ditch the scales

nzmegs

Ok after years (and I mean many of them) of being on a permanent diet and weighing myself daily i decided to put my scales away and stop focusing on my weight.

hey presto, I feel more confident, feel like I look better, I am eating better, making good food choices consistently (but not stressing when I don't) and according to my clothes I must have lost weight.

But the thing is that I have stopped caring about a little number (or a big one) on the scales. the fact is that the actual number means nothing to your health or even the way you feel about your self.

I was so sick of getting up in the morning and starting my day off positively or negatively dependent on that half a pound up or down. Now I get to the end of the day and I ask myself "how well did I eat today". Sometime I can say "not so good" but i know that I won't have that added self-humiliation of seeing that food reflected on the scales.

i am able to say "oh well, tomorrow I will do better" and move on from it. the guilt has gone and i feel really free.

I now question my hunger, ask if I really need to eat particular foods and very often I am able to talk myself out of eating poorly.

have you ever been on a diet for a couple of weeks, doing well, losing weight and then suddenly for no reason you put on a pound. bang goes the diet, because it "doesn't work". Chances are it does, you just need to stop checking every five minutes.

Before you know it you are on another diet and trying again until the same thing happens.

we all know what to eat and what not to and we need to be left to get on with the job of looking after our bodies without obsessing about what they weigh.

Nimeth

Yes, not checking every five minutes really does help. The thing is, your body weight fluctuates throughout the day anyway as you eat and burn off calories and fat. Last time I dieted I only weighed myself once a week and when I got up in the morning before eating anything (as this is apparently closest to your true weight or so I've heard). I managed to shift a stone doing that, so it's all about not going overboard with it.

But I do think being happy with yourself and having self-confidence is the most important, and appreciate people just as they are.

ellay864

I wish the dieting work colleague of mine would read this...every day she does my head in whinging about that half pound that's appeared this morning!!
I tried the Paul McKenna thing a while back. He also advocates weighing no more than once a fortnight and likens it to a plane flying...it doesn't just go from A to B in a straight line, it deviates to get to final destination. And weight does the same thing and is easy to disrupt with things like exercise/water retention if you measure too often. He also goes with the 'eat if you're hungry, don't eat if you're not' and a colleague of mine following that philosophy, though not religiously following his programme, lost 4 stone and looks great. I bother more about inches than pounds - if I've toned up and can fit in clothes better I don't get hung up on the weight

milliemonster

I agree that weighing yourself everyday just damages your self esteem no end, however I have to weigh myself on a weekly basis without fail, otherwise as I'm tall, I can easily gain a stone without noticing in my clothes or people noticing at all, I've not weighed myself since xmas and have gained 2st since last Sept, nodbody has noticed and I haven't even gone up a dress size, just my clothes are now very tight on me and I'm a bit flabby lol!, so for me weighing myself regularly to keep my weight under control is a must

nickyhutch

Me too! I got away from the tyranny of the scales around a year ago. They ruined my life for years. How my day was going to go was determined every morning by those little red numbers on the scales. I don't give a toss what I weight now and am more concerned with what fits and what doesn't, and how I look and feel.

nzmegs

milliemonster wrote: »

I agree that weighing yourself everyday just damages your self esteem no end, however I have to weigh myself on a weekly basis without fail, otherwise as I'm tall, I can easily gain a stone without noticing in my clothes or people noticing at all, I've not weighed myself since xmas and have gained 2st since last Sept, nodbody has noticed and I haven't even gone up a dress size, just my clothes are now very tight on me and I'm a bit flabby lol!, so for me weighing myself regularly to keep my weight under control is a must

That's the thing though Millie. If noone notices and even you don't really notice - why worry about the number? yes take steps to tone up a bit and focus on making sure you body is getting the nutrients it needs and not too much food and things will always settle down how they should be.

today is a perfect example of me making the right choices, almost without thinking.
Got up and ate a croissant as i was starving and felt a bit sick. i am like that in the morning sometimes. Didn't sweat it though as I knew I had the whole day ahead of me.
At 11am I had a big bowl of porridge with a banana and dried fruit. Phew that filled me up. 1pm did 1.5 hours of exercise. Didn't feel like it at first, but so glad i did as i felt like a million dollar after.
I have just had a pear, some bean salad and a wholemeal pitta. Might have an evening snack later.
Stopped at the shop on the way home from collecting my daughter and asked myself the question; do I really want sweets with the kids. And realised that after all that exercise it was the wrong thing to do. Simply stopping for a second made me make the right choice.

Anyway the point is that as the focus is no longer on losing weight, I am making sure my body is happy and healthy. Funny how that does the trick!

I still have my scales and might check myself at some point, but scared to in case I am putting on weight and it will put me back where I started.

milliemonster

nzmegs wrote: »

That's the thing though Millie. If noone notices and even you don't really notice - why worry about the number? yes take steps to tone up a bit and focus on making sure you body is getting the nutrients it needs and not too much food and things will always settle down how they should be.

today is a perfect example of me making the right choices, almost without thinking.
Got up and ate a croissant as i was starving and felt a bit sick. i am like that in the morning sometimes. Didn't sweat it though as I knew I had the whole day ahead of me.
At 11am I had a big bowl of porridge with a banana and dried fruit. Phew that filled me up. 1pm did 1.5 hours of exercise. Didn't feel like it at first, but so glad i did as i felt like a million dollar after.
I have just had a pear, some bean salad and a wholemeal pitta. Might have an evening snack later.
Stopped at the shop on the way home from collecting my daughter and asked myself the question; do I really want sweets with the kids. And realised that after all that exercise it was the wrong thing to do. Simply stopping for a second made me make the right choice.

Anyway the point is that as the focus is no longer on losing weight, I am making sure my body is happy and healthy. Funny how that does the trick!

I still have my scales and might check myself at some point, but scared to in case I am putting on weight and it will put me back where I started.

because I am now 1st overweight which isn't healthy, I have tried in the past to ditch the scales but the weight just creeps on over time and I end up where I am now, trying to get 2st off for the summer, so instead I need to not be obsessive about the scales but just check my weight once a week to keep in under control