The Scale

It's important to talk about one humongous obstacle in any weight-loss program:  the scale.  The dreaded scale, my nemesis, my enemy, the thing that taunts me, the thing that laughs at me, and the thing that punishes me equally for indulging or for being good.  When it's kind to me, I want to hug and kiss it.  When it's torturing me, I want to throw it out the window.  Either way, despite my success, we're not friends.  I venture to guess that we merely tolerate each other.

There's a "Twilight Zone" episode where an elderly man goes to Las Vegas and he catches the gambling bug.  He starts imagining that the slot machine he was using is calling out to him, that it's following him, that it's looming over him and won't leave him alone.  The scale is my slot machine. 

Not only did I have to change my relationship with food, but I also had to change my relationship with the scale.  Some school of thought says that you should only weigh yourself once a week, now there's research saying that you should weigh yourself every day.  Either way, the reality is that the scale rules us especially when we're trying to lose weight.  Have you ever eaten something and ran to the scale to see how it affected your weight?  I have.  Logically, of course, this is ludicrous, but emotionally, we want to see what the scale says after we consume every morsel of food throughout the day.  It's completely unrealistic, and a little insane (okay, very insane).

My self-imposed "official weigh-in day" during my journey has been Saturday.  Every Saturday morning, before breakfast or my shower, I weigh myself and I log whatever the number is, first on Weight Watchers ("WW") and then on my own spreadsheet after I canceled WW.  That's the only number that matters because it tracks how I'm doing once a week.  Even if I weigh myself every day (I'm sorry, but I'm too impatient to wait a whole week), the only number that matters is what it says on Saturday morning.

I won't lie and say I'm not obsessed with the scale because to some degree I am.  How could I not be when I was facing having to lose 130 to 150 lbs.?  The difference this time around is that I didn't let the numbers get to me the way they used to before.  In the past, if I gained when I thought I should have lost, I'd become frustrated and most likely started binging, thinking, "What's the point!  Nothing I do works."  Or, ironically, if I lost when I should have gained, I'd start thinking I got away with something and most often started overeating because I could afford to since the scale had been good to me.  Either way, I sabotaged myself.

This time, however, I understood that my body is going to fluctuate no matter what I do.  It's normal.  The culprit could be anything:  too much sodium, not enough water, building muscle from working out, etc.  What I realized somewhere along the line is that the ONLY important thing is to look at the overall picture, not what I weigh day to day or even week to week.  If I knew I did well on my calories, in drinking water, and working out, then I didn't worry about it (too much) because I knew eventually the scale had to give in - and it always did.  Was it frustrating at times?  Of course!

There were times I became so frustrated that I was furious because I was doing well, but the scale wasn't cooperating.  My trainer often told me to stop worrying about the scale numbers and reminded me that I was shrinking physically and my clothes were getting looser so the culprit had to be that I was building muscle, which weighs more, and/or maybe water retention.  She told me to stop worrying about the numbers and eventually the scale would cooperate.  She was right.  Once I stopped worrying about it and kept plugging along one day at a time, one week at a time, the scale started to give in.  It had to because I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

With that said, however, if I knew I had been overeating, especially binging, slacked off from working out, or didn't drink enough water, then I told myself I had to try harder the following week because any gain I saw on that scale was of my own doing.  This time around, whenever I lost my way momentarily, it motivated me to do better whereas in the past I would have given up out of frustration.  And also, when I did well on the scale, it motivated me to do even better because it proved to me that I could do it.  No matter what that scale said, instead of discouraging me like it had before, this time it motivated me to keep doing better.

The key on how to deal with the scale is entirely in your head:  how are you going to react to what the scale is doing?  Are you going to sabotage yourself or will you just keep going?  Are you going to try harder?

During my journey, the scale numbers have been all over the place, even now.  I never know what the scale is going to show because many times when I had been very good on my calories and working out religiously, the scale wouldn't budge or, worse, showed I gained.  Conversely, there were times when I couldn't stop eating for a few days and didn't work out much and yet the scale showed I was losing weight.  Then there were times when I'd lose a couple of ounces over several weeks and all of a sudden I would start dropping 3 or 4 lbs. every week after that until I got stuck on a number again for awhile.  There were times when I hovered over the same number for more than a month and then I'd breeze through the next "decade."  My favorite were the times the scale showed I gained up to 3 pounds in 24 hours.  I won't even talk about my 16-month plateau where I gained and lost the same 15 lbs. over and over again.

Sometimes the scale was especially cruel, particularly during important milestones.  For example, when I reached 200 lbs. and was only ONE pound away from seeing a "1" in front of my weight - something I hadn't seen in almost 30 years, it took about three weeks to get there.  Three weeks for one lousy pound!  Here I was losing 2 lbs. one week, 4 lbs. another, and the ONE pound I needed to lose wasn't going away.  To say that this particular pound (just one pound) was important to me is a colossal understatement.  But I got there, and in fact, blew right past it in subsequent weeks.  

I understand what the numbers on the scale mean and how they affect us - believe me, I know, but the important thing is how we react to those numbers.  My only advice is to take it in stride.  Don't let the scale cause you undue frustration, throw you off your path, or, worse yet, cause you to give up.  The only thing that matters is to keep plugging along, one day at a time, stay within calories, keep working out, keep drinking water, and eventually that scale HAS to give in!

The first week of starting any new eating plan, it's normal to lose big numbers.  Most of it is water.  You may even lose big a second week, but don't expect that to continue at the same rate.  Remember, it's normal and healthier to lose half a pound to two pounds a week (losing too much weight too fast puts you at risk of developing gall stones which means surgery to remove your gall bladder).  It doesn't seem like much, but if you keep it up, it's going to add up and the pay off in the end is priceless.  Time passes anyway so you might as well just keep plugging along day to day, week to week and eventually you'll reach your goal.  As long as you keep doing what you're supposed to be doing, the scale will eventually reflect your progress.  It has to.