People in the fitness and weight loss community have a lot of opinions when it comes to the scale. I want to be clear before I even start talking about this that what I do is not the only option, just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you.
I mentioned in my last blog that had scale anxiety, which seems self-explanatory but that’s because I’ve lived with it for a long time. In order to accurately describe the feeling, I have to tell a short story. On November 23, 2020, something snapped inside me and I decided that it was time to lose the weight by myself with no program, gym, or restrictive diet. On that day I sat on the bathroom floor and cried for an hour. I was proud and excited to start the journey but it meant that I needed to know how much I weighed so that I could accurately measure my progress. With tedious legs and shaky breath, I stood up. I stepped on the scale, I saw the number climb to 352 pounds. I was heartbroken. I sat back down and cried some more. The next time that I weighed myself was on January 25, 2021 and the scale read 335 pounds. This sounds like a huge win and it was but I’m talking about weighing today and this shows me that I lost the battle with my anxiety for 66 days.
My husband is basically the best human in existence and he worked really hard at showing me that my worth wasn’t tied up with the number on the scale and how encouraging it is when the number actually does go down. Starting on January 25 I have weighed myself every single day and ever so slowly I’ve gotten less and less terrified. At this point it’s part of my morning routine.
I have four reasons why I think it’s important to weigh myself everyday.
- To make myself do it. A lot of my life is ruled by anxiety and this is one thing I have almost completely conquered so doing it every day shows me that I have control over my actions and that I’m capable of more than I think I am.
- To normalize fluctuations and plateaus. I’m going to be honest I’m still working on this. The scale still affects my emotions more than I want it to. My husband claims he can tell if the scale went up or down when I come down the stairs in the morning based on my attitude. That being said, seeing how the body works and being ok with high numbers as well as low is really important for my mental state, especially because this is a lifestyle, not a phase.
- Understanding the why. If you weigh yourself once a week or once a month and you land on a day where you ate more salt the day before or didn’t drink enough water or exercised later in the day your weight will be higher than if you didn’t do any of those things. You could weigh 306 on Monday, 303 on Tuesday, 304 on Wednesday, and 304.8 on Thursday. If you had a sodium-rich meal on Thursday night, you may weigh 306.9 on Friday when you do your weigh-in. Now you think you weigh .9 more than you did a week ago but that’s water weight – not fat – and that number will affect you for an entire week.
- Period. If you’re a man, you can disregard this or help your woman through this. Hormones impact weight massively. We hold onto more water on our period and our bodies are in a state of flux. This doesn’t take rocket science to figure out but for me weighing myself every day helped me to track my period and understand why my weight was doing what it is AND tells me that my caloric intake needs to be higher because we burn more on our period.
If the scale isn’t for you or if you can’t get to a healthy mental state with this method, I would strongly suggest taking measurements weekly and keeping a journal of your non-scale victories so that you have wins aside from the scale. I’ll do a whole post about non-scale victories because they are vital and I have amazing people in my life who have taught me valuable lessons.
I guess in conclusion, the scale isn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was, my worth has nothing to do with the number on the scale, and fluctuation is GOOD AND NORMAL. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. If you’ve dealt with scale anxiety or are on a similar journey to mine please comment. I’d love to create a community of people who can encourage each other through this!
Starting Weight: 352
Current Weight: 306
Goal Weight: 150
Bye for now!
I stepped on the scale for the first time in a year this week and although I didn’t love what I saw it validated how I was feeling in my body. Its a long journey making peace with the number on the scale and these are great tips/wise words.
So much wisdom God is blessing you with! You’re inspiring!
I used to hate the scale but I’ve grown to value it. It is simply info like you said. I loved how you described its purpose. I step on more ne everyday as well. It can affect my emotions some days but I to all learning to not let it determine me as a person but use it strictly for info.