Watch Your Weight Weekly
Our extensive Top 100 Weight Loss Tips keep going with this latest outing weighing in at article number 71 in the series.
In this post, I'll look at a big dilemma facing those of us on weight loss plans and that's how often to check in on our weight, with weekly being perhaps the most useful.
There are different schools of thought on this subject. While some say you should check your weight every day, others say only do that once every so often, for various reasons for and against.
Well, my own personal take on this is to avoid weighing myself every day for the simple reason that I tried that once before and it drove me crazy! So I say, weigh in once a week!
Watch Your Weight Weekly
The reason I personally prefer to watch my weight only that often is mainly because in past attempts at losing weight I failed simply through losing heart by weighing in every day and not seeing any change. Sure, after a week had passed there was a change in the right direction, but after going through a couple of weeks like that I just gave up. And I'm sure there are thousands of people who were or are in the same boat.
I have been far more successful this time around by avoiding the scales during the week and only weighing in on a Friday Morning. That's when I saw the improvement of a week's worth of good diet and exercise doing its stuff. But there is more to doing it that way. There is s psychological reason for choosing Friday morning as the weigh in day and not any other day. And I shall tell you why!
When anyone is into losing weight, the weekdays are the days when we're most motivated. Maybe that's because they are the days when we have to face our work colleagues and show them that we are going to the gym or to the pool every lunchtime or we're having the early morning run, or long walk with the dogs, or whatever the daily early start up exercise plan is.
So by the end of four days of being really good, you get to Friday morning and you weigh yourself and you will show a loss, even if it's only a pound or two. When you see that, you feel great (I sure did) and that motivates you to go into the weekend on a high to want to carry it on.
The Weekend
Now take another scenario, say that of weighing in on a Sunday morning. OK, you've had all week to do all the right things as above, but what happens is the weekend appears.
Friday night, what are you going to do? Go out with friends and likely blow the diet!
Saturday morning you'll feel lousy cause you had one too many to drink so you won't go out for your early morning exercise because by the time you get our of bed, half the morning's gone.
You do all the stuff you normally do on a Saturday, like shopping, fixing those little jobs around the house and then watching the big game on TV. Maybe you go out on Saturday night too because you don't have to get up for work the next day either.
Except you get up Sunday morning and weight yourself and... whoa! You bust your diet Friday night, did no exercise Saturday and the scales are telling you that you gained a pound! Disheartened, you stand at a crossroads. Do you give up because it's not working, or do you soldier on and try for another week?
Okay, even if you don't give up at this stage, you go another week and do the exact same things and wallop! You get to the next Sunday morning and maybe this time you didn't gain any weight, but you didn't lose any either! At this point on the crossroads you are more likely to waver and give up.
So now do you see why I weighed myself on a Friday morning before the weekend appeared and dashed all my hopes? By going into your weekend with physical evidence that your weight loss solutions are working according to plan, are you going to allow yourself to bust your diet on a big night out Friday night? No way man!
And Saturday morning sees the exercise routine continue as does Sunday morning too and then it's another week of losing more weight!
Psychology is cool sometimes!
100 Weight Loss Tips number 70 follows in the next post!
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Posted on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 1 Comments
1 thoughts on "Watch Your Weight Weekly"
Salvatore says:
Now that was a quality post. I think most people forget the points you are making about losing weight the right way, so thanks for putting it all into perspective here.