The Futility of Scales

Until recently, I was caught in the cycle of weighing myself every day. I thought that seeing the gradual weight loss every day would encourage me and show me that I’m on the right track. But of course, when the scales didn’t show a change or they showed an increase, it would get me down – even though I knew that factors like muscle and water play a role and your bodily naturally fluctuates over the course of a day. It was only when I started to move the scales around to different parts of the bathroom floor and see different results at each place that I realised how inaccurate scales can be.

 

Sometimes, when I felt like I had been doing all the right things, my tummy felt less bloated, I just felt a lightness of self – I would hop on the scales and those feelings just would not be reflected in my weight. I just felt like screaming “Well what the hell do you know anyway, scales?!” The thing is, scales don’t know anything. They don’t know the fit of your clothes, the measurement of your waist. More importantly, they don’t know how you’re feeling inside. They don’t know that you’ve got way more energy, your skin is clearer and you just feel healthier. They don’t know that your outlook on life is so much more positive than it used to be. So when they stare up at you from the floor and show you this simple number which has no concept of all the great changes you’ve made in life and all the other benefits you have seen, why do we give them so much credit??

Besides, this is what gets me. If you are, for example, walking regularly, eating a wide variety of fresh food and not binge eating, (of course not being perfect because who is all the time?) then you are doing everything you can to be healthy and that is all that anyone can ask of you. So if the scales don’t show what you want them to show, what can you do? If you’re already doing everything right, what more can you do? You can’t try to deprive yourself, eating less food and pushing yourself too hard with exercise. In the end, that’s not sustainable.

The point I’m trying to make is that as long as you know you are treating your body the way it wants and needs to be treated, then monitoring your weight obsessively is pointless. The fit of your clothes is good enough to let you know if you are worryingly gaining or losing weight too fast.  

So I can gladly say I have freed myself from obsession with the scales. 

(Pic credit: http://strivingonward.com/2013/05/24/enough-is-enough-throwing-away-the-scale/)