Does the weighing scale demotivate anyone else?
 

I'd really like to learn about your weighing habits, in particular, how motivating or demotivating weighing yourself can be.

Before Christmas, I managed to successfully lose a fair bit of weight, and then I stopped paying attention to my diet completely, for about 3 months. I'd put on 8lbs, which wasn't at all bad considering I'd eaten all sorts of rubbish and not held back at all. A week ago, I decided to get back on track in an attempt to reach my goal, and I've lost 7lbs so far (clearly, given the extremely rapid loss here, the majority of this is going to be water weight!). I know now that my progress is going to be a fair bit slower and steadier, given that I am closer to a healthier weight now.

In the past, I've weighed myself daily, and I've found this has had advantages and disadvantages. Seeing a loss on the scale, particularly if it's happening every day or two, is hugely motivating. I feel fantastic, and it's almost addictive - I actually find it incredibly hard not to get on the scale each morning, expecting and hoping for a loss. But at the same time, when my weight hasn't moved for several days after being perfectly on plan, it's really demotivating. I know it's absurd to expect my body to react with a fat loss after a mere 72 hours of living healthily, but irrationally, I find it quite disheartening.

I'm not sure how frequently I should be weighing. When I'm on plan, I feel quite hooked with getting on the scales every day and facing up to my weight, whatever it is, and it can feel fantastic or rubbish, depending on what the numbers say. I know this is really silly, but I want to figure out something that might work for me for this last stretch of weight loss, and I don't want to find myself demotivated and discouraged.

I find other things quite motivating and indicative of weight loss, like how my clothes fit, or how my collarbones and jawline are more prominent. I wonder if anyone can think of any other things like this that I could use as a measure of success, instead of relying on a scale?

If any of you have any advice, or would like to share your experiences of when weighing yourself can be really motivating or demotivating, I'd love to hear about it.

Well, I weighed myself today, and the scale shows the exact same number as it did a week ago. That's just n o t okay. And my reaction to that is always so childish, like: "Oh well, I don't care! I wasn't even trying to lose weight anyway! Would someone who was trying to lose weight eat this much bread, or would they be able to have a lunch as big as the one I'm eating now? See? I am NOT trying to lose weight and I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU SAY, SCALE."

And now I've realised "Oh crap, I do want to lose weight... and I've already had 1000 calories today... off to the gym I go"

I'm ambivalent about daily weighing. Exactly like Ida, I get SO disheartened and childish if I don't see a good loss Every Day, which is clearly impossible. On the other hand, if I go a week at a time I have 2 outcomes:
either I'm really motivated all week - but then depressed and childish if the weigh-in's not good
or
I weigh on Sunday morning, binge on Sunday afternoon and spend the rest of the week recouping my calorie balance. or worse, being really sloppy until about Wednesday/Thursday then panic dieting til Sunday again.

This time I've finally opted for daily weighing and made my main mental aim to be accepting of what the reading is and trying to understand the science of my body.

I have been known to be borderline obsessive about weighing myself - but strangely, I don't let the number get me down. I just like knowing where I am what effect X (coming in from a work out, eating lunch, using the bathroom (ew, I know!), etc) have on my weight. It's some sort of "wow, that lunch must have weighed a pound and a half" morbid curiosity.

I figure if weighing myself constantly isn't a demotivator, and isn't depressing, it's probably "okay" (though strange).

I weigh every day. I just have the mindset that I am not going to lose every day, lol. I have had a couple days this week where the scale hasn't moved... but that's okay. It HASN'T MOVED which means it hasn't gone up. And, even if it DID go up, I know now that if I stay on plan, and keep up with my exercise, I can't just GAIN FAT over night. I would know that it's water weight, either from eating too much sodium or from not getting in my daily water intake, or I worked out too hard and my muscles are retaining water. I feel that at this point, I know that my goal isn't WEIGHT LOSS... it's FAT LOSS. Weight is just some arbitrary number that we use for it's convenience... but in the end, it only tells a small part of the story. If I happened to do a lot of weight training one week, and I didn't lose a pound, it could be that I still lost fat and just gained muscle mass... shouldn't THAT be celebrated? Who cares if the scale didn't move downward... I LOST FAT. I understand that my goal weight is just some silly number, because I will go into maintenance not based on when the scale hits 125, but based on how my body looks and feels.

If you want a better way to measure success, you should consider taking measurements of your body... your waist, hips, bust, thighs and arms. Lost inches is a better way to tell progress. I just don't do it because I am lazy... but if not having a loss on the scale is that disheartening to you, you should consider it. You could also go to the doctor every month or 2 and have your body fat % monitored. THAT is truly the BEST way to monitor your progress... but obviously, that can be a little inconvenient and possibly expensive.

Either way, you are doing a great job! The journey isn't easy... it's full of ups and downs, highs and lows, triumphs and disappointments. The important thing is that you stick with it and are consistent. Good luck!

LittleMoonRabbit, that was very insightful and inspiring to just keep going (: Thank you.

I weigh every day. I generally lose weight slowly (say .5 lbs/week average). I'm used to that, but I still get discouraged when I fluctuate up; a couple of pounds up one day seems to erase weeks of OP behavior. But I know those fluctuations are temporary and *on average* I am making progress.

Weighing weekly instead of daily doesn't work well for me, because I am more likely to anticipate a drop and get more frustrated if I happen to fluctuate up. Whereas if I fluctuate up in a single day I *know* that the weight gain isn't real.

I weigh myself daily, and this morning I was up 2 pounds. :( I know I didn't gain 2 pounds of fat overnight - it's only water and it will come off in a day or two. But if this had been a weekly weigh-in, that temporary "gain" would have hidden the 2 pounds I really have lost in the last week, and left me thinking I hadn't lost anything. That would have really demotivated me!

I weigh pretty much every day. It has really helped me to see how salty foods, dehydration, and heavy lifting influence what the scale says. It is just a tool, not a judgement. If it drives you nuts, don't do it, but daily weighing has broken it's mystery for me. I look at the overall trend as what is the more important thing the scale can tell me. Plus, one of the habits of successful maintainers is regular monitoring of weight. Ignoring the scale bought me 50 pounds. Using it as a tool has helped me lose it and keep it off.

I kind of hit a middle ground--Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday to see what (if anything) the weekend has done to me. Wednesday to stay on track and Friday to see what the WW scale will say ('cause I don't like surprises).

I'm doing the daily weigh-in - I jump on first thing in the morning. I'm plotting it on an Excel graph, which makes it much easier to see the gradual downward trend. I do statistics and process control for a living, so I see the daily ups and downs as just "normal variation" - it doesn't cause me any issue. My scale only goes to 1/2 pounds, so I can't get worked up about a few days in the same place. It's also really obvious on the graph where the TOM falls ... and it doesn't actually affect the average at all.

I weigh myself every morning. I am fascinated about how my body works and the scale has helped me look into further why I might fluctuate in weight every day. It has helped lead me into adjusting my eating habits to where it is now.

Before I used to just berate myself after I stepped on the scale. It was horrible what I was doing. I think if you don't punish yourself for the number on the scale then you'd be able to use it a little more objectively :)

Maybe try taking measurements of your body and compare those it would be a bit more beneficial for your motivation.

Ida- I am glad I gave you encouragement :) You are doing awesome, just keep at it!

I weigh myself every day, but it can definitely be rough--especially right now, since my body is still adjusting to a new birth control prescription and I'm getting TOM symptoms randomly throughout the month. (It's so fun being female!) I also use Excel to graph my weight so I can see that even the spikes in weight that depress me are spiking up to a lower number than where I used to be...As long as the general trend is downwards, I try to keep my chin up!

Thank goodness it hasn't demotivated me yet. My scale's been stuck since Valentine's Day although I have remained 100% on plan every day without fail. I even went and bought a fancy new scale just to make sure ~ and it's weighing me 5 lbs higher than the old cheap one, but that's OK.

I haven't lost any pounds in 2 months, but I've lost almost 2 sizes. Some of that is attributable to the fact that I joined a gym 2 1/2 weeks ago...but I think the majority of it is, my body just needed to catch up. I lost right at 100 lbs in six months and I think my body needed to take a break from losing so fast.

But hey as long as I keep getting smaller, I will cut the scale some slack.

I weigh everyday because I like to see the daily fluctuations that my body has and because I do it all the time, I know what will affect me and when. I can even more accurately time my always irregular TOM by knowing what it does to my body (I always see a 3 lb loss the day before). I know that the pizza I eat today will show up in 2 days as a gain, but if I stay on plan, it will come off easily enough. This is not a short term "diet" but a lifestyle. I need to know how to deal with the occassional slip and to not let it completely derail me. But on the other hand, I have been super swamped over the last 2 weeks and staying at a friends house so have not had access to my scale. I've still been making time to go to the gym, but have not been as structured as I would like in my food choices. Got on the scale for the first time today and found that I had lost another 4 pounds. That large drop was definitely a motivator that I may not have gotten if I saw it in half pound increments!

I weigh every day. It helps me to be aware of my body's fluctuations and ups & downs. When I see a low weight one day & a higher one the next, I know it's not *real* weight, so I don't let it upset me - but I DO look to see what might have caused the bloating. So now I know how my body reacts to certain foods; I also know how long water weight normally takes to go away.

The scale is incredibly motivating for me. An increase is a motivator to get back on track, fix the problem, etc. A decrease is motivating b/c it's a sign of success.

The scale is a tool, it doesn't have any power that we don't give it.

I think the first step to using the scale appropriately, is realizing that. Understanding that motivation or demotivation doesn't come from anything in the outside world. It's all inside our heads. The issue isn't how often we use the tool, but how we choose to use the tool and what we decide it means.

If you use the tool to tell yourself who you are, or to punish yourself for not measuring up to your expectiations, you're using the tool in a nonproductive way.

Weighing daily (and even weighing several times a day such as before and after eating or drinking or before and after going to the bathroom) to understand how and why weight fluctuates normally, really helped me understand what the scale could tell me, and what it couldn't.

It doesn't matter how often you use the scale, it matters what you're telling yourself when you do. If you can use it as a tool without tying your value or your emotions to the numbers you see, it doesn't matter how often you step on the scale. Use it to your advantage, whatever that is. For me, it's usually daily, but sometimes intermittently more than once a day.

For example, right now I'm retaining water from a low-calorie, but high sodium meal. My ring is so tight that I know the scale isn't accurate (when my ring is tight, I know it's water retention, because I don't gain or lose much weight in my fingers when it's fat and not water). So, I suspect what the scale can't tell me, that I haven't gained two pounds of fat, but rather am retaining several pounds of water (which means, it's likely obscuring a loss of fat). I'm looking forward to seeing the weight loss, but the temporary water gain isn't discouraging me (because I'm not letting it).

It is so common, it's almost unheard of to think otherwise, but water weight gain isn't something that you have to find demotivating, discouraging, or even disappointing - it just is. I'm not worried about temporary fluctuations. I'm not needing to avoid my favorite low calorie, high sodium foods (I don't have many, so it would be a shame to avoid the few I enjoy, especially since I am one of the lucky, freakish few who tend towards low blood sodium levels).

This is a good question. I personally have not weighed in for many months. I am going by how I feel right now, because if I weighed myself I'd freak out. The weight i put down is an estimate but want to feel and look better before I take the plunge. How your clothes fit and also how you feel is more important. If you are eating healthy, working out and feel energetic and thinner, then the scale is not so important. If you need to self monitor and are comfortable with the scale than that is a different story, but I find I get discouraged and anxious by it. Little moon rabbit made a good suggestion- if you are looking for tangible results, measuring or body fat testing are a much better indication and will probably be a larger encouragement as well.

I weigh every day. Yes on the days where it stays the same I can get a bit irritated. I have to do a mental reality check and tell myself that YES this is working and YES the scale WILL go down if I stay on plan. That helps ;)

I find that weighing every day keeps me very accountable. I need that accountability.

I weigh daily as well. I also look at the scale as a tool, a tool I use to monitor my weight, just as a diabetic uses tools to monitor their blood sugar levels. It keeps me accountable as well, as I think twice about what I put in my mouth if I know I have to account for it the next morning rather than next week (then I'm likely to say, "I have three days to burn it off", which I usually don't).

Seeing a loss on the scale motivates me to keep up what I'm doing. Seeing a gain motivates me to look at what I've been eating lately and what exercise I've been doing to figure out what can be improved upon. I also measure success in other ways, such as feeling my newly-discovered collarbones!

For me, the scale is a major sabotaur ... if I gain or don't lose, I get discouraged and think "what's the point anyway?". If I lose and am happy about the loss, I feel like I can ease up and I start slipping again. Whether the result is positive or negative on the scale, I seem to walk away working less hard for my goal. I find that for me, going by how my clothes feels is much more motivating and enduring.

Also, when I weight myself each day, I give the scale the power to set my mood for that day. Since chances are that on MOST days there won't be a loss, I'm setting myself up to be in a bad mood on most days.

I'm now trying to wait at least 2 weeks between weigh-ins because that's more likely to give me a positive result.

Sorry for my late response - I've had a busy few days! Thank you all so much for your considered replies to the thread. Reading about your insights has been really helpful.

I think I'm going to stick with the daily weighing, and try to train myself mentally to not be discouraged by a small gain or no loss. For me, I think not weighing daily might cause me more problems - like several of you have mentioned, I like the accountability that daily weighing gives me, and I've had problems in the past when I've ignored the scales for too long. And if I was weighing, say, weekly, and my weigh day happened to be on a day where I was retaining water and perhaps had gone up on the scales, I'd feel really discouraged, and wouldn't necessarily realise that it was just a one-day spike on the scales.

Following some advice in this thread, I've also decided to take measurements of my body to keep on track with my progress. I think I'll compare every 2-4 weeks or so, and any differences there will be really encouraging too. It's great to feel like my clothes are looser, and it would be nice to know that the really are, too.

ida: I have the same reaction! I've been eating great for a couple of weeks, and yet the scale has been firmly stuck for 4-5 days, even though I've been eating at a calorie deficit of around 500 calories a day, and making sensible choices with food. I know it is working, and it's silly to expect such quick responses when it comes to losing body fat, but part of me is really impatient!

Ailidh: I think what you've decided to do, re: daily weighing, is what I'm going to do too. For me, I think there are lots of advantages to weighing every day, and I think what needs to change is my attitude to the numbers on the scale, rather than just ignoring the numbers altogether.

LittleMoonRabbit: Thank you for your words, they are really encouraging! Since reading comments in this thread, I've decided to take measurements of my body. It took a while (which is why I've not bothered in the past!), but I figure it's not something I'll do regularly. Question: do you know how doctors measure your body fat? Cost isn't really a problem, as I'm in the UK and these sort of things are covered free on the NHS. If it's something that is quite easy for them to do, I'd definitely consider it!

yoyoma and lovelosing: what you've both said (a temporary spike in weight occurring on a weekly weighing day and masking genuine weight loss effects) is the exact reason I don't think I'll choose to weigh weekly! On the scales, I was a pound heavier yesterday, and I know it's not a genuine gain at all (and it's gone this morning), but if that had been on my only weigh-day of the week, it would have been quite disheartening.

midwife: I completely agree about the scales keeping me "on track". The only times in my life when I've not been keen to get on the scales regularly is when I know I've been putting on weight and not wanting to face it. I think making regular weighing a habit will keep me more aware of my health in the long run.

ICUwishing and bronte155: definitely think I'm going to be making an Excel weight chart, thanks for the idea! I have been monitoring weight on FitDay, but I think I can make something more accurate in Excel and I'd like to use it to see long-term fluctuations over time!

kaplods: thank you for your comments, I think you are absolutely correct. I think I'm going to attempt to make that mental adjustment to my interpretation of the weight on the scales, rather than discarding the tool altogether. Like you have mentioned, I think looking at fluctuations will make me realise what certain foods do in terms of bloating/water retention. I like the idea of being really clued up in that respect.

Thanks again for all of your comments!

I weigh everyday, it gives me a good idea of how I'm doing. For the past week and a half, the only movement was one day that I gained 3lbs :mad:. In the past, that would have caused me to get discouraged...which often leads to a 6 month food binge :o This time, it hasn't discouraged me, but it has been extremely frustrating, but it has also made me take a closer look at what I'm eating and my exercise. I don't think I was eating enough calories per day and I think too many of my calories were coming from fat. I worked this week on adding in more protein and non-starchy carbs. Today, I got on the scale and :carrot:I have lost 3lbs:carrot:.

I've tried not weighing every day and I can't do it. So, I weigh every day. Sometimes, yeah, it's a little frustrating - like today, I weighed the same as yesterday when I really wanted to pop down a little more. But at least I know that I didn't re-gain and I can tell myself that sure, maybe I'm not losing right now, but I'm certainly not going to gain anything back!

I weigh every day but my official weigh-in day (the day I record it in my Excel spreadsheet) is Friday. I have been all over the place this week, fluctuating by over 3 pounds. It's been a crazy week, though, filled with activity from my adult kids, lots of lunches out at work, and just general disorganization. So the pound that I appear to be up today doesn't bother me so much; yes, I ate badly (including tons of sodium) but I'm confident the scale will start moving downwards.

When I don't want to weigh, that means I truly know that I am in a bad place and I KNOW I've gained so I don't want to face it. A few months ago, I told my doctor that I weighed the same as last year. When I finally got on the scales, I was 23 pounds heavier than last year. I knew it was a little, but I had no idea.

So I need to keep getting on the scales. Even when they don't move as fast as I would like. For me, staying off means I know I'm gaining.

Tinycities-

I think they can measure bodyfat % 2 ways (someone please correct me if I am wrong)

You can either sit in a pool of water, and somehow they calculate the fat density (I don't really know how it works, but I know it involves a pool of somekind)

Or they use these calipers and go around your body, lightly pinching the skin in different places to measure how much fat you have around your body.

I have never had it done, but I know that a lot of doctor's offices or health facilities can do it for you.

Good luck hun! Keep up the awesome work!!!

I weigh myself every time I go in the bathroom and anytime I'm somewhere that there is a scale! I can "gain" as much as 4 pounds in a day and have as much as 8 pounds in a week. Some people just fluctuate a LOT. When it's my TOM I can retain a lot of water and go up 10 pounds! It's to where I know how much my outfits weigh if I happen to step on with clothes. The weight I "count" is naked, first thing in the morning. If that weight goes up, I work harder- even if it's likely only water or what not. Keeps me going!