Monday, November 30, 2009

Weigh or not to Weigh

Weigh or not to weigh has been a big question that last few days. As I continue on my journey to living a healthy and active life I have begun to look at this question among others.

Yes it is a choice and it does come down to personal choice but how do you know which is right for you? And is there a right way to do it in the first place? I am a BIG blog reader I love it and I get so many wonderful ideas and I feel so connect to others fighting there own fight on a healthy life style. Some encourage never weighing other say weigh once a week others say weigh daily. But as I sit here on "MY" journey I continue to struggle with this question. In one way I don't want to be glued to a number on the scale and it defining who I am but in another way I need to be accountable for what I choose to put into my mouth and one way is the scale.

I would love to get your input on this interesting topic: Weigh or not to Weigh? I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you know my opinion. I HAVE to weigh or my weight creeps up. I KNOW how to eat and if the weight is rising I know I need to leave out a few goodies.

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Anonymous said...

NEVER, EVER weigh daily, it becomes an emotional addiciton, you will find hard to beat.

I've never had the problem but you could.

Weighing should be done first thing in the morning after a toliet trip, so there's no undigested food and waste matter corrupting a reading, but at best do it weekly only, because weight fluctuates daily with little bits of lost fat, muscle and water and little bits of gained Fat, muscle and water, so gaining half a lb of weight in 24 hours might scare the crap out of you, when really in another 6 days, you might have lost that and another 1-1.5lbs anyway.

I've read of people weighing daily, who are too scared to even put the scales away or hide them, or lock then away for a week. They try to do it and within 3-4 days cave in and have a weigh.

That's how psychologically addictive, daily weighing can become. It's self defeating, stress inducing and emotionally hurtful, like I described earlier, when you see something negative that could easily be reversed and then some within days.

Weighing once a week, might help to identify if you're doing something wrong, but there's different variables.

A: Weight stabilisation.

A1: A semi-balanced weekly mix, of some training and some good food, coupled with some bad food and one or two missed sessions. This would require tightening of diet and more "healthy" physical commitment.

A2: The same result occurs because you lose a bit of Fat, but gain a bit of muscle. This encourages better body compsition, so is not a problem.

B: Minor weight loss.

B1: Some Fat loss, possibly a little muscle gain, but also possibly some water gain. The water gain could be from excess Sodium, but obviously for Women, could be that other thing sometimes.

B2: Same as B1, but might be a slight lack of dietary strictness, promoting some muscle gain in addition to training, but not as much Fat loss as could have been possible. This would likely be around 0.5-1lb of diffrence, between a weight target per week and and what actually happened.

C: Weight gain.

C1: Possibly a water issue, in which case, no need for diet and / or training changes, except maybe a slight sodium reduction, if it isn't TOM.

C2: Some diet and or training problem, which needs attention.


So you can see how some scenarios may look negative, but might be relatively minor or even quite positive, so you can't always assume the worst in some cases when you weigh.

So you need to compare the previous 1-2 weeks results / efforts and see if change is needed or not.

At the moment you're doing BRILLIANTLY and you look incredibly youthful and for 45, you're going on 35 misses, so WELL DONE, you can be so proud of yourself.

You have certainly earned my undying praise, respect and admiration for as long as you want it.

GOOD LUCK, best wishes and keep on pushing, because I'm very proud to be supporting you.

:-) :-).

Matt