Riding the See-Saw

This week I’m going to take a different approach to Losing It! From time to time, I get a personal email from one of my readers, looking for inspiration, advice or just a friendly ear to listen to their weight loss stories/challenges. These stories not only inspire me to keep going in my own weight loss journey, but they also often inspire my posts. The see-saw ride we’re on is the same for everyone. You have your ups and you have your downs, it’s a wild ride and hopefully you don’t get bumped off!

Well, this past weekend, I got a really compelling email from a reader. Here’s an exerpt from her note:

"…a topic has come up in my meeting, but has not been explored very much. It has to do with using the scale at home and weighing yourself every day, or not. There are those who have thrown out the scale because it set them up for playing games on a daily basis.

For those who threw away the scale, they say that they stopped this bargaining cycle. It meant that focus was changed from the scale to the good changes and habits they are working on. They say it takes the focus away from the minutia of day-to-day ups and downs and focuses on the long term picture. They say it keeps them more honest about what they eat and track etc.

I wondered if you weighed yourself at home, daily, or only the once at week at the W.W. meeting? Do you have any thoughts or words of wisdom on this topic?"

There sure is a hot debate amongst weight-loss "experts" on this topic. Many advocate throwing out the scale altogether and focusing on making positive changes in your life, while others point out that goals that are not measured are seldom achieved.

Personally, I’m in the latter camp. While I do agree that a fixation with the number on the scale can be dangerous, I do think it’s a tool nobody should be without. In a way, it’s a bit like the internet. Can you imagine going about your daily life today without the internet? Neither can I. But then there are times when it’s sooooo tempting to go online, but I need to be able to step away. When it’s 7:30 a.m. and my kids need help getting ready for school and I have some household chores on the agenda, the smart thing to do is to get the kids out the door, load the dishwasher and start the laundry and then boot up the computer.

The same goes for the scale. If you want to lose weight, you need to know a few things that only the scale can tell you, namely: 1) how much did I weigh when I started, and 2) how much do I weigh now?

However, stepping on the scale every day is not going to help you lose weight, and can lead to the destructive bargaining cycle my email correspondent refers to above. Namely, you see have lost some weight, so you give yourself permission to "lapse" a bit. Or you see you’ve gained a little bit, so you get discouraged and give up. You see your weight is stable, so you feel like the "cheat" from yesterday was okay or else you feel down because you’ve been so good for the last few days and haven’t lost anything! And so on…

The reason Weight Watchers advocates only weighing yourself once a week on their scale is partly because the scales are digital, properly calibrated and accurate. It’s also partly to help members avoid the playing of mind-games that can come with what I call "scale-fixation".

The way I see it is this: it’s really not a question of the scale, but the natural tendency of the person. To me, scale-fixation is a kind of micromanagement of the weight loss process. Personally, I’m a big picture thinker; to my great detriment in some areas (like budgeting, taxes, etc.) but to my great benefit in others, including not feeling the need to know my weight every day. See, weight loss is really a long-term game. Even a once weekly weigh-in can sometimes be too frequent (read about my experience with this here) and can distort your perception of your real progress.

That’s not to say that I don’t weigh myself in between meetings. I often do. But I don’t need to. And I don’t make decisions about what to eat for the rest of the week (or judgements about the past) based on what I see on the scale when I do weigh myself.

I think the key to scale-fixation is to see it for what it is. A number. And one that can fluctuate day-by-day or hour-by-hour, even. An important number, no doubt about it, but not one that you should put any store by on an indivudual basis. In my opinion, the numbers you see on the scale should only be taken as a whole, as a trend, as a curve (hopefully moving generally downwards!) and not as a single point or even as a series of points.

So, how to answer the question? Well, I’ll put it back to you. Are you a detail person? Do you tend to get obsessive over details? Do you see the trees but not the forest? If so, then I agree: get rid of the scale. It’ll be as much a temptation as a box of chocolates.