Make Friends with Your Scale

If you’re like a lot of people, you have a love-hate relationship with your scale. When the number on the scale is down, you feel fantastic.

When the number on the scale is up, it can ruin your whole day.

What if I told you that the number on the scale is just data? It’s not a grade, a judgment, or an evaluation of your moral character.

When I work with clients who have weight loss goals, I hear a lot of negative self-talk and frustration related to the number on the scale.

Sometimes clients weigh themselves every day. Some don’t want to weigh themselves ever, because the number means too much.

A great way to take the focus off the number on the scale is to keep track of non-scale victories, as described in What to Do When Your Weight Loss Stalls: Focus on non-scale victories.

But it is important to know how much you weigh and which way it's trending. Weight is a leading indicator for your metabolic health, giving clues about what's happening before they show up in your bloodwork. It's also an indicator of the effect of diet and lifestyle changes.

It's equally important to keep that number in perspective and not let it mean too much. Here are some guidelines that I give my clients to take the anxiety out of weighing themselves and, instead, to use that information in a supportive way.

✅ Remember that your scale is a tool, and the number is just data, not a judgment.

✅ Your weight can vary as much as 4 pounds day-to-day because of hydration, water retention, elimination patterns, hormones, and the position of the moon. 🌝😉

✅ A lot of scales measure to the tenth (0.1) of a pound, but that level of precision is meaningless when it comes to body weight. Ignore it.

✅ Weighing once or twice a week is plenty. If it’s tempting to weigh more often for ‘motivation,’ consider how you’ll feel if the number doesn’t go your way.

✅ Weigh yourself at the same time every day, first thing in the morning if you can, to remove some of the day-to-day variability.

✅ Expect more weight loss in the first week or two, depending on your plan.  That quick win feels good, but some of that weight loss is water, and you should expect a slower pace in the weeks to come.

✅ Remember that weight loss can be slow, as little as half a pound a week for a post-menopausal woman who is doing everything right. Given that, it can take 3 or 4 weeks to see a weight trend. So stay the course.

The slower you take it off, the easier it will be to keep it off.

If you've been feeling bullied by your scale, put it in its proper place as a tool, rather than a judge.

For more about how your metabolic health affects weight, read What is Metabolic Health? And why should you care?