To Weigh or Not to Weigh, That Is the Question
Editorial by Kelly Bliss

In recent counseling sessions, my clients have talked about reactions to weighing themselves. I thought this would be a good time to share the following article that addresses the issue of using the scale to measure your success. At the end of this column, you will find some alternate ways to measure your success.

To weigh or not to weigh, that is the question.

Think about a time when you were trying to lose weight. You may think about today, yesterday, or a decade ago. Remember getting on the scale (at a group meeting, a doctors office, or in your own home). Logically, there are three possible outcomes on the scale:

1. You lose weight.


2. You gain weight.


3. Your weight stays the same.

Of course, how you react to the scale depends very much on the way you feel about your eating before the weigh-in. Logically, there are three possibilities to describe your eating while trying to lose weight:

1. You stuck to your eating plans.


2. You blew your eating plans.


3. Sometimes you stuck to your eating plans and sometime you did not.

Let's look at the likely reactions to weighing yourself, depending on how hard you worked on your eating plans...

Possibility #1:
You stuck to your eating plans.
First, we will look at the most frequent experience in the beginning of weight loss plans. After doing just as you planned for the week, you hopped up on the scale, and you lost weight. For the first week it probably was not that hard to do. You were psyched. You probably paid a lot of money for this plan. Even if you did not spend a penny, at the very least you had invested emotionally in this plan to lose weight. Now, after the first week, the scale told you that your weight was down. Good. All your efforts were worth it. You would stick to your eating plan. (But … sometimes … when the scale gave you good news … didn't you just have to celebrate and eat something 'illegal'? Oh, yeah, that will be talked about in possibility #2 and #3. Let's get back to possibility #1, sticking to your eating plans)