Scale Obsession

I have many clients that are trying to lose weight and get in shape. On the journey of weight loss, it is hard to not get obsessed with weighing yourself. Sometimes using a scale is beneficial as a slight gage of your progress. But I cannot tell you how many times I have seen my body make progress, but the scale never moved. In some cases it went up! Mentally it threw me off and eventually threw me off my diet.

There are a lot of factors that can come into play. It can be that time of the month (females), sodium intake from the day prior, or weighing in at a different time of the day. Whatever the factor is your weight will most likely vary. What has helped me on my journey is to stop obsessing about the scale and that number that pops up. I go by how I feel and how my clothes fit. If I weighed 200 pounds, but looked and felt fantastic, what difference does that number make? People don’t know what your weight is walking around. When I tell most people I weigh 160 pounds, they usually think I am joking. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you are training and changing your body composition from fat to muscle, does it really matter what your weight is?

As soon as you let the scale obsession cease, you will feel less pressure to hit a number each week. Like I mentioned scales can be great gages from time to time. But there is no need to weigh yourself every day. If you feel the need to weigh yourself, maybe try once a week, at the same time of day when you get up in the morning.