Hello, this is my first post. I love the site...
I have a problem with being able to get on a scale. Psychologically, the numbers, if they are greater than I want them to be, depress me quite severely. The thing is, I really only need to lose about ten pounds. Maybe not even that. I don't know what my starting point is because I'm too scared to look! Has anyone else had this problem? Thank you

I am usually a bit apprehensive on Friday and Monday mornings if I haven't been sticking to my plan.

How about just taking your measurements or putting on clothes that are a bit tight and seeing how the fit/measurement change is in a couple of weeks?

The numbers on the scale are a bit quicker to show loss or gain is all.

Dagmar

No at all! I weigh daily and track the weight. I have been doing this for almost 2 years. I don't mind the fluctuations--in fact if the scale goes up, it just reminds me to be more diligent.

I weigh daily. I am a little apprehensive when I get on the scale, but not so much so that it messes with my life, or anything like that.

That's why I weigh myself at night before I go to bed--it gives me a pretty good idea of what the scale is going to say in the morning and it easier to get on the scale when I'm prepared for what it will say.

There are definitely times when I know the number on the scale is going to be up and for a fleeting moment I think about skipping my daily weigh in. But I know that that is a slipperly slope. Pretty soon I'm not weighing myself ever and I'm well on my way towards gaining back all the weight I've lost. So, no matter what I think the scale will say, I make myself get on it.

I'd like to say that I don't ever let it depress me; that if I don't like the number I see, I make a plan for how I will change it. But it isn't always that easy to control the scale. For the past week, I've been doing everything right--exercising every day, staying under my calories for the day, eating the right foods. Despite all that, the scale was up one lb this morning. I'd be lying if I didn't say I felt pretty demoralized when I saw that number. My weight was down when I went to bed and I had to get up to pee three or four times during the night--usually that is a recipe for a low weight in the morning, so I was shocked to see the scale up a lb. And there's nothing to change--I'm doing everything right. So I'm going to just keep on keeping on and hope I see a drop over the next week. It is frustrating but not weighing myself definitely isn't the answer.

The scale is not always a correct indicator of your weight if you weigh daily. I drank a glass of cranberry juice yesterday afternoon. Went to the bathroom a lot during the night (apparently cranberry juice is a diuretic for me) and this morning I'd lost 1.6 lbs according to the scale. I know it was just deyhdration and, after drinking two glasses of water and waiting half and hour I was up 2 lbs.

So I'm going with the weight as it registers on a weekly basis, not day by day. And if I've been "partying" with the ice cream or whatever on the weekend I'll wait until two days of "damage control" pass before weighing in.

Dagmar

Yeah... I have had problems in the past.

I actually stopped weighing myself every week because it did more harm than good: I would weigh in and it was be like a half a pound too heavy so I would be depressed, and needless to say this would leave to more eating.

Instead when I started this journey I did measurements. It was less stressful, and surprisingly the inches came off rather quickly.

In the past 10 months I've lost 8 and 3/4 inches.... 3 of those have been from my waist. That is actually news to me. :O And it makes me pretty happy I have to admit .

I just started to weigh myself again... however when I know I've had a bad week or I think a weigh in will just add to my stress, I skip it. I know what I have to do to lose weight and I know what parts of my life get in the way (School) and I don't necessarily need a scale to be accountable.

I weigh daily (twice a day, actually) just so there aren't any surprises. If I only weighed once a week and the scale didn't say what I wanted/expected, it would be a big problem. But I don't expect the scale to change much on a daily basis. For example, this morning I weighed 112.5. I expect that tomorrow, I'll weigh 112.5 again, maybe 113 since I had a bad day food-wise yesterday. Even when I am PoP, I know it is unlikely that I'll see a drop of more than .5 lbs from day to day and that most days I won't see a drop.

But if I didn't weigh myself for a week, I would be really hoping that the scale would drop to 111.5 or maybe even 111. And it's entirely possible that it could, but it's just as likely that it wouldn't. And if it didn't, I would be devastated. I would spend the whole week hoping and praying for a drop and then when I didn't see one, it would be a huge let-down, especially since I wouldn't have another chance to see a drop for a whole other week.

So I weigh myself every night, which gives me a pretty good idea of what my weight will be in the morning (and based on my morning weight, I have a pretty good idea what my evening weight will be). There's no false hope, few surprises, and few let-downs.

I'm with Barbara on this one. I weigh daily, sometimes twice daily if I feel like weighing at the gym.

I've gotten so it doesn't bother me much -- I'd be lying if I said "at all" -- if the scale goes up 1-2 pounds from day to day. However, if I get an upward trend three days in a row that isn't explicable by TOM, I can adjust my eating accordingly.

I think if I only weighed once a week, the randomly heavy weigh-in days would bother me more because I'd lose confidence in my ability to stay on plan.

Kim

I just joined and wasn't sure where to start so I thought I'd just jump right in...

I know exactly what you mean. The thing is the weight itself (starting weight, current weight, goal weight) doesn't mean anything - it's an abstract. Me at 140lb and you at 140lb are completely different, for example. It's a floating number, the only function of which is to give you an idea whether or not you're going in the right direction. It's not even the whole story - this is what I tell myself anyway.

That said, I weigh once a week on Wednesdays - it's completely psychological but doing it on Sundays or Mondays felt a bit too much like pressure (like starting on New Years Day)! And it gives me a couple of days to settle after the weekend. So much of this losing weight thing has to do with where your head's at I think .

Nope, I fear not the scale, especially if I have been doing well (ie. on program). I hop on almost every morning, and while I think it would be better for me to weigh weekly, I can't resist the temptation to see if I might be down a pound. Even if I've had a bad couple of days (like, um, this weekend), it's hard for me to not weigh. But I try not to, because if I already know that I'm up, why punish myself and make myself feel crappier by actually seeing the number? So I try to give myself a few days back on program before I weigh.