I generally encourage this kind of thinking and though far less exact, using metrics like "how do your clothes fit?" and "how strong do you feel?" to determine health and fitness changes instead of simply, how much weight you've lost. That doesn't mean we should just throw out our scales though. Measuring and tracking your weight still has plenty of value. The key is just not to obsess too completely about it and turn it into a negative experience. Here are 6 tips to keep in mind:
1) Don't Weigh Yourself Every Day
Unless there is some medical reason to do it, I don't think you should weigh yourself every day. Weight loss usually does not function like a steady grade. Your results might be all over the place and you don't get a clear picture with such a high frequency of weigh-ins. I would recommend doing it every week. You still probably won't see a steady grade, but it will give you a better sense of where you're going. Just make sure it is the same day of the week. So if it's Mondays, weigh yourself every Monday.
2) Weigh Yourself First Thing in the Morning
Along those lines, your weight will likely fluctuate wildly throughout the day, depending on many different factors. Best way to ensure that those factors are not affecting your number is to weigh yourself immediately after you wake up. Don't do anything before. Just get up and step on the scale. It is true your weight will likely go up throughout the day so it gives you the lowest possible number but if we're tracking progress, this will be the clearest method.
3) Eliminate As Many Variables As Possible
And along THOSE lines, we want to eliminate as many variables as possible so the number on the scale is as true as it can be. Use the same scale, make sure the settings don't change, and get naked. Or at the very least, wear the same clothes you wear every time you do it. If you normally take/don't take a shower or go/don't go to the bathroom before you step on the scale, stick with that and don't change. Also make sure that you don't do anything drastically different the day before that might affect your reading. For instance, if you weigh yourself every Monday morning upon waking, don't go out drinking on a Sunday night. Or eat a bunch of super salty food when you usually don't do that on Sundays. Of course those are both wonderful Sunday activities so if they happen from time to time, maybe make your weigh day Wednesday when your eating and drinking behavior are a little more consistent and manageable. If that's not your lifestyle, that is okay. Just know that things like that will make a huge difference. Not just for calories but how you retain water. Eating out usually means a lot more sodium and can add a lot of water weight. Drinking a lot of alcohol can dehydrate you. These things will have an affect on your weigh-in. May not be a huge difference but can definitely add/subtract pounds. Healthy weight loss is generally considered a pound or 2 a week so that can drastically skew your results.
4) Don't Get Too High, Don't Get Too Low
As I mentioned earlier, weight loss doesn't necessarily work on a gradual, steady grade, even if you're doing all the right things and sticking to your plan perfectly. And everybody's body is different. If you weigh yourself every week and discover that you haven't lost any pounds one week despite all your hard work, don't get discouraged! Maybe you will lose 0 pounds one week, 5 the next. Or maybe you won't lose any weight for a while because your body is still adapting to diet and exercise changes but then it starts to steadily drop. Or you even gain some weight from building muscle. No matter how much you limit your variables, there WILL be variables and this is not an exact science. I will say this again (and again and again): every body is different. What works for someone else may not work for you. Or it may not work in the same way it does for them. You can't go into this with those kind of expectations or you will likely be disappointed.
Plus, getting down on yourself will not help you. If you are not sticking to your plan to lose weight, you can try to use this to motivate and rededicate yourself but apart from that, that negative part of your brain is not your friend. It will tell you all kinds of things that aren't necessarily true. And certainly not productive. So if you find yourself deflated on weigh day, put it out of your mind and start working towards next week. You can do this. It's not gonna be easy but you can do it. Maybe it's harder for you than everybody else. Maybe you got dealt a bad hand and have issues other people do not. But you CAN do it! Don't let anyone, including yourself, tell you otherwise!!
On the flip side, if you step on the scale and see that your hard work has paid off, maybe you even get to your goal weight, GREAT! You should be very proud. Celebrate in some way even. But don't get too high either. Even if you do hit that goal, you probably want to sustain it. Or just because you had a good week or two or ten, doesn't mean you are "through the woods." Again, this is not easy. And it's not going to be easy. It is work and don't let complacency stop all of that great momentum you have been building up.
5) Monitor Your Energy Levels
No matter how you feel about food or particular macronutrients like carbs and protein, we use food for fuel. Changes to your diet will likely lead to changes in your energy levels. Especially at first. This is true of exercise as well. Can go both ways. Can give you more energy, can make you more tired, and once more, your body's initial reaction it may be different than once it gets settled in. The idea here is to just monitor it in some way. Maybe if you keep a food journal (highly recommended), you can just note what your overall energy level was that day. You don't have to spend a lot of time on this. Could even just rate it on a scale of 1-10 and write in a number for each day and then if there is anything additional to say, note that separately. Then compare it to what your weight numbers are (e.g., if you lost 5 pounds one week, did you feel more tired for most of that week, etc.) This is important, as it leads to my final thought, which is in itself very important:
6) Sustainability
I know there are outlier cases here where maybe somebody just wants to fit into their wedding dress and then doesn't really care what happens afterwards. Or maybe making a lower weight class for a fight that you will never compete at again or whatever but for the most part, I am guessing that if weight loss is your goal, that goal also involves keeping the weight off in the longer term. Does that mean you have to diet your whole life? No. Once you get to where you want to be, you may be able to sustain it with less restrictions but you have to be careful that the methods used to get there were not so extreme that any return to regular patterns won't destroy your hard work. So if you're doing intense workouts 5 days a week and eating only 1,200 calories a day (highly not recommended), you will almost definitely see relatively quick results but if you suddenly stop doing that, those results can reverse themselves just as quickly. Some people are able to very slowly taper something like this into a more sustainable lifestyle but plenty of others are not.
Even just for the duration of the diet period, if you are able to lose weight by making a significant dietary change but have absolutely no energy throughout the day or you find yourself getting sick more frequently or just generally feel down, I would not consider that sustainable. Time is also a major consideration. If you spend a lot of time planning meals, exercising or doing whatever you need to do for your plan, make sure you actually can make that time without it causing major stress and aggravation in your life. For these reasons and others, I would highly, highly recommend you talk to your doctor about your weight loss goals and let them know what you are planning to achieve those goals.
You can continue to keep weighing yourself indefinitely, and if that helps keep you in-line without adding extra stress and anxiety, great! But if I were you, I'd suggest doing it a lot less frequently. Like once a month. Or more. Or not at all. For me, personally, it is about those things I mentioned at the beginning. How your clothes fit, how you feel, etc. Pay attention to them and don't let numbers rule your life.
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