To "Scale" or not???

I only use the scale at the gym. It is more accurate than most home scales and it gets me to the gym regularly to check it out. Good luck!!

You can go off things like your measurements, or how your clothes fit, but they take a couple of weeks to show a noticeable change so you don't get immediate feedback like with the scale. Is there a publicly available scale you can use, like a coin-operated one that some bathrooms have, or at a pharmacy? Or even ask your doctor if you may use theirs? If you pick one that's a bit out of your way then you won't be able to visit it more than once or twice a week. Or, buy a scale and ask your partner/coworker/anyone else who knows you're trying to lose weight, to hold onto it or hide it from you? :P

I've been "on the wagon" for about 6 weeks now, and I've noticed that as my willpower to say "no" to bad food choices grows, so does my willpower to say "no" to other bad habits. Maybe you could make "weighing once a week" a goal of yours, and get some MFP buddies to hold you accountable? Just make it another piece of your new-lifestyle puzzle.

Oh, and in answer to your actual question of "can I be successful without a scale?": I bet you can, but in the first few weeks/months when the scale moves but you're not seeing big physical changes yet, the scale is a really good motivator to just keep going until you start losing inches and sizes

I agree. Use one you can only get at once a week - at the shops, pharmacy, friend, family or neighbours house. But use the sme one every time! Scales vary...

I like to use the scale to record my weight loss weekly - but I can see your point about obsessing! I also like to record my measurements monthly so it isn't just about my weight. I like to use both as I think it is a better guide about what progress is being made and a bit into the journey when that - wow I am really losing weight feeling leaves I would probably find it demotivating to have to wait a month to see results so I would likely become a compulsive measurer lol. I also take picutures in the same clothes and in the same spot every couple of months.

Is there a scale that you could use ever week - a friends, at work, the gym, the doctors, the drug store??? Anywhere so you could get the best of both worlds (using without ownership!!)

If you don't want to do either then I am sure you will be able to rely on the old clothes test - only trouble is I would want to wear the same clothes over and over without washing them so they got loose and I would feel like I was losing inches lol!

There are pros and cons to whatever system you use I suspect! Good luck!

I scale. When I do, i tend to be more aware of what I eat. When I don't scale, I tend to eat badly. Then I get really scared about getting on the scale and seeing the result, which strangely enough makes me eat more. WHen I do go on scale, its like a switch gets turned out in my brain and I go back to eating well. I understand the obsessiveness though and I only tend to weigh myself first thing in the morning and then stay away from it the rest of the day. It helps when its out of the way, as I used to wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink or go to the bathroom and weigh myself before going back to bed. Definitely unhealthy!!

At the end of the day though, do what works for you. I know people who get hugely demotivated by scale and go by clothes. So you get all kinds

I have just started my journey...again, for the umpteenth time! Even though I am fat, I am a food expert so to speak! lol Kind of ironic that the people who know the most about food and what you should be eating and what you shouldn't be eating are sometimes the ones that battle the hardest.
I have had a love/hate relationship with the scale for many many many years. Having done the whole "weigh everyday" thing, the way once a week thing, and even just a once a month peek, there are pros and cons to each.
I did get way to obsessed with the scale several years ago, and believe it or not I would jump on that baby many times a day, sometimes as much as a dozen!! Finally, my husband at the time, got so sick of me rushing in to weigh he literally threw it out of the second storey bathroom window, with great glee I might add! I didn't get back on for a very long time!
I do find now that I have to weigh, to keep myself on track, and also to see my progress. I need the numbers! I do and will limit myself to once a week, same place, same time, before meal, and .....God forbid...naked! Then they are put away unti the next week. Do not keep them in the bathroom however, too tempting, plus all the moisture from baths, showers etc is not good for the scale itself. I keep mine in the spareroom, under the bed, towards the back so that I actually have to work a bit to get at them. It works for me that way!
I used this site last year and found it very effective. After a cancer diagnosis last April, I fell off the wagon while undergoing radiation treatments and so on. I am a stress eater and ate when I felt like it, kind of going with the attitude of "what did it matter at this point!" . Then my husband had a heart attack on the 17th of November...more stress and more eating. Now I am at the second heaviest I have ever been in my life and need to get healthy for 2012!!!! I will need this forum...alot! We need to support one another .... alot!!