Hola Ladies (and Gents)!
Quick question for you all out there.....I am becoming terribly discouraged with my dieting efforts within the last couple of days. Let me start by saying that I am doing a low calorie and low fat diet. Basically I just really need to change my eating habits and form a healthier lifestyle. I have just returned back to work following my maternity leave, I am a nurse at a long term care/rehab facility. I have been on my diet for about (give or take) a month. I have done really well with only 2 cheats in the whole month and my cheat was crispy chicken instead of grilled chicken on my salad. (Not my idea of a good cheat. I'm thinking like nachos or something!) I am using fitday.com as an aide to my food diary and have completely given up soda and am ONLY drinking water and/or flavored water. Ok, now the nitty gritty. I know I have lost weight. I feel it, I can see it, I have gone down a pant size. But my problem is I cant find a scale that I can rely on.
Heres the low down....Nov. 1st I weighed 232 at the Doctors office. Which is fantastic for me because I weighed 264 after giving birth to my daughter. The first of December I decided that for the first time, I was going out to buy a scale. Wasnt I shocked to see a weight of 265 on that scale! I cried, carried on and ate a bowl of mashed potatoes . I finally decided that, its just a number, and if thats my weight I need to move on, get motivated and get rid of it!
December 12th I had to have a physical done for work (at a different dr. office then before) and the scale there said 244! I am completely at a loss here. I weighed myself this morning on my scale again and it says 240. What the **** am I supposed to do here? How am I to accurately record my weights and be confident with what the scale says. I am the type of person that needs to see results with not just myself but with the scale.
Does anyone suggest a good quality scale that they are having accurate results with? I know your not supposed to weigh yourself on more then one scale, but my weights shouldnt all be that far off. Please help me, I dont want to give up and I am a nanosecond away from it. This is so discouraging.
ANY scale will work. Use the same scale, EVERY SINGLE TIME, and weigh under the same conditions. Weigh in the same clothes (or lack therof!) at the same time of day, before eating/drinking (or after, just BE CONSISTENT about it!). Scales tell you change in you rweight. If you weigh on the same scale/same conditions and your weight says, say, 500 pounds (using random numbers!) then a month later same scale/same conditions it says 485, you've lost 15 pounds. Period. The CHANGE in the number is what you care about.
Keep going! Noticing a change in your clothes is great feedback! Congratulations, and keep it up! The specific number really, really doesn't matter.
I second mousie's post--pick a scale and stick with it! I bet your doctor's appointments were at different times during the day not to mention on 2 different scales. I can weigh 6 pounds more at night than I did in the morning--welcome to the wonderful fluctuations of the human body Pick one scale, one time of day, and keep in mind things like water weight (due to muscle exertion, hormones, TOM, sodium, etc.). You're doing fabulously if you've already lost a pant size (I'm down more than 40 pounds and still haven't lost a pant size!), so keep up the good work!
First off, you've lost a whole pants size!! That's excellent!! In my opinion, that's the kind of measurement that means the most.
As for the scale, I agree 100% that you need to pick one and stick with it. EVEN if that scale is off/different than others you've tried, it will still show you your total loss of pounds. You could start fresh tomorrow and consider your weight on the scale in the morning to be your new starting weight, and then gauge your weight loss based on that number.
I -- like an idiot -- broke my own "one scale only" rule yesterday. Again. On the stupid DOG scale at work, which consistently tells me I'm 10 lbs heavier than my scale at home says. Of course, in the case of that scale it's calibrated to have something lying on it, not standing. But the point is, I KNOW I didn't gain 10 lbs in the space of 3 hours, so I grumbled, laughed, and swore I'd never use the stupid thing again.
Thanks so much for the support guys....its just so discouraging sometimes. I am finding this site SO helpful as my hubby wants nothing to do with weightloss.
What kind of scale do you have? Mine is a cheapy and I wonder if I find a digital scale if I might feel more comfortable with what it reads? I have been looking at them and there are so many! I am considering a WW scale as they put out ounces not just pounds. Dieting is hard work, I want to see accurate results. On my scale, if I lean left it reads one thing, if I lean right it reads another and if I lean forward to read it I gain a few pounds. lol. Its pretty ghetto. Gotta love it.
Congrats on your weight loss Jill!! Big pat on the back to you!
I picked up a nice looking 400# capacity Tanita scale at Bed Bath & Beyond for $60, but once I got my weight under 330# I have been favoring a $12 scale I bought at Walmart because it is more consistent, even though my 13EEE feet hang off of it. The big glass Tanita scale is very sensitive to body position and the surface it is placed on.
The worst mistake I made was buying an ice cream maker BEFORE I bought that scale.
Huh. My scale is a digital "Thinner" scale, model MS-4. How technical and unfriendly. Anyway, it only measures down to the half-pound BUT it's unfailingly consistent. Stand on it with one foot, stand on it with toes off, scoot it around on the floor...it always tells the same weight.
I would test them out in the store. Wait til no one is around and then hop on. Move it, hop on again. Stand on one foot, see what number it gives you. You just want something consistent.
Actually, I purposely bought a scale that doesn't show ounces. I decided I didn't want to get all wrapped up in the occasional .1 gain, etc.
Again, I know that won't work for everybody, but it helps me be less obsessive about the numbers. I have a $24 digital one I bought at CVS. Not the best, but I'm more interested in seeing what I've lost than what my actual weight is.
My scale isn't even digital, much less weighing in ounces or half-pounds. But I will keep it forever because I know it doesn't have to rely on batteries or anything to be accurate. I actually weigh myself on two scales . My bathroom scale and the doctor's type scale at my gym. The scale at the gym can be adjusted to quarter-pounds.
I would be insane if I could weigh myself to the ounce! I would be on and off the scale like 100 times a day!
I don't own a scale. My life was controlled by the scale as a kid and teenager and now I hate the dang things. I use the ones at the gym (which I suspect are unreliable - too heavy) but I don't care, as long as I have something to measure myself with! One of my new years resolutions is to way myself on the scales at the chemist (drugstore) that does a print out so I can keep it each month.
I have a cheapo non-digital scale too -- no 1/2 pounds for me either. It seems to be consistent, and so that's what I use. I think it weighs me a little on the low end, but again, it's consistent, so I use it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertW
The worst mistake I made was buying an ice cream maker BEFORE I bought that scale.
Hi
I really don't think any scale is accurate( even doctors or gyms), you can get so many readings from so many different ones, i agree on using only 1 scale, but don't get caught up in the NUMBER! just the number you lose on it!
I have a digital, but find it ... annoying.. different surfaces.. if you do not stand on it straight.... I like the older spring ones, they may not be as accurate, but then you don't stress as much over the number.
Also weighing at the same time in the day, and make sure you follow the same pattern each time you weight! (i usually wake up and go to the toilet, then weigh).
as someone said, weigh yourself, and then next week weigh yourself again, it is how much you lose that shows you are making a difference!!
And although i am a scale addict , i must say try not to hop on every day! it can drive you batty, at the moment i weigh every morning i think to make sure all my weight hasn't suddenly come back on overnight! i know it sounds stupid! but i don't get caught up in the number, if it is within 2-3 pounds of what i am supposed to be, i then sigh and think... nope still "normal" not fat. Sometimes i have stupid dreams in which i am gorging my face for some reason, and i do wake up and think.... did i do that! why? and i know it used to be me to do it, but now i think i am over the binging! and then i feel my stomach and think "thank god! i was only dreaming", anyone else have this... Maybe i am just... really really weird!!!!!!!!! LOL
Sonja
I weigh on the same scale all the time, at my health club. I weigh every time I go there. I'm not looking for ounces, I'm looking for trends. (The official weigh-in there is only once a month, and even though my weight loss changes from week to week, the trend is down.)
Keeping a weight diary or chart can be helpful for showing the trends. But avoid the trap of doing something like eating crispy chicken and then getting on the scale to see what the "damage" was. That's going the wrong direction!
Stick with one scale. I work for a group of doctors and I go to 2 different offices each week. Both scales weigh me heavier than the one at home, but both are different from each other too.
I reccomend a weigh in once a week, but if you are looking to see a trend (especially as ladies with "that time of the month" water weight) weighing everyday (and writing it down) can be helpful. Just remember not to obsess over it. I have had the scale tell me I have gained 5lbs in a day then the next day I lost 4lbs of it! Our bodies are very sensitive to what we eat, wether we exercised and HORMONES!!! Good luck and congrats on the pant size(that's the important part anyway!!)
Question for all you weight loss pros out there!
. I finally decided that, its just a number, and if thats my weight I need to move on, get motivated and get rid of it!
In my opinion, that's the kind of measurement that means the most.
and then hop on. Move it, hop on again. Stand on one foot, see what number it gives you. You just want something consistent. 
. My bathroom scale and the doctor's type scale at my gym. The scale at the gym can be adjusted to quarter-pounds.
