Why does the scale hold power over me? (long)

spyrosmom

spyrosmom

Cathlete
I'm old enough to know better, and I'm certainly smart enough to know better, so why do I let that stupid battery operated electronic demon spawn piece of electronic garbage cause me grief?????? I'd throw the flippin' thing out the window but I'm in the basement. I KNOW I still have a few pounds to lose, and I've been stuck forever, but gosh darnit, why can't I be happy where I am??? I've lost btwn 90-95 lbs (depending on how the above referenced garbage wants to treat me) and I know that is wonderful and an accomplishment. So why why why when the number flucuates up a pound today does it drive me crazy, and then make me extra happy when it goes back down the same pound tomorrow. Nevermind, that it may go up 2 lbs in a day depending what I've eaten, then drop 3 lbs ovenight. ARRRGGHHHHH..... My jeans are now a 10 (smaller than I've even been) most of my shirts are now M not XL, and even though my weight has been the same for quite sometimes, I still lost another pants size recently. So why I am I hung up on the scale, and why does it put me in a bad mood and lead me to write long, rant-y posts? And why can't I shake this last 10 or 15lbs. And why do I want to???? Why do I feel the need to hit some magic number? The only thing I really don't like about my size/shape is my stomach, and alot of that is extra skin, which I really can't do anything about. Shoot, that's at least 5 of the lbs I need to lose, if not more, and that requires a surgeon. Thing is I can think I look smokin', feel good, be confident and then I step on the scale and *KABLOOM* Cranky, crabby, sad, and frustrated. And I KNOW BETTER. People who I see regularly tell me I'm losing weight, obviously they haven't seen the demon possessed electronic hate machine in my basement bc it tells me I'm not. And when I get in a funk, I want to eat and/or drink, then of course, I go stand on the scale and it tells me I weigh as much as a small country, which of course, you can't actually gain 2 lbs in 10 mins, so then I feel even worse. At which point I tell myself I will do better tomorrow, and I do. I am good for sometime and then flippin' scale still moves up and down in the same few pound range - no matter what I eat or drink, so what is the point of owning the thing????

What burns me the most - When I was way overweight, before I found diet and exercise and Cathe and Amy and Coach Sean, and all you wonderful peeps, I didn't give a rat's patootie about what I weighed or what the scale said. I don't think I even owned one. Recently (past few weeks) it seems like I am obsessed with it. I've pondered trying to throw up after I eat (haven't, won't - I know better), thought about not eating (nope, I like to eat), and even cut out meat for a few days b/c the thought just made me nauseated (eating meat again, not as much, though). I overthink what I eat/drink way too much, overthink my workouts and activities way too much. I know this isn't smart, but I'm at a loss as to what to do. I feel like I'm losing my marbles. Thing is, everything else in my life is just peachy, so I don't know what is prompting all of this.

Sorry this is so long, but I needed to vent. Once I got typing, the words wouldn't stop.

Nan
 
Been there, done that

I'll try to keep this brief - I've had an eating disorder - anorexia, been an obsessive weigher, etc., so I know from whence you are coming! I'm NOT going to tell you to get rid of your scale, because I believe you have to be accountable in order to really keep your weight in check. But only weigh your self once a week at the same time of the day, like on Friday mornings. I don't believe you should weigh yourself everyday because of routine fluctuations. Keep a food journal, be real about what you're eating and you can get it under control. It took me YEARS to get it right, and if you're not on Weight Watchers, that would be the way to go.
 
Throw the scale away. Really, truly. The first step in allowing it to lose its power over you is to distance yourself from it. It can't hurt you if it isn't there.

I personally don't give a crap about my weight. But I have severe acne and severe scarring. It's devastating. For the last couple of months I have been a sobbing mess. Barely able to get myself out of bed to take a shower and leave the house. I've had to leave classes because I'm so embarrassed to be seen and I'd start crying every time I went to the bathroom. About two weeks ago, I stopped looking in the mirror. I mean, totally stopped. I completely ignore every single reflective surface. I even stopped wearing contacts because they required me to use the mirror. Obviously, I still look like sh*%, but at least I don't have to be reminded of it. It is a little extreme, but it was the only way I knew how to get through my day without breaking down. It works.

I think if you throw out the scale (or give it away or sell if it was expensive) you can't be reminded and the numbers will be a thing of the past. It's not like you actually have a weight problem, either. It's just the numbers getting to you, so you're not even putting yourself into denial mode. Don't think about it, just do it!
 
Nan,

Oh, how I can relate to your entire post...except the part about losing 90-95 pounds. I still have to do that part, or close to it. My husband hates when I weigh myself because it controls my mood for the whole weekend. Why should we allow an inatimate object so much control over our lives?! One thing I did that worked was not weigh myself for a month. I kept track of what I was eating and exercised. The only thing I didn't do was weigh myself. I had my husband take the scale and hide it. I even refused to be weighed when I went to the doctor's office when I was sick. I felt so much better! I am now back to doing WW so I have to weigh myself...and I allow it to control my moods. I don't have any great advice. Just know that you aren't alone. If you have an opportunity to NOT weigh yourself, I would take a break from it. Good luck to you. And most importantly CONGRATULATIONS on all you have accomplished!

Carrie
 
Great article!

Nan, I totally understand what you are saying--from scale obsession to major weight loss to loose skin. Right now I'm in a very balanced place, but I've been OCD about the scale too. First off, don't be so hard on yourself. There's an ebb and flow to everything in life and you're going through a phase for some reason. You will work it out and find a place of balance again. Here's a great article I found last year. Even though you know most of this stuff, maybe it will shed some light on the missing link.

Why The Scale Lies by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.
 
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If it's any consolation, I once destroyed my scale with a sledgehammer. Seriously. It felt good too! I bought another one within a week. If you think you panic when you have a scale, imagine what you'll do when you don't! Just be sure you have a good one. No sense agonizing over a scale that isn't even right.

The good news, though, is that I finally got over it. There was no magic formula, and it definitely didn't happen overnight. I finally just decided to eat right and exercise no matter what the scale said. I had setbacks for years. Days when I was so angry or depressed I could barely function. It's just so unfair, I know. I was eating right and exercising, unlike most of the people I knew, but most of them were smaller than I was. Like you, I had lost a lot of weight -- 130 pounds. Unfortunately, I was still fifty pounds from my goal when I got stuck.

It's not much better now, but my attitude is. At the time, I couldn't imagine ever feeling this way. It felt like giving up, and I'm not the type to EVER give up. Today, it just feels like sanity. I still eat right and exercise, but I don't have little temper tantrums and stop exercising or eat badly just because I'm not losing weight. I gained weight when I was doing that. Now, I am losing, just very, very slowly. I can't even see it happening with all the ups and downs; I just know there's a downward trend over time. It's taken me two years, but I've lost thirty-five pounds. Guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

I wish you the best. I know how frustrating this can be.

Shari
 
ellesan said:
Nan, I totally understand what you are saying--from scale obsession to major weight loss to loose skin. Right now I'm in a very balanced place, but I've been OCD about the scale too. First off, don't be so hard on yourself. There's an ebb and flow to everything in life and you're going through a phase for some reason. You will work it out and find a place of balance again. Here's a great article I found last year. Even though you know most of this stuff, maybe it will shed some light on the missing link.

Why The Scale Lies by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.
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awesome post!
 
Thanks for sharing your rant. I ask myself the same question. I'm an educated professional adult woman, a scientist, for heaven's sake! I know better and yet I give that number on the scale the power to lift my spirits or dash a good mood.

I've been losing weight steadily since April and seem to be leveling out. I think I've got to have a scale for accountability: 4 years of not weighing myself = 40 lb weight gain :( I'm limiting my weigh-ins to once a week but I'm dreading those times when I see the number tick up a pound or two. I want to use the information constructively but I know I'll beat myself up about it.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.

Sheila
 
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