Scale Obsession
Ah, the bathroom scale. Nearly every household has one, but the ways we treat them vary wildly. Some people fear the scale, and keep it tucked away behind the toilet. They might bring it out occasionally to settle a bet or to replenish their food guilt stores, but their relationship with the scale is mainly one of fear-driven avoidance – though you can be sure they never fail to sneak a guilty glance or two when brushing their teeth. Still others have a totally different relationship with the bathroom scale, treating it more like an addictive substance. They might weigh themselves daily, or even after every meal or workout, each tick downward giving them hope and each tick upward bringing despair – or it could be the complete opposite, depending on the person’s goals. Now, I don’t mean to disparage the scale itself. It’s a useful tool that gives us an accurate, objective measurement of what is for all intents and purposes an abstraction (without scales giving us actual numbers, most people would have trouble understanding weight as tangible), but we can obsess and overdo it. And when we do that, we lose sight of what eating right and living well is all about.
Loading ...I never use a scale, myself. I just don’t see the need. Of course, I’ve also never had an issue with excess body fat, so I’ve never really had a reason to obsess over the scale. My time as an endurance athlete could definitely be categorized as obsessive, though, so I can see how a scale obsession could develop for certain folks. And just as my constant, unwavering drive to push the boundaries and run longer distances in shorter time frames eventually became a net negative in terms of health, so too can obsessing over the scale. Daily fluctuations in weight negate most of the progress and obfuscate what eating well should really be about – good health and spirits. I thought I was the spitting image of a fit, healthy athlete (and most observers would have thought the same), but I wasn’t on the inside. You may think you’re maximizing weight loss by maintaining constant scale surveillance, but you’re probably just slowing yourself down.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a scale – even on a daily basis (if you can keep a level head about it all). Some people like to maintain that steady vigilance over the body’s metabolic proceedings, and tools like a bathroom scale or FitDay.com are great ways to facilitate that. If you’re trying to lean out and maintain muscle while shedding fat, a scale can give an accurate reading of your daily progress toward that goal. Or if you’ve leaned out completely and have shifted focus to putting on muscle, a scale will help tell the tale. Just be cautious about weighing yourself daily. The body is a complex system, and daily fluctuations in weight are common – both upward and downward. It’s not unusual for a person’s weight to go up or down a few pounds every day, either from water retention/loss, glycogen depletion/storage, or, yes, lean mass production and body fat reduction. Simply looking at the number on a scale tells you little about what’s really going on.
Even the blanket term “weight loss” is problematic, especially in light of the Primal Blueprint. What is weight, exactly? In physics, it is the magnitude of the gravitational force acting on an object. On the Earth’s surface, where gravitational acceleration is pretty much constant (and where most of us tend to weigh ourselves), weight can be described as a proportional description of the amount of mass we’re carrying around. Different types of mass have different weights, though, and the different components of the human body are no exception. Take lean mass versus body fat, for example. Conventional Wisdom gets it right with “muscle weighs more than fat,” but the scale can’t tell the difference. It just takes the whole lot of muscle, bone, skin, fat, and water that make up our bodies and gives us a single, raw number. When you receive that raw number, realize that it’s just that: a number approximating the amount of downward force gravity is exerting upon you. That’s it. It’s not a body fat meter or a lean mass indicator. It’s not a measurement of your body composition. You may be dropping pounds, but what if it’s all muscle?
Another problem is the setting of arbitrary goals. A person will often just seize upon a certain number and obsess over that number, doing anything and everything to reach it. Starvation, post-meal vomiting, chronic cardio – these are all hallmarks of the obsessive-compulsive desire to reach a certain arbitrary weight, lean muscle mass and healthy body markers be damned. Don’t obsess over a number! Listen to your body. If you subscribe to the Primal way of living, you know that the body naturally seeks out homeostasis. Eating the foods we’re evolutionarily designed to eat, making Primal movements, maintaining the right activity levels, and reducing stress helps us achieve that homeostasis. When you live according to Grok’s ways, everything else just falls into place – including your natural, correct body weight. It may even be that you’re healthiest a few pounds heavier. If you don’t obsess over the scale, I bet you’d never even notice the difference.
So to obsess over a number that doesn’t really tell us anything about body composition (the real health marker) is folly. Even worse, riding the emotional rollercoaster of constant weigh-ins can increase stress, interrupt sleep habits, and lead to difficult relationships with food, all of which have an effect on fat gain/loss. And isn’t that what we’re really talking about when we talk about weight – how much fat we’re losing or gaining? Focus on living well, sleeping soundly, eating right, and exercising regularly, and I think you’ll find that scale stays put behind the toilet more and more.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
I’ve totally done this… “Holy crap (literally), I just dropped two pounds!”
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
Great post Mark. I have not used a conventional scale in years. I use my pant/belt size as a scale instead.
Over the years I’ve definitely found the accountability of frequent weigh-ins works for me. It seems the more I weigh myself, the closer I stay to my ideal.
Of course you’re right in saying that the number doesn’t matter. I’m very aware of building health and strength first, and thinking about weight second. I guess my justification is that I know how much I weigh when I’m both lean and muscular. And the day-to-day fluctuations don’t bother me.
But wouldn’t it be great if we could all learn to completely let go of the numbers and to judge ourselves only on how well we’ve eaten, how effectively we’ve trained, how much fun we’ve had each day.
Or better yet – not judge ourselves at all. Now there’s a challenge!
Very important post! One of the best things about living the Primal lifestyle is that your weight (once you have reached your bodies natural set point) will remain almost the same regardless of the occasional binge or period with lack of exercise. It seems to have a self regulating effect, whether its hormonal I don’t know……
Obsessing over scales is the fast route to misery, I find it much better to go by how my clothes feel and ignore the scales apart from the occasional checkup. Heck I don’t even own a set of scales anymore……
I think that, in some regards, the BMI is even worse than the scale. I once managed to get down to what the BMI says is my “ideal” weight for my height – I could count my ribs, and people were telling me I looked like a famine victim. AND it took months of starvation-level old-school dieting (this was before I discovered the joys of eating primally – I was consuming no more than 1400 calories every day, which for a guy over 6′ tall, isn’t really enough).
I go by pants size; if I can fit into 31 pants, I’m happy.
I weigh in every 2 weeks at my doctor’s office… I prefer to weigh in there because I think that it is more accurate since their scale is in a permanent location (unlike my scale at home which gets put away between uses…) I only use my scale at home to measure body fat… I also like to record my progress
all that being said, I use the scale as a reflection of progress… considering the fact that my high weight started out close to 300 lbs, I needed feedback of the numbers going down… since rejecting my doctor’s recommendation to follow the pyramid eating plan and instead eating whole foods, no grains, etc.. my weight has consistently dropped
I often have to attend dinner meetings and other organizational events where I don’t have total control on what food is served… therefore I try to make the best choices from what is available. Many times I have gone to a doctors appointment expecting that I wouldn’t like what I would see on the scale readout… and instead find out that I lost more weight! It is very encouraging to know that I’m still making progress even when the day to day situations aren’t ideal…
In addition to scale readings, other things I use to reflect progress are: pain levels, lipid panels and how my clothes fit… At this point in time, I’ve lost so much weight that I have to buy new clothes (there’s only so much that you can tighten with a belt…) however I don’t want to invest to much as I’ve still got a ways to go before I consider myself fit… but I’m well on my way and getting closer every day….
Marti, sounds like you are doing all the right things. Keep up the great work. It’s a process and a lifeway.
The scale is my friend. I weight 2 times a day. True, I have been losing weight for 8 months now, very slowly, but the scale gives me a good indication of how I am doing. It is a great morale booster for me and I have learned a lot about my body and how it handles food, just by using this simple tool.
I go by the ‘pants-o-meter’ & how I look in the mirror!
Marti-go get some smaller clothes at Goodwill or any used clothing store-cheap & you will look fine for a pittance;)
I weigh in once a week on Saturday mornings and I keep a log of where I am. I recently got one of those body fat scales. It’s nice to see when my body fat goes down and muscle goes up even if the weight stays the same. Once I get to where I want to be, I might give it up. But right now it’s a good tool to measure my progress or lack thereof.
I use the scale as a tool…to see what will fit today…my weight and wardrobe are truly tied to each other! HA HA! It also lets me know if I’ve overdone it with food for a few days, and whether I need to step things up or curb things back in the workout and eating plan a little…but I no longer obsess about it…have thrown too many out the window in anger in the past, so just don’t worry about it any longer.
cjb
The scale doesn’t HAVE TO be something you obsess over. I use mine once a week, and it’s a great motivator. And if it doesn’t go down, 2 weeks in a row (assuming fat loss is my goal, and right now it is) I know something is amiss. How would I ever know if I’d plateued or started going up if I didn’t weigh-in once a week? The mirror is too ambiguous, I see myself in it every day.
I also have one of those Tanita bodyfat scales, so I can monitor bodyfat. Which is the REAL number I want to see go down. It’s very sensitive to hydration levels, so you need to be careful not to obsess if that number goes up 1 week. 2 weeks in a row, I’d think about making changes, but 1 week, could be a statistical anomoly.
Weighing any more often than once a week is where you start to get into trouble with obsessive behavior.
I check the scales solely out of interest, maybe once a month?
I check the mirror a lot more than the scales. After all, that’s where most of us want to improve on isn’t it?
Of course, as has been mentioned the mirror doesn’t give quantitative results, you can’t write down measurements in your workout journal! But then again, I don’t keep a journal…
This topic is one of the hardest things for me to keep my mouth shut about. I try to let people find their own way with a few strategically placed pointers but this can send me on a full scale rant.
I suffered from Bulimia for many years and the scale played a primary role in keeping my in that retched cycle. Having that wicked little device tell me daily how I was failing or winning would drive me further into my chaos. Clearly the bulimia was the primary problem but the scale really fed the problem.
I haven’t stepped on a scale in over a year and don’t plan on it any time soon. This works for me but I can also see the motivation a scale can provide someone who is less inclined to obsessive behavior. Being free of the scale is liberating and being free of the carb cycle eliminates the need for one.
When I die I’m auctioning off my genes, I expect a good price for the one that determines I keep my weight even (except when dieticians are involved)
Where I used to work we had a neat gadget, a pair of weight cells which lived on the floor and could be picked up by the forklifts to weigh boxes: whenever I passed through Despatch I used to step on it and the result seldom changed.
When I was gaining weight off the Heart Healthy diet I weighed a lot more often, just to depress myself.
Now I’m back to normal I hardly ever bother. Strangely I put on a few pounds *after* the holiday season without knowing why (maybe less exercise) but they went away again. I think looking in the mirror the distribution has changed from fat to muscle despite the actual weight staying constant.
Yeah I’ve also found that a well formed tud and a full bladder can weigh a fair bit . . .
Lots of really good thoughts and comments! Wish I had read some of this as insight for my blog post today about relationship to the scale!
I have to agree with Mark on this issue. I rarely ever use a scale either. As one that has had weight fluctuations all my life it was always an emotional roller coaster for me. I learned many years ago that my self worth does not equal what’s on the scale. Good or bad. Our weight can flucuate for many reasons and if we put too much emphasis on it, it can leave you feeling defeated. I did recently get on the scale though as I wanted to know the starting point before starting the Primal lifestyle. I plan on only weighing once a month to see my progress and when I feel I am at my ideal goal for myself I will again go back to not getting on a scale. I even decline the scale when going to see my doctors. That is your right as a patient.