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Make Friends With Your Scale

By Prevention.com

Intro
If you're like me, you haven't exactly been friends with your scale. Let's face it: If a scale were a person, it would be that tactless co-worker who thinks being "honest" is more important than being polite. A scale is like the cop who gave you a ticket instead of a warning, or the math teacher who lowered your test score because you misspelled isosceles.

Personally, I don't like scales because none of them say I weigh 124 pounds. There, I've said it: my secret magic number, the one that would make me happiest to see. I know you have one, too. Chances are, it's not what your scale is saying, and that's why you don't like scales, either.

Ask women what they weigh, and they're evasive--even when they are enviably thin. My friend Nora, who is both a gourmand and a weekend warrior, considers her weight "too personal" and won't weigh herself at the gym if anyone--including me--is within 50 feet, because we might be able to see the number.

This same woman, mind you, cheerfully pays $60 for a Brazilian bikini wax every 2 months. Apparently, exposing one's privates to a stranger so she can dab hot wax on them is nothing compared to the pain and humiliation involved if one's weight is revealed to the guy stacking the fresh towels.

But I can see her point, which is probably why we're friends. And also why, when I dare to weigh myself on the gym scale, I step off, then surreptitiously (and childishly) slide the weights down to 124 for the next woman to see.

As is the case with most dysfunctional relationships, I've gone from indifference toward my scale to love, and back again. Now that I'm past 40, we're in the loathing stage, but I'm trying to make amends. To that end, I've decided to finally rid myself of the 10 extra pounds that are needlessly, rudely, wrongly packed around my hips and waist.

As it happens, science says I'm wise to buddy up to my scale: According to the National Weight Control Registry, which tracks dieters' ups and downs, the majority of people who successfully lose weight and keep it off for more than a year weigh themselves at least once a week, and 38 percent hit the scales daily. I want to be one of those people.

Happier Scale Days
When I was in my early 20s, I effortlessly hovered around a weight that pleased me. I was proud that I didn't own a scale and certainly wasn't nervous about stepping on one.

At the doctor's office, I'd tell the nurse to "take off 2 or 3 pounds for these boots" before I stomped on the pad. Now I take off my shoes, socks, belt, watch, and earrings--more than is required by even the most stringent airport security. Then I gingerly ease myself on, sneaking up on it because I'm sure (aren't you?) that the scale might jump to a heavier weight with any sudden movement on my part and then just stick there for all the world (i.e., the nurse) to see.

The scale and I started having serious problems 10 years ago, when I ran the New York City Marathon. I dropped from my ideal weight of 124 to a scary 117. Then I spent a year boxing every day and bounced up to 130--muscular, but not the magic number.

The big breakup came 8 years ago, when I stopped training in the boxing gym and began to spar instead with gourmet food and wine. When I fretted over the rising numbers, friends told me, "Your metabolism slows down as you age." Great. I am not only heavier than I want to be but also older. Yes, thank you. I feel much better now.

Off and on, I tried to shed those insidious pounds, but the scale still wasn't my ally. Stepping on and seeing you're heavier than you'd anticipated is so much worse than a bad-hair day. It could be argued that both are temporary, but we all know that bad hair can be fixed in an hour with a trip to the hairdresser. There's no quick fix after a bad weigh-in. Mr. Scale has no empathy. He doesn't praise you for passing up that glass of wine last night, but he sure does remind you of the six cookies you didn't dodge. Some friend.

Another obstacle to reuniting with a scale is that it's simply not in vogue to say you care about a number. We're told, "It's so arbitrary! It could be water weight. It could be muscle mass." Wanting to weigh 124 again, whether it's water, muscle, bone, or hair, seems reasonable to me. But when I bravely confessed this to a personal trainer at my gym, I was exhorted to "focus instead on a healthy goal" and to concentrate on achieving a lower resting heart rate. This bit of silliness made me want to ask, Why is it acceptable to want to fit into size-8 pants or shave 1 minute off your mile but not okay to want to see a certain number on the scale? My own informal poll of about 20 women found that all except one (Susan--I'll get to her in a moment) admitted that though they say they have other fitness goals, the only thing that really counts is pounds gained or lost. My survey results were confirmed, more or less, by SparkPeople.com, a weight loss Web site, which reported that 35 of its members responding to an online poll named "the scale" as their number one source of motivation ("compliments" came in a distant second).

My poll also confirmed that women care much less about their BMI, or body mass index (a measure of body fat), than they do about the number. "My husband gave me a fat-measuring scale for my birthday," says Ann, a cookbook author and mother of two in Connecticut. "How festive. I prefer my old scale, which tells me I've lost 5 pounds in the past few months by not snacking after dinner."

Susan, who's quite svelte, explains it this way: "Body-fat numbers are as vague an indicator of how you're doing as cholesterol is, because you can have high body fat (and lousy lipid levels) and still look good in clothes." Susan demonstrates her disdain for the fat-measuring scale by closing her eyes if she's forced to get on and by instructing others not to tell her the reading. "I just go by how my clothes fit," she explains.

The women I spoke to who owned a scale said they weighed themselves every single morning. "I check in daily to make sure I'm maintaining my weight or hopefully losing a few pounds," says Melissa, who once weighed 235 pounds and is now holding her own at 163. Turns out, Melissa and company are on to something, according to cardiologist Robert Rosati, MD, director of the Rice Diet Program and an associate professor emeritus at Duke University.

Weighing yourself gives you important feedback, information you need to keep on doing the good things you've been doing. "You should weigh yourself every day," says Rosati. You'll find that your weight is lowest on a certain day, usually Thursday. Assess your progress on that day. If you haven't achieved your goal--losing or maintaining weight--then you need to review your program and make adjustments to your dietary intake and/or exercise.

A Better Weigh
Okay, so I set three new goals for myself: I'd buy a scale, I'd weigh myself every morning, and I'd no longer feel unhealthy about wanting to weigh a specific number. Consequently, I set out to buy a new, state-of-the-art scale.

But shopping for one in public was the worst of all possible worlds. I was in a bustling housewares store, wearing a heavy jacket and boots, and although I wanted to see the readouts of the floor models, I couldn't quite bring myself to stand on any of them because of what passersby might have seen (though it also seemed ridiculous to strip down). So what did I do? I knelt, pressing down on each of them with my hands. Which told me nothing except that I could make the readout go up to 34 if I pushed really hard.

Fortunately, I found a greater selection of scales online, a shopping venue that certainly affords more dignity than crouching furtively in an aisle. For those who need a cheerleader (who doesn't?), weight-tracking scales are now available.

According to Jennifer Hansard, marketing director for Health o meter: "You step on and instantly see what you weigh and how much you've gained or lost since the last saved weigh-in and how much more you need to lose. If you're 20 percent closer to your goal, the scale readout shows one star. When you reach your goal, there are five stars." We can only dare hope that in the future, such a scale will also print out a day-of-beauty spa certificate for those five-star moments.

Talking scales, designed to make those bleary-eyed morning weigh-ins easier, are another type on the market. But they're not for everyone--especially me.

"Initial reports from consumers indicated that some female customers were horrified at the idea of having their weight announced," explains Hansard. "There's a privacy factor."

Understandable: You and your husband have been having sex and filing a joint tax return, and he's seen you naked in daylight and sick as a dog. But having him hear the scale when it's saying the number is going too far.

My scale search ended when I found one that would satisfy both my husband's interest in measuring body fat and my desire for a programmable memory. I found it gratifying to be able to enter my goal weight and not hear a lecture. In the 5 weeks since the scale arrived, I've seen how daily weigh-ins, with their slight upticks and sharp drops or vice versa, are much like investing in the stock market. It's okay to be aware of the daily trends but smarter to focus on how they influence and contribute to your long-term benefit.

And they do. Going through the day with that morning's number in my head has made me more aware of my body and the consequences of my actions. It's made me routinely ask myself whether I'm eating out of habit, laziness, or real need. Maybe I don't have to eat the other half of the sandwich if I'm not hungry anymore. And I don't really have to eat up the whole brick of Cheddar along with half a box of crackers. To my surprise, I've lost 7 pounds since I got the scale. This is definitely the start of a beautiful friendship.