Weighing yourself at home - effect on morale?

Atlanta

Member
Dear all

Part of what I have seen as a LL counsellor is that my clients who weigh themselves at home seem to struggle more than those who don't.

When I did 7 months in abstinence I didn't weigh myself at home at all and I do think it made it easier for me.

I have been reading a fascinating book about financial markets called Fooled by Randomness which has a theory about why people who check their portfolio value all the time are unhappier than those who check their statements much less often, even where they make the same net returns - it's to do with a 'bad' fluctuation having a much greater effect on how you feel than a 'good' fluctuation.

So I am very interested in all your experiences - do you weigh between meetings, and what effect do you think it has on you?
 
I did - I used to joke on here that it was my only vice!
To be honest I was very careful about it - I sue dto weigh myself directl before WIs on my scales just to check that they were in sync with my LLCs each week and then I would only weight myself immediately afer waking up each morning. Sometimes going an entire week is just too long for the motivation of a WI to work. I know it's not doing it by the book - but I really needed the additional motivation and to roughly know where I was headed that week - but I did always say to myself that the minute the scales fluctuated or differed from my LLC's in the slightest I would stop weighing myself at home.

I do worry when people weigh themselves at home with no method or consistency and then get stressed about 'putting on weight' when they can't possibly know for sure that they have.
 
I usually weight myself every morning after first pee but have stopped over time but even if its not gone down it makes me feel better PLUS I have been abe to see for myself how the weight plateaus & then shifts! Its incredible!!
 
Hi Atlanta

I am one of those people who weighs themselves, not once a day but..twice. I can't remember if I did that from the start of LighterLife but certainly towards the end of Foundation I was...obsessive. Hands up. I think it was all tied up with the 100 days/end of Foundation final result. What would it be? I am now heading towards Route to Management and would like to end Development with a total weight loss of 5 stone. Not sure that is going to happen but daily weigh-ins give me some indication of whether that's a possibility or not.

Your post has really made me think because lots of people have advised me against doing this twice-daily ritual, particularly via my blog. Sometimes I am detached and I just log the number and sometimes, well, I do get a bit hung up if it's not what I would like to see. I do make a mental note, too, of my daily steps taken. I always know what I have done the day before and am slightly antsy if I don't do 10,000 steps (on average) per day.

There is also a part of me that likes to see just HOW MUCH my weight flucutates during the day, during my cycle, during anything else I am measuring at the time. I've been weighing myself every day for years and obviously not with any great success (until LighterLife)!

As Sarah (Cerulean) mentions, a week is a long time in weight-loss land. As a control freak, there is an element of the weighing ritual that gives me an illusion of having a teeny tiny element of control. But clearly not any long-standing joy!

Funnily enough, I missed two weigh-ins during Foundation because I was away; I remember being sick with nerves before the return weigh in and was very happy with the result. Not being able to weigh myself was no great hardship, if I am honest. Can't remember how I felt at the time.

Most of the time, my LighterLife weigh-in results have not been a surprise but a couple of times when they have, I have either been ecstatic or a bit despondent (but not enough to jack it in or go crazy).

If I were more competent with Excel, I would be charting my weight on a spreadsheet - just out of interest to see how the graph looks.

This thread is very thought provoking so thank you for making us think!

Mrs Lxxx
 
Sorry, the one other thing that I wanted to say is while I was doing Foundation, I was intrigued to see what effect it would have on my TOTM weights (particularly with PMS in the mix).

What was absolutely fascinating (to me) was how bloated I would feel BUT how that was NOT translated on the scales. This, I have to say, kept me on the straight and narrow; had the scales gone up, I would have been more inclined to give up and, equally, had I not weighed myself, I might have thought, I feel fat and bloated so...what the hell, it doesn't matter what I do (!), if that makes sense.

So, conversely, sometimes the scales are good tools....

Mrs Lxxxx
 
If I were more competent with Excel, I would be charting my weight on a spreadsheet - just out of interest to see how the graph looks.

I do that :D :D I record daily and am now on cell A:930. Okay...I've missed a few days, but so far have 930 recorded morning weigh in results.

Do you think I have a problem? :D

( My charts are only monthly though:p)
 
Hi there

First of all I have only been on the plan 15 days! My weigh in is Wednesday night. I must admit I jump on the scales on Sunday and Wednesday mornings. However TOM came last Wednesday, I lost 5.3lbs on Wednesday night but my home scales have not moved since last Wednesday morning. I actually feel gutted! I was tempted to get on this morning but though no wait until Wednesday. If they have not moved and then I have a loss at WI I think I will bin them as they are obviously not working. I think sometimes it is a bad thing to weigh at home - this is from my experience this week!
 
Oh - and working in banking I know there are some portfolios you have to watch every minute of the day and some you can leave for a month at a time ;)

Also - think the more you have to lose at the beginning, the more you benefit from weighing in daily - when you have 120lb to lose you can lose half a pound a day easily for the first 50 days or so - whereas someone who started off at a BMI of 29 would probably get frustrated by weighing themselves day by day. The more I think about it, the more I think there should probably be two sets of LL materials - one for the 3-4ish stone losers and one for the people who have 60lbs or more to lose - as we have to deal with slightly different issues and journeys. It might also make the development journey easier for people who have to do a second hundred days.
 
Brilliant idea Sarah. I would go further and say different foundation groups for more to lose. I found it quite disheartening when foundation ended and I was the only 'fatty' left. It was great to see others get to goal and being so happy BUT knowin I had a long way to go felt really lonely. I wish I'd been with others like me.
 
We were lucky in my January group in that we were all - with one exception - 40+ BMIs so I'm only the second to go into management - the rest of the group will probably hit management in October - it means that our Developers group has actually just stayed the same with a couple of returners adding into the mix occasionally. So we have been lucky in that respect. All the rest of the 30 something BMIs dropped out in the first 6 weeks. No willpower, those skinnies ;) (that's a joke - I don't mean anyone on here!)
 
I too weigh myself every morning and every night, but I really believe that it's never had any impact on my morale.
I really only do this as a gauge. My LLC's scales are always lighter than mine so I do worry a little about management, and will I always look at my scales and think, 'subtract 5'!!
It genuinely has never impacted my morale but I can totally understand how it can have that effect. It actually has the reverse effect on me, it keeps me going! But then I was the kid who would sit and stare endlessly at my post office savings account on a daily basis!! I also have a habit of trying on 'small' clothes every week to see how I'm getting on. Oh and it probably also appeals to my control freak nature :D Maybe I'll look at this when I get into management and use different, or additional gauges to keep me on track? I'm now asking myself, what's the worst thing that could happen if I threw the scales away? I guess I need the visual prompts more than I thought!
:D
 
Hi, I weighed on my home scales once, NEVER AGAIN!
 
oops pressed the wrong button. My experience was that on my 3rd week I felt really bloated and disheartened that I hadn't lost any weight. The scales said i'd lost 1Ib. I was miserable then all that day and all the next till I was weighed by my LLC at our meeting. Her scales said i'd lost 5Ib. I was so happy then. So, I made a pact with myself never to weigh on my home scales ever again whilst on the LL foundation or management programmes. There are people in my group who weigh themselves everyday but I guess it is whatever works for them. Keep up the good work everyone.

Dawn xx
 
I used to be obsessed with weighing myself at home, 3 or 4 times a day. The part i liked was that i could see that my weight fluctuated day to day and from morning to evening so i didnt feel worried if i had put on a couple of pounds from one day to the next. It also helped me understand water retention for time of the month and the fact it only affects me the week after my TOM than the week of it.
However, now i only weigh myself at class because my scales are very different weights to hers and i dont want to feel that i am failing if i am heavier on hers than i am on mine. It was hard giving up my scales but armed with the knowledge i have from using them so often before i feel that i can now deal with being weighed once a week only.
 
I'm one of those who weight myself every day. It's a habit I can't get out of. I have even done it when I have been doing conventional diets and even though my mind knows any daily gain is fluid retention, my brain saw it as weight gain, and I hated myself, and would go off binging.

However on LL the scales have been a powerful tool to my weight loss. I lose weight every day which gives me a massive boost (even if it's only 0.2lbs). It also mentally helps me prepare for weigh-ins, as if it's been a slow week I know what's coming on the scales as my scales weigh the same as my LLC's..
 
I have weighed myself every morning since i started at the end of may, i have found it really helps me - my scales are slightly different to LLC's but I also weighed in at night so weight slightly different anyway. All I have monitored is how much I have lost since my first morning weigh at home which was the morning after my LL WI. As yo yo dieter says because you loose weight alomost everyday even if it is only the tiniest amount it keeps you focused and it does really help me to know what I am doing particularly at TOTM.
 
I was weighing myself at pop-in time when I couldn't make it but not really registering it as I don't entirely trust my scales (which have been known to register weight differences of a stone and a half in 3 consecutive weighs!). But since I put on almost a lb last week :cry: I've been rather obsessive. It shows me as 7lbs lighter than the official weigh ins but this is first thing in the morning as opposed to the end of the day. So it causes me only a little solace but I am too worried about how I'm doing to stop!
 
Hi,
I find that weighing myself at home really keeps me going. I get weighed last thing at night and first thing in the morning (naked and with an empty bladder), there is often a 3 or 4 lb difference to the previous night, and even if it it is only a 0.2lb loss on the morning before it cheers me up for the day.

I weigh an awful lot different naked at home in a morning than I do fully clothed and containing 5 litres of water or so when I go for my weigh in at 7 p.m. My scales are not any different to the LLC's (I also weigh myself just before I set off) but the time of day and the volume of water makes a big difference to the weight she records.

I think it's "exciting" when you stop weighing for instance in the 14's and get down to the next stone and start weighing in the 13's, this happens a lot sooner at home, as does the BMI dropping fractionally and dropping down to another whole mark. My scales calculate BMI for me, that bucks me up in a morning when I either move down another BMI point or down to a lower whole number of pounds.

Don't I go on? But these little things do keep me strong.
 
Thanks all for interesting responses - just got back from holiday and read them all.

I think as with most things, it's about what works for you. I just worry about the clients who weigh themselves all the time and use the information to set their mood for the day - with the random things our bodies do with water, there's no real value to any spot weight - just a 4 week rolling average!

All best
Atlanta
 
I also weigh every day. I know that when I don't want to get on the scales, is when I know I have put on weight and this starts the 'I don't know so it's not happening' type feeling!
 
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