Be a Slave to the Scale
by tsjohnson5

Weigh Yourself Everyday. I know
many nutritionists, dietitians and what not say "Don't be a slave to
the scale." And that's good advice for when you first start losing
weight. Those first couple of weeks of weight loss can be frustrating.
You can go up and down, or not move at all. It is easy to get
discouraged. So yes, during those early weeks of weight loss I would
(if you can) keep your weigh-ins to once a week.

However, once
you lose the weight, weighing yourself everyday becomes a necessity.
Some of us become slack once we reach are goal weight. We go back to
our bad habits that made us fat to begin with. We don't notice how our
skinny jeans are getting tighter, or how are middle tends to be
expanding, and the next thing we know what was probably a five pound
gain turns into a twenty pound gain and we're right back where we
started.

For some of us, without a constant reminder of our
weight, we will always put the weight back on. Weighing yourself
everyday will help you maintain your weight. If you see the scale
creeping up then you know you need to makes some changes either by
exercising more or eating less. If hitting your goal weight and
maintaining your goal weight is a priority to you then becoming cozy
with your scale is the best way to make that happen.

T.S. Johnson is a professional blogger and writer. You can find her daily commentaries, rants and raves at T-Time, Sweet Potato Pie and Brown Sugar

Submitted by tsjohnson5 (view blog) on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 08:54

Comments

 

Sorry, but I don't agree...

Dear T.S.,

Well, at least I do not agree totally. I agree with you in weighing in regularly to see whether you are on the right track, even after reaching your goal weight; but for me, weighing in every day caused stress and frustration, even if I DID lose weight. My weight was always on my mind and defined me, either in the front or as a background "noise". And I also became controlled by what I saw on the scale, and it controlled my feelings about me. In the end I stopped losing weight and starting eating out of frustration again.

I have changed to weighing in once or twice (twice if I think I am on the wrong track) a week, and my stress because of the scale has gone. I also start losing weight again. I lived through this two or three times, but now I vowed to myself to never go back to weighing in daily.

The problem of becoming slack is not the problem of weighing in daily. It is the problem of not having found - or not following - a healthy program for the rest of your life. It is thinking that once you have lost weight, you can go back to eating "normal" again, i.e. the way you ate before. Which is what made you gain weight in the first place. Once you find a program you can keep for the rest of your life, this won't happen. Healthy programs will also help you to maintain weight. They help you to think differently about food, and they advise you to continue weighing in, even if only on a weekly basis.

This is only my experience, of course, but in my eyes, by weighing in every day my weight-loss process controls who I am, and I start defining myself by my weight again - something I and many dieters have been doing unsuccessfully over decades. I am so much more than my body or the looks of it, and as I am doing something good to help it, I think I deserve some time to breathe and think about good things in my life, e.g. my motivational exercises, my hobbies, etc. Those positive things also keep me away from obsessing about high-calory food and emotional eating.

Love,

Nina

 It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

- Eleanor Roosevelt -

Submitted by Innin on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 06:18
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