Does it help or hinder your weight loss efforts to step on a scale regularly? Arguments can be made for both sides. Stepping on the scale can help to keep you on track. It can help you to know if what you are doing is working. It can let you know if a couple of pounds have crept on without you being aware. Sure, it can help you to lose weight.
On the other hand, as most seasoned dieters can tell you, sometimes weight loss is a slow business. Sometimes the scale does not register any loss for what seems like weeks, months, years. It can be very discouraging and it can cause some dieters to throw in the towel and give up their weight loss aspirations altogether because it seems to be impossible.
But here is something new to think about. In the December issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine a new study reports that dieters who weighed themselves regularly shed more pounds over a 2 year period than the people who didn’t weigh themselves. The dieters who weighed themselves daily lost the most.
So what does weighing yourself daily do for your dieting efforts? One problem is that when you step on the scale daily and it consistently shows a loss it becomes fun to step on the scale and you can get excited about it. However, if you step on the scale and it stays the same or worse, shows a gain in weight, it becomes less fun, more discouraging, and more likely to derail your efforts, especially if you have been dieting and exercising faithfully.
But this study gives us more to consider. The study looked at statistics from two distinct groups. One was a group of 1800 overweight adults enrolled in a weight loss trial and the other was 1226 adults in a weight gain prevention trial. After one year the monthly, weekly and daily weighers all lost weight but the daily weighers lost the most. The interesting thing is that the ones who never weighed themselves gained weight.
So maybe its time to figure out how to make the scale a friend rather than a foe!
