Should you weigh yourself?

Should you weigh yourself? 📉

When you’re trying to lose weight (by which we really mean body fat as that is what actually results in body shape change) then it’s important to find ways to measure progress.

The scale can be a great tool to assess whether you’re making progress, or not. However, the number the scale shows is JUST a number. It’s merely your relationship to gravity at that particular moment in time. It’s meant to be used as a data point to track progress over time. If you decide to use the scale, you need to overlook the day to day changes you will inevitably experience. Scale weight is affected by lots of factors – amount of food in your system, hydration levels, glycogen levels, hormones, salt content of your diet, recent exercise, type of food you ate yesterday (diff foods can result in more or less temporary water retention) etc. None of which are a reflection of how much fat you’ve lost or how your shape has changed. Think about it – if you had the body you wanted and felt confident to wear anything you liked, would it matter what that scale number was? No!

Data is king and the more data you have the better decisions you can make regarding your progress. It’s not good to rely too much on one method of monitoring progress since they’re all subject to daily fluctuations that can make harder to view and interpret the data. Using things like body measurements, and how clothes fit are useful ways to see if you’re losing fat (if that is your goal). If you do use the scale then it’s better to take regular readings and then take the average for the week or month and compare that to previous averages to show the overall trend.

Should you weigh at all? First off ask yourself – what’s your relationship with the scale like? How much power do you give that number to define how you feel

for the rest of the day? Are you thinking about all the factors that influence that scale number? If you find it hard to overlook those fluctuations and hard to rationalise that they may be a result of things other than fat gain, if you you dread the scale and that the number impacts you emotionally, then no, it’s probably not a good option for you right now. Use other measurements of progress like measurements, progress pics, how clothes fit, performance, mindset changes and changes in confidence instead. If you like data and recognise that the scale number will fluctuate and that doesn’t faze you then go for it!

🤗

Xx