We all have our weigh-in patterns–if only by necessity, since not caring about our weight is, for lots of us, part of what has contributed to let us gain too much weight before fully realizing it. Some of us do it every day. Some several times a day. Others once a week, twice a week, every two weeks. Whatever works.
We all know it is a fickle measure, that doesn’t take into account the extra fat only, but also muscle, organs, whether we’re retaining water or not, whether we’ve just eaten or not. But it’s a fact that during weight loss as well as when maintaining, using the scales is, for most of us, an efficient way of keeping track of our progress.
However, weighing in can also be tedious and even exert a negative psychological pressure on a person. This is why, after thinking about it, a few weeks ago, I’ve decided to change my traditional weighing day, and put it on what I had at first considered as a very odd moment: on Saturday mornings. My reasons are simple, and maybe they can seem like cheating; on the other hand, as long as it all works well for me and doesn’t send me into denial, I am quite happy with this change.
Weighing in, for me, used to be on Monday mornings. Perhaps because it’s the logical beginning of my week (first day of work), perhaps also because I’m not completely rid of that lingering thought of “Monday, I’ll start my diet”, “Monday, I’ll be perfect”, yadda-yadda. The pattern I’ve noticed in myself, however, is that Mondays follow the week-end. And the week-end is the moment of the week when most opportunities of overeating arise, at least in my case. (The rest of the week, I work, I study, I go to class, I work out, in brief: I am always busy with something, and I don’t see many people in a laid-back atmosphere encouraging us to eat and eat. It’s a good thing that studying doesn’t trigger the munchies in me any more!)
So, what was the consequence of that? Feelings of guilt. Stepping on the scales on Monday morning, already knowing that I’ve eaten pizza and cookies on Saturdays and am now most certainly retaining a couple of pounds of bloating. But knowing it doesn’t make it easier. Of course, I could very well not eat anything extra on week-ends. That would work as well. This said, I do my best at doing things in moderation and not thinking in terms of “this is a FORBIDDEN food” but rather “if you want that Sundae, you can have it this week-end” (once out of twice, the craving has gone away by then); I’m not perfect, and I still hold my week-ends and dinners at friends’ dearly. I know that it will take time for me to never overeat in such circumstances whatsoever. Yes, I need time to learn, and it’s not by avoiding such situations or by flailing myself that things will go better.
Therefore, up to Saturdays went the weigh-in day. I don’t have to worry about gloomy Monday mornings any more. I don’t have to dread the number on the scales any more after having eaten pizza on Saturday evening. I do my best to still be a little careful on week-ends (no more than 500 or 600 extra calories spread over the whole day, for instance), but I don’t have to think about how much I might bloat right before weighing in.
And it works.
Psychologically, it works.
I know I have a whole week to get back on track and eat normally again (’normally’ being the healthy way, not the other way around). I know that by Friday or Saturday morning, whatever excess calories I’ve consumed will be gone. Sometimes I lose a pound, sometimes half a pound, sometimes no pound at all. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that my mind is at peace, and for a person like me, not giving in to feelings of guilt and resent towards myself is very important.
I am still learning. This helps me to learn, and reconsider the scales under a new perspective. A purely informative one, in which I don’t have to give that number a psychological meaning it’s not supposed to have. The simple fact of knowing that I have five days to make things right again encourages me, and fuels my committment.
We all need to develop our own methods, don’t we?
June 12th, 2007 at 16:17
This seems like a totally smart change to make. If it works out best to save treats for weekends, then why make yourself feel bad by weighing right after?
That whole scale/accountability issue is tricky. It’s hard to keep an eye on things without driving yourself crazy. Seems like you’ve struck a good balance.
June 12th, 2007 at 17:01
That’s exactly what I figured out–why make it so that I will necessarily feel bad right after, even if the scale doesn’t always record a negative change by then?
Truth be told, I don’t like being dependent on the scale, but it remains an indicator that I can’t leave out (especially now that I don’t have any device to measure my body fat, and can’t buy new clothes every three weeks to try to notice a real difference).
June 14th, 2007 at 21:14
I had to change my weigh-ins from monday to friday mornings. Somehow I go into my weekend a little bit more aware of my eating…unless of course I have a great weigh in and show a huge loss, then think something along the lines of “well, i just lost ____ pounds, I don’t need to be careful at all!”
Anyway, I love the end of the week weigh on, and I agree, I do bypass a lot of Monday morning guilt.
June 14th, 2007 at 21:53
Welcome here, and thanks for commenting, Katieo.
I reckon that’s a risk to run–thinking the ‘I had a great loss so now don’t need to be careful’. Although, depending on the person, it can probably just as well strengthen one’s resolve, I suppose. There are so many things in this whole weight loss ‘business’ that depends on people, it’s hard to tell!