It’s lurking in the gym locker room. It’s hiding in every doctor’s office. It’s even waiting for you in your own bathroom. It’s the great mythical monster of weight loss… the scale. As you continue your weight loss journey, you’ll learn results come in many forms. But sooner or later, you’ll have to get used to stepping up on the scale and recording your weight. For many, this can provoke anxiety or fear of judgment.
But in the end, all a scale truly does is provide information as a tool to track progress. Your weight is simply a number, and it doesn’t define you. Weighing yourself lets you know where you stand in terms of your goals and helps you adjust as needed. That’s why it makes sense that multiple clinical studies have shown that more frequent weigh-ins are associated with positive results, including losing more weight and better controlling their eating.1,2
Still nervous? Here are some pro tips on conquering any scale anxiety you find on your journey to success.
Set your scale schedule
When you weigh yourself matters. Weighing yourself at the “wrong” time—like after a big meal—can make you think you aren’t making any progress or even make you so discouraged that you slip back into old stress eating habits. Weighing yourself first thing in the morning, before you eat or drink, is commonly recommended. Daily morning weigh-ins will not only help you get more data (and more insights), but it will also help make the action a regular part of your getting-ready routine.
Something that people may not know until they begin weighing themselves regularly is that your weight goes up and down over the course of a day. As you eat, drink, and exercise, your weight fluctuates in small amounts in a normal and healthy way. Maybe you notice your weight shift around your menstrual period or notice you gain some water weight the day after you do a tough workout. As you weigh yourself more often, you’ll start to learn and work with the trends of your own body.
Get technology on your side
Far from the clunky ones at your doctor’s office, today’s sleek digital scales often come with apps that keep track of your numbers. They create results graphs so you can visually see your progress across weeks, months, or even years—and even project future results. By looking at your scale numbers in context of your overall journey, you can get a more accurate view of your success. In one study, patients using a smart scale like this lost significantly more weight and consumed fewer calories than those who did not.3
Health wearable devices can also provide useful insights for your weight loss journey. They remain essential tools for tracking exercise and sleep but can now also analyze your BMI, determining muscle mass versus fat density for deeper body composition information.
It’s ok to take a break (sometimes)
If weighing yourself frequently causes more anxiety than motivation, consider skipping the scale occasionally. Did you know that you can also ask to not be weighed at the doctor’s office unless medically necessary? You can also do a “blind weigh-in,” where a medical professional will take your weight but not tell you the number, or you step onto the scale backwards, so the number on the scale is out of sight.
Consider your commitment
Ignorance can sometimes be bliss, but it doesn’t fuel progress. The more you get used to weighing yourself, the less important the numbers will seem. The key is to make weighing yourself just another step in your morning routine—no big deal. You’re waking up to a new day and making the conscious choice of clocking into your commitment to health. Now that’s worth celebrating!
References:
1. Zheng Y, Sereika SM, Burke LE, et al. Temporal patterns of self-weighing behavior and weight changes assessed by consumer purchased scales in the Health eHeart Study. J Behav Med. Oct 2019;42(5):873-82.
2. Butryn ML, Phelan S, Hill JO, et al. Consistent self-monitoring of weight: a key component of successful weight loss maintenance. Obesity (Silver Spring). Dec 2007;15(2):3091-6.
3. Steinberg DM, Tate DF, Bennett GG, et al. The efficacy of a daily self-weighing weight loss intervention using smart scales and email. Obesity (Silver Spring). Sept 2013;21(9):1789-97.
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