Get Off Those Scales NOW This Means YOU

Ok, I'll stop shouting. However, one of the most frustrating comments I deal with is "I'm exercising, I'm eating right, and I'm not losing weight."

Allow me to first say that our obsession with the scale borders on fanatical. At the extreme some of you jump on the scales many times a day. This is a recipe for frustration, despair, disappointment, and failure. (Can you think of any other really bad things to add here?)

The reasons are,

1) your bathroom scale weight is ONLY a reflection of the force of gravity against you, meaning, it doesn't tell you the important stuff like how much of your weight is body fat and how much is lean tissue.

2) Your weight can fluctuate WILDLY during the course of the day, depending on, among other things, your hydration level. And you ladies have a really tough time with this during your monthly cycle.

A couple of the most accurate ways to tell you are progressing toward (or maintaining) your goal weight is to have periodic pictures taken of yourself, and, also, gauge how well your clothes fit. Pictures and clothes don't lie. Period. Even looking at yourself in the mirror is subjective, but picture and clothes tell the whole story.

If you must use a bathroom scale use one that also measures your body fat %. Several of these are available on the market at affordable prices. Links to some are below. If you exercise (and you do don't you? hmmm) please look for a model with an "athlete" mode.

Personally, I use a TANITA model, but that was the best model at the time I bought mine 3 or 4 years ago. Do your own research.

My friend Jack gave me a great tip on using the scales to YOUR advantage. He and his wife, Terri, take their bathroom scales and skew the indicator to read something that is completely out of line with reality. E.g. Instead of an initial setting of zero you might choose 18.

How does this help? Well, when you look at the number. . .it's just a number and doesn't mean anything to you. Then record this number in a chart or spreadsheet and take the difference between this weigh-in and the last. Over time you can watch your "weight" trend up, down, or sideways.

Monitoring you "weight" this way removes the obsession with watching the scales. You then focus on progress. If you see the trend going up and you haven't been in the weight room building muscle, then you can arrest the fat gain before it's out of control.

On the flip side, if your "weight" is trending down and that's the direction you want to go, great! However, if you are in maintenance, or you are losing too fast, action can be taken immediately.

It is still better if you use a scale that measures body fat %, however, short of that this is a great tip. Don't overdo it on the weigh-ins however. Weighing yourself more than once a week can be counterproductive.

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