Hi!

Here's my burning question: Has anyone weighed themselves regularly and gained any really large amount of weight?

I ask because I've just, for the umpteenth time, weighed myself after a LONG hiatus from weighing to find that I'd gained a ton of weight, without allowing myself to realize, all the way along, that I was gaining. I truly believe I'd never even have let my weight creep over the big 2 (and I'm now -- I'm facing it, although it still makes my eyes bug out to think of it -- half-way between the 2 and the 3 ) if I'd weighed myself all along.

What happens is, I'm doing okay but have a bad week and decide I'll wait until I've got the expected gain off again. And that's the slippery slope. I think I didn't weigh in for over a year this time and gained 26 pounds. OMG -- I hadn't really put it in words before. I'm not discouraged, and am back on track (and will NEVER stop weighing again) but now I've got that much more weight. Oh well, onward is the only way to go.

Just wondering what other peoples' experiences were in this aspect of the battle. Has anyone gained a lot while remaining conscious of the fact that they were gaining or do you -- like me -- close your eyes so you can't see it pile on?

I think I have closed my eyes in the past. I'm not letting that happen. My biggest gains were at college when I didn't have a scale, or a gym to go to that had a scale and it just comes on so fast. I know I could tell from my clothes getting tighter but some how I ignored that. I know the number isn't the most important thing but it helps keep me going. Even some times when I am weighing my self I think I keep my eyes closed in a sense because I ignore the weight I say to my self ok, this is the highest I can go but I dont' do anythign about it. this time, I am not letting that happen. I am weighing in at weight watcher meetings wether I like what i see or not so that I will be accountable each week.
its so hard to lose it but it piles on so fast. we just have to keep our selves going.

Oh yes. It's almost Freudian for me I had a wee binge last night and low and behold I was well into my day this morning before I realised that I hadn't weighed myself. For me this can go on for months. I regained 24 lbs between about Feb and June.
I set aside the black jeans .... I set aside the Mark's jeans ... I'm pretty sure I just exercised the other day or maybe it was last week. I just try the full-fat dressing this once (or twice or all week)

It's denial I think.

You may find some benefit to reading in the Maintainers forum. They talk there about vigilance. I also learned alot by reading a book called Thin for Life by .... Anne M Fletcher (I think that author is right).

I've always regained weight once I stopped getting on the scale. I now weigh EVERY day. I've finally reached a point that I am familiar with my fluctuation patterns and so a pound or two doesn't get me all worked up anymore. I don't worry that I'll see a slight gain, get freaked out, and end up going off plan.

I still have 20 pounds to lose but I've already decided that I will continue to weigh daily to keep myself in check. I am perfectly aware that the scale is the least accurate measure of my progress but, in the long run, it is still the first indicator that I may be veering off track. Once I reach my goal weight I don't ever want to have to battle more than a pound or two at a time again! I've noticed that one clothing size equals 8-10 pounds for me. So, if I wait until my pants are a little snug I'm going to be looking at 5-7 pounds and that is just more than I am willing to struggle with for the rest of my life.

Of course, I don't plan on changing much in terms of diet or exercise just because I reach a magic number. But, I'm trying to be realistic and anticipate that there WILL be times during the rest of my (hopefully long) life when I'm not as diligent as I should be. I figure if I just keep weighing on a regular basis I'll be able to nip any problems in the bud.

Stepping on the scale regularly is crucial for me. I will need to do it for the rest of my life. That used to bug me but I've made peace with it. Every time in my life that I've gained weight it's been when I've been hiding from the scale.

I can absolutely commisserate. I was about 180 for years and always swore I'd never, ever go above 200. When I started my "diet" I was 248 pounds. I can't believe I let myself get that heavy, and a big part of it was that I never weighed myself. I was pregnant for most of the period of weight gain but that's not an excuse - I should have paid a lot more attention to eating healthier and taking better care of my body while I was pregnant, and I think that I would have if I had bothered to weigh in at all between doctor's visits. I always explained away so much of my weight at doctor's visits by blaming it on clothes and shoes.

Of course, as any current or former fat girl knows, it wasn't clothes or shoes. It was fat, and I wish I'd made myself face that fact BEFORE I put on so much of it.

I never used to weigh myself, I used to tell myself that if I felt OK then my weight wasn't a problem. It was only after I'd lost a lot of weight that I realise that what I used to think was "OK" wasn't OK at all, it's just that I didn't have anything better to compare it to.

I'm young and even at my biggest was relatively fit for my size, but it was little things like the fact that I'd never feel like walking into town at lunchtime unless I absolutely had to, now I always go for a walk at lunchtime just because I can. Not feeling like I have the energy to even do that is definitely not OK.

Maybe if I'd stepped on a scale sooner I'd have done something about it, but then maybe I'd have just found another excuse to put it off. I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but I want to make sure I keep on weighing in as often as I can to make sure I never let it get so out of control again.

I think the scale can be a friend and enemy at the same time. Since the weight may not always be correct (water weight, time of day being weighed..ect..)

Most importantly is not the numbers on the scale at this point, but what you do to help yourself get fit and eat right.

I weigh in once a week as a maintainer. It's enough to keep me on track but not cause me to be obsessive. I occasionally skip a week but every other week is mandatory. So far so good!

I still weigh in every day, and I've been maintaining for nearly two years now. It's just a way of staying on top of things and holding myself accountable. I won't be able use the excuse that I don't know I'm gaining if I start making some not so great choices because there it is, every day, right before my very eyes. For me, it's a crucial part of my maintenance, and something I'm sure I'll continue to do indefinitely.

Beverly

I'm due next Friday, and yet, all along, I still step on that scale. And then I remind myself not to obsess about it right now, because I'll lose it again. I have the right mindset to do that now and as soon as these gosh darned cravings are gone....

But I keep a set weigh in day each week and continue reading boards like this to keep me in mind of what I'm working towards and not to allow myself to slack off. It's the same with exercise. If I found myself slacking, I'd change my routine...throw myself a curve to motivate me again and keep me going. I won't allow myself to slack off. I will never justify buying a larger jean size. I have a drawer full of 8's now, so there's my motivation to lose this pregnancy weight quickly.

It sounds as if a lot of people have had the same experience I've had, which is what I suspected.

LittlePaperStars, I agree that the scale can be misleading, but as a rule it's only going to be off a few pounds one way or the other. What I'm talking about is the way that some of us, when we don't weigh ourselves, can gain hefty amounts of weight without ever "realizing" it.

So, yes, the scale can be misleading. I've also had the experience of doing everything right, but having weight loss stalled because I was exercising a lot (this tends to happen to me any time I significantly increase exercise). I think, at those times, it's important to remember that the scale is a bit of a blunt instrument. But the absolultely worst thing I can ever do is to stop weighing myself -- because my capacity for self-deception is just too huge, and I get myself in BIG trouble every time.

I stopped weighing myself when I was about 6 months pregnant. I just didn't want to know. I know I dropped a lot of weight after my daughter was born. (She was a ferocious nurser) but as soon as I quit nursing I started gaining weight. I had no idea until a Dr. told me I needed to lose weight. My daughter is 5 now and I have a hard time keeping up. I find myself weighing myself at my grandma's house or a friends' houses just to see if I've lost any weight. It's very hard because I have only seen gain. I'm thinking I need to get my own scale for home. I just don't want my daughter obsessing over her weight too. How can I make her understand being healthy as opposed to being thin? Help.-SwimMom

With the scale thing - for the LONGEST time I didn't have one at home either. Like most people here I do have to weigh regularly - not DAILY but once or twice a month, usually - just to keep in check. It's hard NOT to think of the scale as an emotional barometer - I think of it as just making sure I'm healthy, you know - like taking your blood pressure or having your cholestrol checked or a mammogram or something. Weights and measurements are part of that health maintenance process as well.

It's a fine line between using the scale as a monitoring tool and just letting the results play with your emotions. My suggestion is going to sound REALLY trite - but what I do is just keep it out of sight when I'm not using it. (Actually, our scale is in the garage - so I have to go there to use it.) I know a LOT of people tend to leave it out on the bathroom floor and so it's THERE all the time! At least tuck it under the sink or something, KWIM?

As far as your daughter's future body image - there have been a LOT of books written on this topic - Ellyn Satter has written several, including How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much and Your Child's Weight: Helping without Harming (Check out those Amazon links...you can take a 'sneak peek' at the book's contents. As always, I strongly recommend checking out any book you might be interested in at the library to decide whether YOU think it's worth buying).

My two cents anyway!

I have a slightly different relationship with the scale than everyone else on this thread. I only weigh myself every 6 - 8 weeks. I don't own a scale, so I do it at the gym. I've been "cheating" a bit lately and weighing myself every 2 weeks -- which I think is due to the fact that I'm getting close to my goal weight -- but I won't do it any more often than that. I find that by waiting a long(ish) time between weigh-ins, I always see a loss and the scale never becomes my enemy. I think that if I weighed in every day, I'd get really discouraged by normal daily fluctuations due to water weight, etc., and it would be totally counterproductive to my weight-loss efforts. I tend to look forward to weigh-in because I do it so infrequently which really gives me time to lose some pounds between weigh-ins -- so (like I said) I always see a loss, so it's always a positive experience.

Having said THAT, I must add that I didn't step on a scale for most of the 1990s because I was so heavy and I simply didn't want to know the brutal truth. I found it much easier to deny my weight problem by "not really knowing." And when I first went to my personal trainer for my initial consultation and measurements, I made her promise me she wouldn't tell me my weight. It wasn't until about 3 months into my exercise and new eating plan that I finally asked her to tell me what my starting weight had been (and that was only because I was about to do a weigh-in and wanted to know how much I'd lost).

I also grew up in an environment in which my Mom (who was anorexic) weighed herself 3 times a day every day for 15+ years and recorded every single weight fluctuation on a (highly obnoxious) clipboard in the bathroom. Literally, she would record: 101.3 lbs (6am), 101.2 lbs (5pm), and 101.4 lbs (10pm). She's 5'8", by the way. So (obviously) I'm not all that enthused about scales to begin with because I've seen the damage they can do, too.