I've decided that the scale has too much power over me. I am not going to get on the scale for a month or 2. I am just going to focus on exercise and following my plan.

Looking for feedback from people who weigh on an infrequent basis as well.

im not doing that at the moment, but i think it's a great thing to do if needed. you could focus on improving endurance, strength, those fitness goals rather than a number going up or down.

I hate looking at the scale. I don't want it to rule my weight loss. Yes, I want to be slimmer and fitter, but thats something I can see not measure. However, I measure my weight once a week, purely so I know that I'm heading in the right direction.

I think yours is a great idea. Once you know that your diet and exercise regime work for you theres no reason why you should be hopping on every morning, noon and night.

I've been using the scale daily just for tracking purposes, to see how much my weight fluctuates day to day, to see how much my weight fluctuates within a day, but I'm curious to see what would happen if I didn't weigh for an extended period of time.

Maybe one of these days I'll work up the courage to forgo the scale. Until then, it rules my life.

Funny you mention this... I've decided to weigh in weekly instead of daily. I don't think I could deal with a month or two right now. Baby steps. I used to think daily kept me accountable, but I think it was making me fret too much. Or giving me permission to binge. Or something.

I think it's a good idea. It is what works for me, for now. I waited three months and when I did get curious and weigh myself I was down 40 lbs.
Maybe when I am closer to goal or start "struggling" I will reference it more often, but for now, I don't want to play the "numbers game".

I've done it both ways, and, for me, it's not the best idea.

Reason being is that when I go long periods of not being on the scale, I mentally go one of two ways.

(1) I tend to let my eating habits get more lax, and allow bad habits to stall weight loss, and usually gain. I do under stand that part of that is that b/c of the weight I'm at the line between maintenance and gaining is very narrow.

(2) If the reverse happens and I'm super strict, and do very well with my diet and exercise, then I mentally overestimate how much weight I will have lost and, even if the scale number is down, I'm typically disappointed. One time I did the 2 months thing, and worked my butt off, then when I got on the scale it was down like 2.5 lbs. I was mad as a hornet. LOL

Like I said, for me, it's probably because the scale isn't really going to change fast, unless it's going in the wrong direction. Two months of hard work can be minimized greatly if I randomly decide to step on the scale on a day when I'm holding a couple of pounds more water weight.

For a lot of people that is just the thing they need though, so because it's just a personal decision, it's one of those things you just have to try out and see how it works for you.

I'm with katy. If I'm not weighing in I tend to get sloppy. Recently, though, I tried not weighing for a few weeks and was super-strict, and was only down .2 lbs. I cried.

I weigh in daily and I do often get annoyed, but I record my weight weekly, so over time I am seeing a SLOW decrease.

There are many people on here who've gone without weighing and it's worked great for them. You know yourself best.

I did this last month and it has made a huge difference in how much I obsess over the scale. I used to weigh every Friday, and I would constantly think about my weighin the rest of the week. I decided when I got back on plan March 1st that I was going to stay off the scale for the whole month. The first few days I thought about the scale some, but gradually I just stopped thinking about it. I concentrated on eating right and getting my exercise in. I'm not on a diet, this is a new way of life and I don't want part of this life to be constantly caring what the scale says.

Since yesterday was April 1st I finally got on the scale. I got to see a difference of 14.4lbs. =) It felt good to see a big number all at once. I have no clue how the loss was broken up every week, if it was even or not. I didn't have to see any low numbers like in the past when I'd weighin weekly. I didn't have to deal with feeling discouraged at all because I didn't give myself the chance to. It was really worth it. I don't think about the scale nearly as much as I used to. I decided for the next several months I'm going to weigh on the 1st and 15th only.

I hope it helps you staying off the scale as well. =)

I'm with you on this..weighing in on a monthly basis is a stunning goal. Its about being patient. and I know you will do good. I am starting to weigh in
1st of the month. YOU can do it!! Good luck!!

weighing in daily stressed me out too much. and the numbers were never consistent so it made me emotionally high and low.. now i weigh in either weekly or bi-weekly. i felt that is has calmed me down a bit!!

but i do admit, sometimes i get curious and you just wanna know!

i am doing the same thing and so far it is working very well for me. i've done this before, i one time went from a size 16 to an 8 without weighing myself at all, people asked how much weight i had lost and i would say "i have no idea, i don't weigh myself". this latest time the first month i prob weighed myself 1,000 times and i would get so depressed and obsessed with the number.


i[m sticking to the plan and going to go based on my clothes...'m not weighing myself until school is out at the end of june! good luck. you can do this. i stuck my scale under my bed so i don't have to see it, before i had it out and would step on it at least 10 times a day

I am convinced that weighing monthly for the first 7 months or so was a huge help to me at the time when I was really trying to get my new way of eating ingrained. I didn't eat this or not eat that because of what the scale would be telling me tomorrow, I ate this and not ate that because I was striving for a healthy diet with lots of nutrients and an appropriate amount of calories. I knew TMI from the scale was going to make me , and honestly I was more concerned that I was going to overrestrict for as long as possible, lose control, have one binge, and it would be over. I've done that enough times.

Now I weigh weekly, because I want to develop a less emotionally charged relationship with the scale. At first when I saw a week with no loss, my mind would go back to "what unsustainable methods can I turn to to get this thing moving again?" But luckily I had enough months under my belt to know that if I just kept at it, the scale would go down in its time. Yeah, that less-frequent weighing at first really helped me.

Thank you so much everyone! I think I will weigh monthly.

I started not weighing myself in Sept. of last year because I could not for the life of me get under 209. So I focused on my exercise and diet more and more. When I weighed myself about a month & 1/2 ago I was 180.
For me the scale has way too much control and the fluctuations, even though explainable. Wreck havoc on my brain and reasoning.

Good luck! It is fun to try new things on a trail basis to see what works and doesn't. Sometimes it will be those victories that impress me the most!