989
    elmusho1989 Posts: 321 Member
    I only hate the scales when I'm losing control with food. Otherwise, yeah it's a useful tool for once a week weigh ins to keep track.
  • KarenSmith2018
    KarenSmith2018 Posts: 302 Member
    So long as I can continue to look at my daily weigh in value objectively and with compassion to my self to understand and accept the fluctuations its useful for me. I run 50 miles a week so need to make sure I'm eating enough but not over eating. The scales help with that

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