The way I see it is, when I'm in weight loss mode, I'm extremely conscious about what I'm putting in my mouth (the quality of food) and how much I'm eating (portion control). So if I'm doing the right things, there is no reason I should be gaining weight. I think at this point, we know what we should be doing to get the weight off and to be healthy.....to say that without the scale you'd have no clue is like saying I'm completely unaware of how my eating behaviors will affect my weight.
I think this is going to vary from person to person. While you have been wildly successful with your method, I think maintainers or people with only a little to lose have so little wiggle room in calories, weight creep may genuinely catch them by surprise. It also relates to the plan someone uses. A calorie counter can give up the scale more easily than an intuitive eater, I would imagine, at least until she has to tweak her calories as she struggles to get off the last few pounds.
But I love what an amazing example you are. You are proof that a person can be very successful without a scale!
The latest studies show that people who weigh themselves every day have a much better chance of losing and for those in maintenance not regaining if they weigh every day.
Of course it's a whole new mindset. As someone who weighed in once a week for years, I had to learn to read the weight fluctuations that happen on a daily basis not as failures, but as signals my body was giving me. Sometimes it's just water retention, etc. The body naturally fluctuates in weight every day.
May I recommend a blog I found that TOTALLY changed my mind about daily weigh-ins. It is the most intelligent essay on the importance of daily weighing than any study, etc. I've read. I guess weighing daily just keeps me more in tune with my body and keeps me super aware not to overeat if my weight has an upward trend.
The blog is called Beeminder Blog. If you google beeminder+Why Weigh (Daily)? you will find it.
I haven't completely ditch my scale since I weigh myself twice a month for tracking purposes, but ditching weighing myself every day has been one of the best things I have done. I'm more concerned with tracking inches lost, seeing rolls dissappear and how my clothes fit, well fall off of me. lol
I went for months and months without getting on a scale and it was liberating. In past weight loss attempts, I would get depressed and give up if I didn't lose as much as I hoped.
In September, I got curious about my progress - it had been two months since my one-year weigh in - and I was disappointed. Then I binged. I got back on track, but ended up weighing myself nearly every day. I started to become obsessed with the scale, and then I was in a two-week eating frenzy.
Bottom line: I'm back on track, eating better, and not touching the scale. It just causes me problems. I will weigh in at the year and a half mark in January or if I have to see a doctor, whichever comes first.
If the scale is causing you grief, then don't use it.
I only weigh myself when I've been doing good.. if I have a bad day or 3 bad days I stay away from the scale for about a week so I don't freak out about the gain.. usually it doesn't end up affecting my weight in the end, I'm usually really surprised and happy that I still lost a pound or two and it motivates me to keep trying. For a while I did the exact same thing and it wasn't working at all
I get up every morning and weigh myself. Under the same circumstances.
I write it down on the calendar above my scale.
I am a lifetime WW member.
I have also maintained my loss for a year now. I also track every single thing I put in my mouth and all my exercise.
I have found a sweet spot.
Between tracking and weighing in I've figured out what works for me.
Some days the scale may be up or down.
For me, the biggest thing is, I only count the end of the month, and if I'm on track at the end of the month, it's all good.
Tracking and weighing on a daily basis, but only counting/reviewing once a month, allows me to track trends in eating and exercise habits and look back at trends and see what works and what does not.
I think that the mindest is more important than the scale. If ditching the scale helps, ditch the scale.
For me it didn't help. Whether I weighed daily or monthly I had the same response to the scale. Gains and losses both gave me excuses (different excuses, but still excuses) to eat off plan. It wasn't my fault for binging, it was the scale.
I had to learn that the scale doesn't make me do or think anything. I choose HOW to use the scale. I can use it for motivation, or as an excuse to do whatever it is I really wanted to do anyway, or I can choose not to use it at all.
I had to change the way I used the scale. For me, that meant taking away my ability to reward and punish myself through the scale. For some people, ditching the scale might provide that freedom. For me, weighing multiple times daily at first (until I understood all the sources of weight fluctuation) and then weighing daily has provided that freedom.
I don't let the scale affect my self-worth or even my feelings of success. Even when I' very excited at a new low weight, I try to remind myself that my worth hasn't changed, and neither have my goals. If I let the scale tell me how to feel (which is just me choosing to feel whatever way that is) I'm doomed to be a slave to the scale.
Mastering the scale feels better than avoiding the scale ever did (and when I avoided the scale I just had more reason to eat whatever I wanted, because if I could convince myself that the number didn't matter, I also could convince myself that my weight didn't matter either).
I still believe the exact number doesn't matter. The scale doesn't tell me whether I've been "good or bad" because I don't use those words any more. My weight is just one measure of progress, and the scale is only a tool to help me gauge that. I have to use the tool in responsible way.
Do whatever you have to do, to use your tools responsibly.
I've decided that I'm going to weigh myself once a week just to make sure weight doesn't creep up on me. I've decided to increase my calories quite a bit, so I'll weigh myself to make sure I don't start gaining weight.
I still hop on the scale a lot... But now I don't let the number on it control what I'm going to do next...(if it was a "good" number than I could slack off, if it was a "bad" number well than I would just have to get really strict and do something that ultimately didn't work anyway...) Now I have a whole bag of tricks up my sleeve when it comes to weight loss strategies that have been working for me, so I just try to do my best to stick with it and stay on track...
So I haven't ditched the scale, but I think I have finally ditched my old negative attitudes and behaviors that the scale used to bring out in me...
For me, it varies. I go through spurts of weighing, everyday, and then other times when I'll only weigh a few times a month. When, and if, my scale's gonna register a drop, though, it seems to do it on Monday, only...so the *daily*
weighing I do, is kinda silly.
For me, it varies. I go through spurts of weighing, everyday, and then other times when I'll only weigh a few times a month. When, and if, my scale's gonna register a drop, though, it seems to do it on Monday, only...so the *daily*
weighing I do, is kinda silly.
Ha! This is almost me exactly. In maintenance I go through phases where I weigh every day and others where it's sporadic. I'm in a sporadic phase now.
I'm thinking of not paying too much attention to the scale lately, since I notice I'm on the higher end of my range (112.4 is the upper end) but my clothes are actually a little looser. That's weight training for ya!
I weigh once a week for the data and now and then hop on for a peek but have also taken vacations from it for specified periods.
For me, the information the scale gives me is just part of the whole picture that includes measurements (weekly) and other parameters, such as my eating and exercise behavior. But I have found that at times when I don't weigh regularly I kind of start lying to myself about my weight maintenance management and that is when I find myself eventually gaining real weight over time and not watching as I need to do for a lifetime.
But yea, by all means, a specified period of time away from the scale has helped me, too, although at the moment, I'm not up for that kind of challenge.
Very interesting thread, wishing everyone the best in their endeavors.
I find scales are a poor indication for anything other than drastic weight loss. When you take into account contents of the bowel, muscle weight and water weight, they do tend to make you feel fatter.
Go by the looseness of your clothing. I haven't stepped on a scale for months, I don't really enjoy it.
There are lots of tools we can use, how our clothes fit, how we feel, our blood work, are we getting health issues under control, are our clothes getting looser, do we feel better, is our tracking of our eating habits helping, is the exercise working.
All of those are tools, it just happens that the scale is the fastest and easiest.
Weighing, and tracking food and exercise, annual bloodwork and looking back at what I've done, and seeing patterns in my behavior has been so helpful. But, it's a long process.
However, keeping all of that information and using it as feed back, is what has helped me know what I need to do.
