Sunday, January 8, 2012

Does Weighing Yourself Work?

Another Sunday gone too quickly. Today was Costco day, always exciting. You know me, as I walked in, my eyes were already scanning the aisles for free samples. I'm not going to lie, they are my absolute favorite part of going there. As my mind is wandering through the endless sample possibilities, James' eyes glanced up to end of an aisle, and then he turned back to me to see my reaction to what he had spotted. A scale. "We gonna get it?" he asked. "Ugh." I knew my answer didn't matter. He grabbed it and put it in the cart.
You may be thinking, "You don't have a scale?" Well, no. We don't have a lot of things after moving here from Arizona and leaving most behind. But, since, I have absolutely refused to buy one. When there is a scale in the house, I get super obsessed. I weigh myself at least once a day, and I get all depressed if my weight is about 2-3 pounds higher. I don't know about you, but I think that is CRAZY. I tried to think, I wonder if other people have this problem as much as I do.

Well, I scanned the internet, and, now, I'm pretty sure that just about everyone has the same obsessive problem that I do. It is actually a symptom of eating disorders, too. So I'm wondering, does weighing yourself actually mean you'll weigh less? I'm sure it does for people on a strict weight loss plan, but, for every day life?

Now, I'm not sure if there is a more recent study out there compared to this 2007 one done by the National Weight Control Registry, but it did seem reliable. The study showed that out of a group of people who lost more than 30 pounds of weight and kept it off for more than a year, the people who kept the most weight off were the ones that said they weighed themselves consistently. It's not too hard to believe ... numbers are motivating. But I'm just wondering what "consistently" is ... if there is a study that shows if someone is bound to keep more weight off when weighing themselves once or more a day rather than once a week. I'll try and find something ...

So, we left Costco today with 10 pounds of oatmeal, chicken and protein powder (literally), 4 boxes of cereal, 48 eggs, a jumbo pack of craisins, almonds, granola bars, tons more food ... and a scale. As the items rattled in the back I debated crawling back there and throwing the scale out the window and yelling something like "Freedom!" Instead, I just sat there wondering just how crazy obsessed I'm going to become.

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