Are you sabataging your weight loss with the scale?
February 4, 2010
As we all know when you are trying to lose weight it is important to stay on top of how much you weigh. Keep in mind that it is possible to sabatage your efforts if you get on the scale too often. Weighing yourself every day and or multiple times a day can become incredibly frustrating and ruin your eating plan for a healthy new you.
In the beginning of a new healthy lifestyle of changing your eating habits and adding exercise the scale will sometimes move up and down very easily due to the new changes. A lot of times you will see the scale going down one day and up the next. Many things can cause this; exercise, water weight, if you just ate and or the time of day, etc.
So if weighing myself every day and or several times a day can cause me to sabotage my efforts…what is the right amount so I stay on track and not over do it? Great Question!
I recommend to my clients to weigh themselves once per week. The same day every week and the same time. Weight loss is a daily commitment and something you need to resolve within you that you are going to stick to no matter what the scale says. I actually recommend that the first 4 weeks a client starts with me they stay way from the scale because this is the beginning of something completly new for their body. Your body is going to be going through many changes thus a lot of water gains and losses with the new foods and exercise. Durring that 4 week period the ups and downs can cause a lot of emotional chaos when they see the scale go up and down. So to aleviate it all together in the beginning I ask my clients to weigh themselves when we first get started; then wait 4 weeks to weigh themselves in. I want them to concentrate more on the positive changes they are making in their new healthy lifestyle, moving their body more and how they feel about them and how there clothes fit rather than a number on a scale.
This may sound like a difficult thing to do, staying away from the scale that long. But the clients that I have had do this have had such a freeing feeling. A feeling of not being so attached to the number and concentrating on how they feel about themselves and their journey to a whole new self.
