To weigh or not to weigh?

sarahkay · Post by **sarahkay** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:52 pm

I'm curious to hear some ideas on whether to weigh oneself or not. Do you guys find you obsess? How often do you weigh in? Do you find it better to judge based on how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror? Just curious! I'm seriously considering ditching the scale!

JustForToday · Post by **JustForToday** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:46 pm

I think anytime I was ever successful in losing weight I pretty much stayed away from the scale and went based on how my clothes fit and what I looked like in the mirror. A scale number never did a whole lot for me in terms of weight loss.

However, I do think checking in with scale can be really important for weight maintenance (as opposed to loss). It makes it easier to catch a weight gain before it gets out of hand.

What's really fun is weighing yourself after you know you've lost weight and then finding out how much!

I noticed that Oolala who posts here regularly only seems to weigh in once every three months? Or at least that is as her signature records. Maybe she'll "weigh" in to tell us how she does the scale thing - she always has something interesting to say.

I'm new to NoS myself. So just jumping in here.

Ani33 · Post by **Ani33** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:58 pm

Im new too but Im thinking of not weighing, at least for the moment. The scales alway throw me off, If I like what I see it seems a license to overeat in celebration and if I dont I eat in self pity. I plan to weigh in December, but if I get there and I dont feel I need to know I wont bother

sarahkay · Post by **sarahkay** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:57 pm

I feel like focusing on pounds isn't a great idea for me right now. Maybe I will weigh in when I feel a significant change has happened, such as jeans being really lose or something, just to see, but in general I think I will avoid weighing myself regularly. One of my main goals is finding peace and not obsessing about diet and weight loss. Weighing "regularly" is part of obsessing for me

jellybeans01 · Post by **jellybeans01** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:45 pm

I strongly say to use the scale. We need to remember though that it is a piece of metal, or plastic, not our enemy. Our thoughts are our enemies.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:58 pm

I'm a member of the "no weigh" camp.

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:14 pm

I'm a member of the weigh camp. If I don't weigh myself regularly, I get too complacent, and I gain weight. For me, the scale keeps me honest.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:04 am

The longer I go, the more anti-scale I am. Focus on habits and satiety! Commit to not overeating. Make that your mantra and damn the scales. Why should a scale determine whether you are eating sanely, not overeating, and getting regular moderate exercise? If you are doing those things, you are doing the most for your health that you can, unless a doctor gives other directives. (IF that's so, forget No S and follow orders!) I maintain that the focus on the scale keeps you in bargaining mode, so that you keep letting food amounts creep up, even though you don't really need them for satiety. YOU keep going as long as the scale doesn't register a gain. Then you keep getting fuller or not getting sufficiently hungry for your meals. Finally the gain shows up. AAck!

Go for satiety at your meals and about an hour or so of hunger in between. Maybe one or two exceptions on S days. You know if you aren't doing that. Don't be obsessive about it, but do be honest. It would be very unusual for the scale to creep up unless you're getting too full or never getting hungry. Surrender to the inner process!

I mean this advice for the vast majority, not the few who might need other measures. I think MOST members here, if they have been in compliance for any length of time, know how it feels to be eating moderately. And to me in compliance means they get hungry for their meals or eat reasonable plates of average portions and a variety of foods, including vegetables.

I have a bias. I lived overseas in the Middle East for several years and traveled for nearly 6 months in the East. I don't want to depend on anything I wouldn't be able to do there, including travel in some relatively remote places. I measure my food by eyeballing portions according to how they match my hand measurements and I'm experimenting with less. I'm not willing to do much more so it doesn't matter to me what I weigh or what the calories are. I always have my hand and my sense of satiety. If I couldn't depend on satiety, I'd still estimate what a reasonable meal by estimated serving sizes, how long it took me to get hungry, and accept the results.

Be honest with yourself and do what you are willing to LIVE with!

Just my not-so-humble opinion.

emmay · Post by **emmay** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:00 am

I am trying to focus on behaviour, i.e. moderate eating and regular exercise, not weight. But I am still weighing once a month. Pre No S, I was weighing every day and it was driving me crazy. I thought about not weighing ever again, or only once a year, but If I committed to that I know I would be tempted to weigh and then feel guilty if I did. So once per month is a compromise to satisfy my urge to weigh without making weight the main focus.
Maybe I will throw out the scales one day when I'm more confident about my behaviour.

ironchef · Post by **ironchef** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 6:05 am

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I do weigh. However, I use a trending calculation (from Hacker's Diet, I think physicsdiet works the same).

For example, the past two weeks my daily weights have been fluctuating between 130 and 133 pounds. If I went by daily weights, I would be sitting here sad because I gained 3 pounds between last Tuesday and Wednesday, or jubilant because I somehow lost 2 pounds by the next weekend. Actually, neither of these is "real". My trend tells me I am still losing about a 1/2 pound a week. If my trend is not showing a loss (or in my case, maintenance) over a month period, then I'll reconsider my eating and exercise.

I'm an engineer by trade, so this way works for me and does not make me crazy at all. If you are not able to emotionally disconnect from the daily number on the scale, then I would not recommend it. Daily weights are changed by eating and drinking, digestion and elimination, sweating, and so on. As such, the daily numbers are meaningless and I don't pay any attention to them. Only the trend is of interest.

ashlei · Post by **ashlei** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 6:48 am

I weigh myself everyday just to see the trend.

eschano · Post by **eschano** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:43 am

Not weighing myself is how I got overweight in the first place. I would rather not face the facts and pretend that this little chocolate here and there (and in the end everywhere) didn't make a difference. Turns out it made a huge difference and had I weighted myself I wouldn't have been able to lie to myself so proficiently.

I weigh myself every N day and it makes a huge difference. I never get upset if I weigh more one day than the next but it allows me to think about the reasons: waterweight (very possible), bad food choices (also very possible - and this is where weighing makes sense to me), overestimation of what constitutes a plate (again this is where weighing gives me a chance to take a hard look at the facts).

So while I'm not attached to the weight on the scale I get a lot of information from it.

Another thing is: whenever I lost weight without weighing myself I grossly overestimated how much it was and once I went on a scale I was so discouraged that I immediately comforted myself with food - talking of selfsabotage.

So it's really up to what works better for YOU. Just experiment with it.

Imogen Morley · Post by **Imogen Morley** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:54 am

ashlei wrote:I weigh myself everyday just to see the trend.

This, but not every day - once a week is enough to be sufficiently informed, but not obsessed.

eschano · Post by **eschano** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:35 pm

By the way: this podcast is very useful
http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=24

BrightAngel · Post by **BrightAngel** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:40 pm

I weigh daily, record it into my computer food tracking program,
which graphs it for me and makes it easy to watch trends.

One day's weight is relatively unimportant,
but when daily weights are clumped together they provide important feedback.
It is easy to get into Denial about the amount of calories in the food one is actually eating,
... even in No S....
One day of weekly overeating, can easily offset 6 days of moderation.
Watching my weight trend is a tool that keeps me grounded in reality.