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Old 10-29-2011, 04:25 PM   #1  
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Question Some quick opinions about mirrors and scales

So I just started thinking that maybe it's about time I bought a nice, full body mirror to put in my room, one that isn't old and warped like the one I currently have. (My mom had it from when she was a baby.. it's pretty old.)

I just want that every day reminder when I see myself in it that I'm working towards something.

What do you guys think?

Also, I'm thinking of not weighing in on my scale anymore to get over my "number obsession". for a while and start using measuring tape/body tape to track my progress. Yes or no?

Would love to hear what you guys do and methods you use.
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Old 10-29-2011, 04:31 PM   #2  
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I think they're both great ideas! Especially the not weighing and here is why..Long read, well worth it!

Why The Scale Lies...

We've been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can't resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can't bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the scale.

A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it's easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn't have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content.

That's why, when it comes to eating, it's wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners. Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it's packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it's stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it's associated water. It's normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you're prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it's wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you've had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It's the actual weight of everything you've had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you've finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it's not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it's likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it's only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it's physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you're really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale's sneakiest attribute. It doesn't just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you've lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you're just sitting around. That's one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn't differentiate between the two. It can't tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current. If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn't appeal to you, don't worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don't be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It's a matter of mind over scale.

As for me, I don't weight myself much or measure, I wish I measured or at least did back in May. I take pictures, there is nothing like looking at a month old picture and seeing where you've come from. The mirror doesn't do that for me. I still see the same exact fat girl. Pictures are fantastic imo. So, I just stick with them. The loosening of the clothes helps too lol.

Last edited by ButterCup85; 10-29-2011 at 04:33 PM.
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Old 10-29-2011, 04:47 PM   #3  
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I don't know. People often say "throw out the scale, use measurements!" but I find this puzzling advice. Measurements are good and I certainly take them, but if you are the kind of person who gets frustrated with the scale because you can't always see day-to-day or even week-to-week progress on it, measurements are going to be even less helpful. You're really unlikely to see meaningful changes in measurements on a time-scale shorter than a month or two. If you're okay with that, though, then sure, there's no obligation to get on a scale.

My own approach: weigh every day, learn my body's patterns, and accept them. I'm okay with not seeing losses every time I get on the scale. I'm okay with sometimes seeing fluctuations and gains. It's been quite enlightening to me to really get to understand the patterns with which my weight changes, and to understand what kinds of correlations there are - and aren't - between what I do and how my weight changes.

The scale is a valuable tool. So is measuring. Both have strengths, and both have weaknesses. If you can, I'd recommend using both types for their strengths, rather than dismissing either of them for its weaknesses.

Last edited by carter; 10-29-2011 at 04:47 PM.
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Old 10-29-2011, 05:21 PM   #4  
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I've been doing pretty much what you described. I don't weigh in that often (maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks) mostly because my weight loss has really slowed and I can tell in other ways how on track I've been.

The mirror is helpful to me... although I feel like I look different in different mirrors. Or even the same mirror in a different position. This may just be my own neurosis though... or narcissism... hard to tell .

I say, do what feels helpful/motivating to you. If you can get enough info and stay on track without a scale then ditch it!
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Old 10-29-2011, 05:43 PM   #5  
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Eh, do what works for you. If you think throwing away the scale is going to help you do it.

I want to add something, though. I wouldn't throw it away if you're being told by others that you'll be number obsessed weighing too often. If YOU think this is a major concern then don't weight, however, if you're doing it because you heard this is an issue then I'd really rethink that idea.

Why? Well, I'm a daily weigher and it absolutely is something that keeps me on plan. The number on the scale doesn't bug me at all because I know my fluctuations. I know I only lose weight for about a week or so out of the month so as long as the scale doesn't go up a crazy amount during those other times of the month I'm happy.

Oh, and I do measure often. However, unless you're starting a serious lifting routine you're probably not going to see any super fast changes there either. I normally suggest that people measure too because plateaus can certainly happen where you're losing inches but the scale doesn't change (speaking from experience here) but there are other times that the scale IS changing but your inches aren't. That's why I do both.

So moral of the story, do what works for you. I've been at this a pretty long time (almost 1.5 years now) and I'd say I'm a lot LESS number obsessed now then I was at the beginning. I step on the scale first thing in the morning and think "oh, that"s nice" and get off. It's just part of my routine.

Last edited by runningfromfat; 10-29-2011 at 05:55 PM.
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Old 10-29-2011, 05:44 PM   #6  
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Thank you so much for the responses guys. I'll continue to mull it over for the next couple of days and see how I feel.

You guys are the best, here on 3fc <3
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Old 10-29-2011, 06:56 PM   #7  
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I like the scale because it keeps me honest. Even with measurements, there is some subjectivity - are you holding the tape in the same EXACTLY place? Are you pulling it tighter than the last time?

But maybe because I have been around the weight loss block so many times now, I don't give the scale TOO much power either. I know that it does not always reflect the effort I put in, or sometimes even the lack of effort. Meaning sometimes, you go off plan and see a loss - not because eating more makes you actually lose weight, it's just that the scale is not perfect either. But it is a good way to measure progress over time, along with measurements, changes in clothing size, comparing before/after pictures, etc.

Having said all of this, my main focus is keeping the commitment I have made to myself to stay on plan, and counting up those days. That is the one thing I have complete control over, and the thing that I know is what will ultimately get me where I need to be.
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Old 10-29-2011, 09:42 PM   #8  
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I weigh myself every morning but I try not to let it determine my mood for the day. As everyone has said, there are all sorts of reason for your weight to fluctuate during the day/week/month. Once I understood that, I stopped freaking out about the irregularity of what has been a decent loss over the course of 4 months.

I also got myself a nifty little measuring tape that I try to use once a week or so. Mirrors don't work for me, because I just can't see myself right.
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Old 10-30-2011, 05:50 AM   #9  
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In my experience I find the scales are good to keep a handle on where I'm at - I usually weigh in every other week just to make sure I'm not going off the rails. I find that if I weigh in more frequently I can get a little discouraged and put-off by fluctuations in the numbers.

Apart from that, most of my checking takes place in front of the mirror and how my clothes fit.
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:15 AM   #10  
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Do remember that ignoring the scale is how many of us got here in the first place. Also that studies on people who have successfully lost a signficant amount of weight and kept it off for years find that most of them weigh themselves regularly (daily, I think it was). So I'd ignore all these articles which insist that everyone must throw out their scales because scales are useless - they aren't, they're very useful indeed. Now obviously some people genuinely do better without using scales, but I think it's an important skill to learn how to live with your scale if you can, which includes getting used to the natural variation in numbers.

Mirrors - my full-length mirror is on the inside of a wardrobe door. That way I'm not always staring at it (not a big mirror person) but it's easy to use regularly.
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:24 AM   #11  
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Youve gotten alot of great advice from everyone! I agree about taking pictures. I have been doing weekly pics since I started and it really is uplifting to be able to look at the pics and see how far ive come.
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Old 10-30-2011, 09:18 AM   #12  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by carter View Post

My own approach: weigh every day, learn my body's patterns, and accept them. I'm okay with not seeing losses every time I get on the scale. I'm okay with sometimes seeing fluctuations and gains. It's been quite enlightening to me to really get to understand the patterns with which my weight changes, and to understand what kinds of correlations there are - and aren't - between what I do and how my weight changes.

The scale is a valuable tool. So is measuring. Both have strengths, and both have weaknesses. If you can, I'd recommend using both types for their strengths, rather than dismissing either of them for its weaknesses.
^^THIS^^

I weigh every day. I don't expect to see a "loss" every day. What I DO expect is to continue monitoring my body's unique-to-me fluctuations. I keep a food diary via FitDay, and I can easily look to it for detailed info about what I ate that may have caused a specific fluctuation. I take special note when I've had "too much sodium". It helps me keep myself in check.

But that may not be a good idea for some people. I realize we're not all the same. We lose weight at different rates, even when we do the same thing as someone else might be doing. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT.

As for the mirror, I say a good mirror is a godsend! Just as a "bad" mirror might make you look "fun-house" distorted, a "good" mirror can make you look fab!~ and WHAT WE SEE IS WHAT WE RETAIN. If you THINK you look bad, then you look bad. If you THINK you look GOOD, then you look good! Sometimes a little "slight of eye" is just what our ego needs to keep on keep'n on. Ya dig?

But for TRUE knowledge of weight loss, I rely on CAMERAS. For instance, a pic of me & my best friend from April VS a pic of me & my best friend from August... really shows the weight loss - esp. in my face! I depend on several tools, scale, measuring tape, mirror & camera. And I continue to remind myself that this is an on-going process. I'm in it for the long haul!
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Old 10-30-2011, 02:05 PM   #13  
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Thank you so much guys. All your advice has been extremely helpful, and I'll definitely be adding "Taking pictures" Into my routine. Just have to figure out how to snap the pictures myself.

Anyways, I really appreciate the input. It's helped a ton!
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