My Health Challenge Journey

Scale OCD

“What the heck is scale OCD,”  you might ask? Or you may be saying, “Me Too!”  Scale OCD is when you have an addiction to weighing-in daily.  It probably isn’t a real illness for real, but it sounds good:)

All fitness and weight-loss experts tell us not to use the number on the scale as a guide to how much success we are having at losing or gaining weight.  We’ve all heard the saying, “Muscle weighs more than fat” so it can throw your numbers off.  “Measure your losses by how your clothes are fitting.”  I know these are great tips, but still have a driving need to weigh-in daily.

Long before I even started losing weight I weighed-in daily.  I don’t really know why, because the numbers were doing nothing but going up and down by a pound or so. It was just something I did.

If you are anything like me, it takes a minimum of losing 15 pounds before there is a drop in size of clothing.  That is a whole lot of pounds to wait to know your going in the right direction.  Sure my clothes were slightly getting looser along the way, but I still needed to have a number to see it. Thus, my desire to still use the scale as my guide.

I will say that I have learned an awful lot about how different types of food and hormones will affect my number on the scale daily.  I know that if I eat a chinese food dinner, I will weigh at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.  If I eat a lot of sugary treats after a whole week of none, I will weigh at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.  At a certain time in a month, I will weigh in at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.

The great thing about weighing in daily, is that I am no longer surprised by ‘jumps’ on the scale, therefore I no longer get frustrated and just quite trying to lose.  And that is why I accept that I have Scale OCD, and am not looking for any interventions:)