In my previous post, I wrote about why it was important and useful to weigh yourself daily, if you were trying to lose weight But it is not without its challenges. Let's see what they are and how to overcome them.
The first challenge is reliability. So buy a scale from a reputed brand. More importantly, use the SAME scale to weigh yourself every day, and weigh yourself at approximately the same time. I do it after I wake up and finish answering nature's call. The body's weight varies by a 4-5 pounds every day! So if you weigh yourself in the morning one day and after lunch the next, the figures are not 100% comparable. Even small things make a difference. A big glass of water adds one pound to your weight. And even if you go to the toilet to relieve yourself, you can lose half a pound or more!
The second challenge, that when you are trying to diet, the weight loss does not happen uniformly. Some days you might lose one pound (about half a kilo), other days more, some days less. Inexplicably some days you can even put on weight. The important thing is not to get discouraged by this, but to stick to the system. The body is a very sophisticated mechanism and it is maintaining an internal balance that we don't know enough about. Weight is just one of the parameters it is managing. Even the amount of sleep you get (or the quality of sleep) can affect your weight. So - weigh yourself daily and keep track of it - but don't get upset if it doesn't seem to be going the way you want on any particular day. STICK TO THE PROGRAM
Another point is that losing weight is not just about losing kg or pounds. It can be about losing inches as well. So its a good idea to measure yourself using a measuring tape and keep records of that as well. That will show you improvements that will keep you motivated, even if the weighing scale seems to be telling a different story. Here's my chart when I was trying to lose weight
When losing weight, it is also important to take care that we are losing mostly fat and not losing muscle. I will address that in a future blog post. But the final question we must answer is - if there are daily fluctuations in our weight, do we know why? As mentioned above, it is not always apparent - sometimes it seems to happen for no reason. But most of the time it is for good reason. And how do we find that out? Maintain a Food Journal. More about that in my next blog post next week!
Cheers- Peter
(p.s. Image in the blog post courtesy Theme inn )