In order to weigh in on the old fashioned (read: non-electronic) scale that my parents gave me, I had to first adjust the arrow to zero. I jiggled with the knob to the best of my ability, but I still wasn't quite sure that I was dead on.
Then I stepped on the scale, naked, with my contacts on, and peered as hard as I could at the tiny lines between the 175 marker and 180 marker. I'm guessing I'm at about 176. But it could be 175 or 177. For some reason, this bugged me.
So I repeated the process, and came up with a similar result. I'm calling my weight 176, which means that in the course of a week, I've lost three pounds. That is, if I measured my weight from last week correctly...
I'm not neurotic, I swear, but I miss the "exact" results from my former Weight Watcher weigh-ins. And I'm very suspicious of losing three pounds when, in the course of the week, I ate a whole box of Reese's Puffs (in one sitting!) ate a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's, and ate cookie dough. Now, I know that I am occasionally blessed by the Weight Watcher God, but this just seems too good to be true.
So of course, I had to double check the situation. Even though I had to leave for work in 20 minutes, I started rifling through my closet, pulling out former fat clothes and trying them on. Yes, all of the fat clothes still felt large, but not quite as large as I like. Then, I grabbed my completely non-stretch pair of size 12 Ann Taylor pants. They felt okay. But, again, not quite as loose as I'd like. I'm not really sure what's going on. Am I losing so much muscle mass that I've gotten to a low weight but still look fat? Or have I been staying at roughly the same weight for the last couple of weeks and fluctuating five pounds back and forth, depending on my water weight? Admittedly, the second answer makes more sense.
And then there's this gem of common sense: In the past, when I've gotten fatter, I've usually gained weight. That should console me...but unfortunately, I don't feel entirely confident with that either. How do I know I gained weight if I never weighed myself when I was in the process of gaining weight? Okay, Maybe I need to chock up the $40 bucks a month to Weight Watchers to avoid this neurotic behavior...Or maybe I need to invest the $40 in some good therapy, haha.
So, I will tentatively say that my first weigh in was "sort of" a success. I don't feel very confident about it though. Any words of advice? For those who weigh themselves at home, how do you deal with the inaccuracies of the scale?
I've never been to a meeting and have always used the same WW scale at home... so I really never have any inaccuracy issues.
ReplyDeleteI would say just take the weight you saw this morning and stick with the same scale. A loss is a loss no matter how much you weigh. I just try and not focus on the overall number so much.
You've come such a long way! ....but keep going! :P
I weigh myself almost daily, and use this scale: http://tinyurl.com/26u9a4q (amazon.com). It's normally $50 but on sale for $28 with free shipping, and it gives me the same number I get at my WW meeting. It weighs you to the .2 pound.
ReplyDeleteI'd say as long as you are using the same scale, zero-ed in the same way, you should be OK. If you weigh yourself next week on the scale you used today, and the number goes down, you're OK. :)
I use a WW brand scale at home (though I weigh-in at meetings).
ReplyDeleteI think you're a little obsessed with the scale! If you're going to weigh at home, just pick a scale and go with it. It doesn't matter what the readout is as long as you're sticking to the same scale-- it'll be "accurate."
Do you have a small dumbbell? That's how I figured out that my scale is pretty right-on. It weighed my 10 pound dumbbell at exactly 10 pounds. :-)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the loss!
Leah, I weighed my cat the other day, haha. It says she weighs about 11 pounds, lol. I thought that sounded about right. But the dumbbell idea sounds a little more accurate, lol.
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ReplyDelete* I had to delete my 1st comment. My brain is not functioning yet. Lol
ReplyDeleteLeah I like the dumbbell idea. That's a great way to double check.
Katie - If I were you I'd go to Walmart.com and look at the scales they sell online. You can get a good one for about $25.00 and a lot of the time shipping is either $1 or a little more. It would drive me nuts to have a non-digital scale. If you decide to stick with this one then just make sure to not move it around a lot and that it is zero out before each WI. I can relate to how that would make you a little crazy because it would have the same effect on me.
Congrats on the loss this week.
I think you need to find a way to lessen your obsession with the scale. Whether you go to meetings, therapy or continue your WI's at home - you need to figure out how to stop stressing so much over 3 numbers.
ReplyDeleteIf you continue weighing at home, I would suggest buying a digital scale - the non-digital ones can be tricky because you need to make sure you zero them out correctly every single time. You could get wonky results weekly because you are using a scale that isn't that easy to operate accurately.
Katie - agree with others, maybe buy a diff (digital) scale? And only weigh yourself once on WI! I had a few WIs where I'd get on 3-4 times and have 3-4 different weights. it just makes you crazy.
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