MizFit has sparked an interesting discussion about scales on her blog.
Should you weigh yourself everyday? Every week? Not at all?
I weigh myself every morning. My weight doesn’t change much, and usually I don’t remember what the scale says five minutes after I’ve looked at it. I don’t know why I still do it. Force of habit I guess. I sort of see it as a way to keep myself in check. And sometimes it’s even a source of reassurance, like when I have dessert one night and discover I haven’t gained any weight the next day, I think “hey cool, I can still enjoy chocolate cake once in a while and it won’t make me a lard ass.”
But these are my irrational fears of gaining 50lbs overnight and turning into an instant blob talking. The rational side of my brain agrees with MizFit:
I believe, in our heart of hearts, we know if we’ve gained or lost before we step upon that self-esteem demolishing numbers providing machine….
Talk about a mindfuck game. If our goal is to be kind to ourselves and set ourselves up for success this surely is not the path.
That last bit really struck a nerve for me.
By weighing myself every day, am I setting myself up for failure?
At the moment I’m in a situation I never thought I would be in: I’m actually trying to gain weight. That is, I want to put on some muscle so I’ve added some resistance training and interval swimming to my workouts. The problem is, I’ve still got those irrational fears of the scale holding me back. The result?
- I haven’t put on an ounce of weight (i.e. muscle) in the three weeks I’ve been strength training.
- I’m constantly hungry, but nervous about upping my food intake due to my aforementioned irrational fears.
- I’m thinking about food constantly. I also seem to be very distracted and headache-prone lately. Think that hunger might have something to do with all this?
So what have I learned? I need to eat more, yes. And I need to stop holding on to the reassuring static state of the scale.
Could it be that the only way welcome weight gain is to take my eyes off the numbers and let my inner “light” guide me. If I’m hungry, I should eat, even if it’s more than I ate the day before. If my jeans start to feel tight in the thights, then maybe I should worry (or not… maybe instead I should thank my squats for doing their job).
This is all in the name of HEALTH, after all. And since when did “weight” and “health” become synonymous? Perhaps it was when the scale became a staple appliance of the modern day household…
The Power of the Scale [MizFit]
Image courtesy of Talia Sara
You’ve worded it all so well here. I agree, health and weight are NOT synonymous. Maybe it would be good for you to not look at the scale? Even just for a little while- take a break from it and see if you’re better off with letting your inner voice guide your body!
(thanks for the link) and for expanding the post!
you know what I think and yet I also am thinking I need to try and step BACK and see if I can unravel why I am the way I am.
if that makes sense at all….
I hate scales and our obsession with them. They are, however, an unavoidable reality. I agree with Sagan that scales don’t necessarily indicate health. I think they can often be detrimental to one’s mindset. However, if you’re going to weigh yourself I think it should be no more frequent than weekly and, even better, every two weeks.
Oh god, if I weighed in every day I would become a stark raving lunatic. I try to weigh once a week, just to keep tabs, but when I know it’s bad I do tend to avoid the scale! LOL. Also, scale isn’t the only way to judge, how your clothes fit is just a important to me.