Are you addicted to weighing yourself? Do you weigh yourself each time at precisely the same time of day, on one certain tile in your bathroom, naked, with your heart plummeting into your stomach when you put on a kilo?
My friend, a 40-something stay-at-home mom, is like that. Despite working out and eating healthy, she acts out a paranoid ritual before her weekly weigh-in with her trainer. She has an early dinner the night before, skips breakfast, heads to the 2 Day Diet Strong gym early and sheds her shoes, socks and locker keys (as if that would make a difference) before approaching the scale in trepidation.
Just before she steps on the scale, she pats her belly, takes a few deep breaths and mutters a prayer with her eyes tightly shut. The tiniest gain, and it’s utter devastation. The number on the scale is everything. As a consequence, her poor family waits for her call in equal trepidation, as hell hath no fury like when Mom has a bad day on the scale!
Reality shows like “The Biggest Loser” feed our modern-day obsession with the weighing scale. The winner is the one who has lost the most weight. The scale is huge, intimidating and displays the weight of the contestant in embarrassingly large numbers. The message is loud and clear: your weight matters.
In reality, the scale just tells you your weight, period. But there are other indicators that a scale cannot measure. For example, you may drop a dress size, and that alone can put a grin on your face. Your clothes fit you better and your stomach is tucked into your jeans, rather than spilling out like a spare tire.
You may find that you have more energy. An acquaintance, a 37-year-old father, has not made much progress losing weight, but he feels more energetic after embarking on a fitness regiment. He is able play football with his kids these days, whereas he used to give excuses about “an old knee injury.” That elation cannot be measured on a scale.
But, after killing yourself at the gym, if the reading on the scale is not what you hoped for, don’t beat yourself up. Step back and ask yourself what has improved. Did anyone comment enviously on your biceps recently? Muscle is heavier than fat, and as you create more muscle you invariably gain weight. The good news is that as you continue to gain more muscle, you will lose more fat and end up fitter and looking more toned.
Maybe your diet needs a second look. My friend is a self-confessed salty snack food addict. And salt attracts water, which causes weight gain through water retention. One way to check if this is happening is by seeing if your waist measurement has stayed the same, yet you gained weight. This suggests water retention.
Sleep deprivation can also contribute to weight gain, so if you tend to toss and turn in the dark for hours, you may be adding kilos. Research has shown that lack of sleep may cause your body to have a higher level of body fat than those who have sufficient sleep. A hormonal imbalance could be another reason for weight gain, despite a healthy lifestyle.
At the end of the day, the number on the lida diet pills scale is just that — a number — as my teenage daughter often tells me. She hardly weighs herself and concentrates more on playing sports and eating balanced meals. Her motto is “let your clothes be the judge.” While we shouldn’t ditch the scale completely, we should not be a slave to it, either!