How To Use The Scales Effectively (And When To Put Them Away)

Have you ever been really disciplined with your food, made the right lifestyle choices and exercised regularly and then jumped on the scales only to find that your weight has stayed the same or even gone up?

Have you ever obsessed with the numbers on the scales and constantly weighed yourself throughout the day, feeling anxious about what the numbers mean?

We’ve coached thousands of people who have had WLS and one subject that comes up frequently is frustration with and anxiety around the number on the scales. We all know that scales can be an incredibly useful tool to track changes after WLS, and research also supports their use to maintain or lose weight. It’s really important however that they’re used properly and that you recognise unhealthy behaviours that might indicate that you’re actually better off without them. 

The Benefits of Scales

Scales offer one of the easiest ways to track progress after WLS, because generally a reduction in the number on the scales equates to a slimmer body. You can measure yourself with a measuring tape or go by how your clothes fit and feel, however the scales are a much faster tool to get feedback about how your body is changing and this can be incredibly motivating for some people. 

The Limitations of Scales

Scales only measure your body mass in relation to gravity. They are simply a tool to measure our gravitational pull.

Athough it can sometimes be useful to know our relationship to gravity, we can also give scales the magical ability to also measure other things - our worth, our potential, our attractiveness, our intelligence, and more. There is so much that is you that scales can't measure, (basically everything except the force of gravity on you).

With regards to wellbeing changes, scales don’t measure increased energy levels, improvements in your health, changes to your fitness level, or changes in your body shape or composition. You can be making improvements in all of these areas and yet the number on the scales might not reflect these changes. This is especially true for new exercisers who begin a strength program and who start to build new muscle. Because muscle is much denser than body fat, it’s possible to dramatically change your body shape by losing body fat and putting on muscle, and yet the scales might not change or might even go up! 

Weight change often takes time. There is a phenomenon called ‘lag time’ which is the gap between making a change and seeing the actual result. It can take time for your body to adjust to lifestyle changes, and so the numbers on the scale don’t necessarily reflect your physical and health-related lifestyle changes over the short-term. Often people become disheartened by what they perceive as a lack of progress on the scales and give up on a new habit when they are just about to see the results of their hard work!

The numbers on the scales also aren’t always accurate. Using different scales, weighing yourself at a different times of day and wearing different amounts of clothing will all have an effect on the number. The number is also hugely impacted by the amount of water in your body and by hormonal fluctuations.

For some people, scales can also lead to an unhealthy obsession. Some people find themselves weighing in all the time, multiple times a day to monitor how much this meal or that activity impacted the number, feeling anxious about the numbers or questioning their self-worth. This is a sign that the scales may be doing more harm than good - especially if a lack of success on the scales leads to destructive behaviours like emotional eating or giving up on new healthy lifestyle habits. 

How to Use Scales Effectively

If you’re going to use scales then it’s really important to do it properly. Here are our top tips:

• Use the same set of scales each time;
• Make sure the scales are on the same surface;
• Measure yourself first thing in the morning (ideally after your bowel movements). This means that you'll have had adequate time to digest and process food during your overnight fast and your weight won’t be affected by what you’ve recently eaten or haven’t processed yet;
• Weigh yourself with minimal or no clothing on (keeping it consistent each time);
• Track your weight measurements - this will allow you to see a much more accurate overall trend of your progress over the long-term;
• Always supplement the scales with other methods to track progress towards your goals and healthy lifestyle creation e.g. body measurements, the fit of your clothes, fitness tests, energy levels, your level of confidence, sleep quality and so on;
• Focus only on your progress and not on the progress of others because everyone loses weight at different speeds and what counts is the long-term trend;
• If you are going in the opposite direction to the one you want over the long-term, see this as feedback that you may need to change a few variables, rather than seeing it as an indication of failure or a lack of being 'enough'.

How Often Should You Weigh Yourself?

There are different schools of thought here. For most people, weighing yourself once a week is sufficient to track the long-term trend. Your daily weight can change drastically, especially because of daily water fluctuations. Weighing yourself at the same time on a weekly basis will therefore tend to give you a more accurate picture, especially when you track the changes over the long-term. 

There is however some research that suggests that weighing yourself daily can contribute to greater weight loss. So if you're the kind of person who can handle seeing their weight fluctuate and it doesn’t cause anxiety or obsession then this might be a strategy to adopt. You certainly shouldn’t weigh yourself more than once per day however, and if you're finding yourself becoming obsessed or highly stressed by the what your scales say, then daily weighing is definitely not recommended. 

If you’re discouraged easily by what you’re seeing on the scales,  then you might even consider weighing yourself once a month rather than weekly or daily, to give your body more time to adapt to what you’re doing. 

Everyone is an individual and what works best for one person might not necessarily work for you, so it’s important to test and measure what is going to work best for your circumstances where the scales can be a tool to support your encouraged motivation and progress.

When to Put the Scales Away

If weighing yourself is going to affect your mental health and your happiness, then those scales are doing more harm than good. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are the numbers on the scale, or the thought of what they could be, making you feel stressed or anxious? 
• Does using scales tend to trigger a spiral of negative thoughts and self criticism? 
• Do you become obsessed with the results?
• Do you have an urge to weigh yourself frequently throughout the day?
• Does the result on the scale impact your motivation and commitment to your healthy habits in a destructive way?

If the answer to any of the above is ‘yes’ then it might be worth ditching the scales at home. Weigh-ins can be left to meetings with your clinic so you can focus your energy on other things that make you feel healthy, empowered and happy.

If You Feel Disheartened, Shift Your Focus!

If you are being negatively impacted by the scales, the best action to take is to consciously shift your focus away from the number on the scales towards the actions that will improve your health. We have the power to control our focus and where we put our attention can hugely impact our results. Focus on doing healthy, nourishing and supportive actions instead of focusing on your so-called 'failure'. If you consistently focus on taking those actions over a long period of time then you will absolutely be heading in the right direction! Patience, trusting the process and giving our bodies time to adjust to the positive changes that we’re making is far more powerful and important than our relationship to gravity.