Sorry, but once you really get into exercising, the scale means nothing. I am much stronger and leaner now 10lbs heavier.

Check this out... this woman weights 10lbs more than before. People are too fixated on numbers.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=117376171

i agree to a point with you. sacha...the scale doesn't mean alot to a person that has a 20% BMI at 160 lbs.

muscle is more dense than fat...so if you put on more muscle--you can weigh the same or more than a person who is obese. The same weight fat takes up more space as the same weight of muscle.

LOL, all good points, but I'm still laughing that it's only natural that poor spelling leads to persistent weight loss myths and shameless business practices.

I agree with you as well. It just hurts me to see so many women upset over their scale # for the day and get upset over it. It's important to moniter progress, but the focus on numbers takes away from a healthy outlook.

I wake up at 121lbs, I take a pee and I'm at 119-121lbs, I go out for sushi and a few drinks I'm at 126lbs, then I get up in the morning and back down to 121lbs. It happens. I don't stress about it - but I've been at my maintenance for 4 years now. Many women here get so upset, some cry, and some even give up their journey. I really wish they would chuck out that scale and realize that they are sabatoging themselves.

If people can do it, then great, more power to them. I'm not so sure many people can really do that.

I'm not sure whether you mean most people can't chuck out the scale, or most people can't take daily weighing without getting upset?

I think for some people daily weighing is a tool for successful maintenance. I know if I HAD a scale when I began to let myself go out of grief of a dissolved relationship--it would have been a reality check. And i would have corrected more sooner.

Yes, you definitely have to understand the physiology of why certain foods cause the scale to go up, how using the bathroom makes it go down. How after exercise it will go up--not down due to influx of water to muscle tissue--i don't think that would be a problem for someone who has taken the initiative to get to their goal weight and wishes to maintain with the aid of th e scale. It is a good idea to set a range of 5 lbs. If you see yourself getting past 5 lbs from goal--it's time to adjust something.

True, I think you really have a good attitude for this, I'm sure you will find luck with your goals!

Julie~ I'd say see the scale without getting upset. Even I have trouble seeing the weight gain which is from building muscle. Sounds crazy. I suppose it is the programming ingrained in our brains that gaining is "bad".

Myth # 6-there is one way to lose weight.

This whole article was obnoxious and uninformed.
I can site examples to support and denounce each of his 'myths'
Basically, who cares what this misc dude says. When are we going to stop looking for answers outside of what our own body is telling us.
We have access to our bodies 24/7-listen to it, not the latest joe shmoe touting "blah blah blah is the way to successful weightloss and everything else is wrong".

The author has a Bachelor of Science degree in ASTRONOMY!!!
:rofl:
Maybe his logic is valid on Mars...or Jupiter...HEY, you weigh LESS on Mercury, so if we all weigh in THERE we'll all be at our "ideal weights"...

Kira

ps - it's pronouced spa-CHEH-man, not spaceman...(30 Rock)

I know that regarding the scale for me that I'm an out of sight out of mind (or rather ignore the truth) type of person. To keep on top of my weight I have to weigh rather regularly.

Personally I don't believe in good or bad foods. Foods don't have behavior or moral values, it has no concepts of ethics or beliefs. It's just that. It's food. It's made to be eaten, digested and broken down, and then either stored as fat or pooped out. So to say that a food is bad or good is silly.

I think you can truely eat anything you want, even fast food, but with all things, moderation must be keyed. Sure, you can go to Taco Bell for lunch, eat your heart out. But understand what the high contents of calories, fats and sugars are doing on a biological level to your body. You didn't use the energy from that extra taco? Guess what, it's going to be stored as fat. You went out and ran 6 miles after eating it? Good, it's probably all gone now. But there are no moral objections tied to food. You feel guilty after eating that Taco Bell lunch because you know it's taken away from your hard work, you know you're going to have to spend five extra minutes walking. The food is not giving you a guilt trip, you are.

Thanks for posting that sacha, I totally agree. Personally, I find that the closer I get to my goal body, the less the scale actually matters. While it may have been a useful tool when I had a lot to lose, the numbers don't mean very much anymore. They don't tell me about my fitness or body composition.

You can be 125 pounds and be fat, or 125 pounds and be lean, but the scale won't know the difference.

I agree with this. Detoxing can be good for the liver as well as the rest of the body. It doesn't have to be a "sham". You don't need anything special at all to detox.

I agree with the main points of the article, but I think that some of the logic and examples were poor.

1 - All Calories Are Not Created Equal

Are we talking for health, or for weight loss? The article makes it clear that the author is talking about health. If only weight loss matters to you, you can try and may even lose weight on an all snicker bar diet. I can bet you're not going to feel great for long on such a diet.

Even in terms of weight loss, I can think of at least one undisputed example in which a calorie is not a calorie. Dietary fiber has calories (because anything that can burn does). Like other carbohydrates, it has 4 calories per gram, but humans can't digest it, so you can eat all the hay your stomach can hold, and you're still going to starve to death.

Lower GI/GL eating does keep my hunger under control better than calorie counting of high GI foods, and processed carbs tend to trigger some health problems for me. It's another way in which calories aren't the whole picture for some people, either weight or health wise.

2 - Detox Diets are a Sham - Period

There's no way to convince anyone who has spent money on these programs that they were a waste of money, especially since they often notice feeling much better after or during these detoxes (though there's a physiological reason for this, aside from the psychological benefit of placebo - and that's the endorphins that are released by the mild trauma detoxes and colonics trigger).

I agree that some cleanses might have some benefit if a person is eating an unhealthy diet (see myth #1 and #3). However, if you take the advice in #1 and #3 to heart, and are eating foods that are moving you closer to health, not away from it, then you have no need of "cleansing."

3 - Are You Kidding? There Are Lots of Bad Foods!

I think this is a matter of interpretation. I agree that linking food to morality is generally misguided and counterproductive, but I agree with the author's point that "anything you eat is either moving you closer to health or farther away from it."

4 - It's What You Put IN You That Matters; Not What You Put ON You

There's no empirical support for any topical weight loss product, but like #2, people who've spent money on these products, aren't likely to admit to others or themselves that they were ripped off. Some products do seem to have a minor effect on the appearance of the skin (such as some of the cellulite creams), but the effect is very small and is not acheiving any weight loss, just a minor cosmetic change that will disappear when the product is no longer being used.

5 - At Some Point, Weight Must Become Almost Meaningless

I agree with this, but I feel the author gives one good example (the formerly 300 lb woman who could not appreciate her success because her weight loss was stalling at 160 lbs), and also one bad example, "If you need daily weigh-ins for life, you're stuck in 1st grade of health school."

Maybe it's just a matter of phrasing. I do not know that I will "need" daily weigh-ins at my goal weight, but I probalby will continue to use daily weigh-ins as a tool.

As for weight becoming almost meaningless, I tend to agree, because I believe it's the only reason I'm succeeding now. All other weight loss attempts I made, were strictly "by the scale." Weight loss was the only important goal, I could not have cared less about my health. "The means justify the ends," I thought. This time around, the weight loss is not the goal, it's not even the reward, it's more a lucky byproduct.

I don't think that "health" should ever be separated from weight loss. Weight loss by any means, isn't always healthy, and weight lost by unhealthy habits has a tendency to return.


Most of the points made are good (though not perfect), but the author doesn't use the best examples.

I'm pretty certain that if I didn't constantly monitor my weight, I would be end up at my old weight for sure. Yeah, it's just a number. But if the number is ever increasing (as it has been for me for the past few months) it's a clue that it's time to do something different. I agree that it's certainly possible to get over obessed with the number on the scale, but I feel that simply ignoring it and "living life" is no recipe for long term success.

I also have issues with the author's "food is either good or bad!" assertation. There are shades of grey. Eating fried chicken once every three months isn't going to irrepairly harm anyone's health. A healthy general lifestyle will simply not be undone by eating one slice of pie. Eating several could be a problem of course, but if you keep tabs on your general weight you can better judge if it is becoming a problem or not.