In my experience, weighing myself is detrimental to achieving the ultimate goal of fat loss. I don’t do it anymore. I mean, maybe in like three months I’ll check in, but other wise I’ll just stick with the ''Do my clothes still fit?" method.
I am always fascinated by people who don’t weigh themselves all the time when they are trying to lose weight. I do it damn near every day.
Yeah, I get fluctuations but usually only a pound or so. And it’s nice to see the lower numbers as they happen.
I think it is because I drink a ridiculous amount if fluids (about 4 litres or a gallon a day). I don’t have a retaining water problem.
I like data, so I weigh myself everyday. I don’t let the everyday fluctuations bother me, I look more to the moving average (statistics, baby!). I’d rather see a 200 gram gain overnight than a 2 kg gain over a fortnight, and at my current weight, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference just by the way my clothes fit. So although I won’t despair over that 200 gram gain, I will take action if it doesn’t disappear in a couple of days.
I wonder if my fluctuations are due to a faulty scale. 
Even more reason not to trust it.
Supposedly, I’m going to be starting my period this week so it could just be water retention from PMS. I have none of my usual symptoms, though, and I’ve been irregular for most of my life so I can’t bank on that. Ugh, who knows.
It’s funny how when that number goes down, I have so much energy and I’m so gung-ho about the new lifestyle I lead, and when it goes up I doubt everything and feel awful. Hopefully, this is PMS messing with my thinking and I’m not actually that unhealthily fixated on a number.
If you’re getting a different number when stepping on one time after the other, then yes, get some new scales!
Yay! This is awesome. 
This evening I’m going to re-join the Y for water aerobics. I’m a bit nervous because the Wednesday night class is at a Y that I’ve never been to before, but still I think it should be fun.
ETA: Forgot to say I’m trying to only weigh myself once a week because, yeah, I’d let day to day fluctuations bother me too much.
I just know from my experience with myself, those numbers have way more impact on me psychologically than they ought to. I do want to lose weight, but weight loss isn’t my focus. I’ve been down the ''lose X # of pounds" road countless times and it just made me miserable. I like this way so much better because it’s not, ''Did I lose X pounds?" it’s ''how many times did I exercise this week?"
As for my progress, it’s been about one week with No Sweets in the House and lately I haven’t been craving them. I haven’t been depriving myself of food, but I’ve been a little hungry. I’m going out to eat on Saturday and a Baby Shower on Saturday.
I unfroze my gym membership even though the new location hasn’t opened near me. With my new job, I have Wednesdays off, so I can work out three times a week without sacrificing sleep. It’s been months, and I’m set for a nurse’s re-evaluation as well as the trainer.
Overall I’m feeling really great.
Cool!
Glad to hear you’re doing better, olives!
I had a really shitty week last week. I had Problems at Home and was doing a lot of emotional eating, which means a handful here and a handful there and not tracking any of it. I didn’t do an official weigh-in, but I stepped on the scale anyway and gained around 2 lbs. (The scale said 4, but I was wearing more clothes than I usually do when I weigh.) Things are better this week; I’ve got the handfuls of stuff out of reach (literally; I have to get a step stool to get the cereal off the top of the cabinet.) and I’m exercising like crazy.
So I took the group tracker for the week. So far, I’ve been able to plan a lot of my food in advance, including tonight because it’s the sprog’s birthday. Fortunately, the sprog’s choice of restaurants is acceptable because they’ve got shellfish and vegetables. (It’s a local Benihana-type Japanese hibachi restaurant.) I just had to factor in a slice of birthday cake, and since I made it at home from a box, it’s a lot lower fat and the pieces are a lot smaller. Oh, and the cake is going to stay at Gramma’s so I don’t have to look at it.
Ok, ha ha ha. So, I said I was going to join the Y last night and there was a delay due to financial stuff, but it will be resolved next week.
And, I said I was only going to weigh myself once a week and I weighed myself this morning. But that’s because I know I’ve got several special events this weekend and I was hoping for a good weigh-in to encourage me to keep heading in the right direction.
Glad this week is going better, Ms. Robyn and, yes, good thing the birthday cake is staying away. I’m making TWO of my favorite desserts for a party this weekend and I’m definitely donating all the leftovers to the cause. 
Oh, and so far I’ve lost 12 pounds!
I was rather insistent on leaving the cake at Gramma’s house. She wanted me to take it home so I could bring it back for her picnic on Sunday, mostly so her husband doesn’t pick at it until then. My attitude about that is “it’s not my problem if he does that; it’s only my problem if I do that”, so I suggested that she put it in the freezer so it’s out of his sight and his mind, but I was clear that I really didn’t want it at my house. (There’s still a good bit of frosting left in the can, but I think spoonfuls of canned frosting are gross, so I can leave it alone.)
Oh god, that reminded me. A couple of years ago I had an incident where I suddenly had to have German chocolate cake frosting (the kind with sweetened condensed milk, coconut, and pecans), but I didn’t feel like making it myself. I thought, surely Pillsbury or somebody makes this stuff in a can, but…it would be too much to buy a can of frosting just for myself, right? So I waited a few days, the craving did not abate, I waited a few more days, craving continued…by now, I had built the idea of this frosting up in my head to ambrosial status. Finally, one night I caved and bought it. Brought it home and got my favorite spoon and ripped open the lid and dug in.
It tasted like melted plastic. Absolutely disgusting. Nothing about the flavor signaled that this was actually edible and not some kind of industrial spackle.
What a waste of gluttony.
I’m up to running 27 minutes at an 11.5-minute mile. I need to get it up to 35 minutes to pull off my 5K on Labor Day.
Also, I wanted to plug an app I’ve been loving recently. It’s called BodyFate. It’s only available for iPhone. Basically, it’s like a trainer in your pocket. You tell it your fitness level, the length of time you want to work out, and the equipment you have (and yes, nothing is an option–great for hotel room workouts). It then has you do things like pick Door A or Door B, spin a wheel, choose a cartoon trainer, whatever. Based on the choice you made, you get a workout. They give you a little video illustration of how to do it. You do one set (or the duration–some are timed) and immediately move on to the next. You get a certain amount of 60 second rests to use as you need, and one pass to skip an exercise. You also have the ability to earn more passes by answering fitness-related trivia, but if you get it wrong, you have to do jumping jacks. It’s awesome. By the end of 20 minutes, I’m sweaty and comfortably sore.
I was at 86 pounds lost this morning. Not really the reason I’m posting here, though.
I feel like giving up. Yeah, I’ve done well, and I have a long way to go, but… It just doesn’t seem worth it. Still fat. Still ugly. Still unhealthy. I denied myself a really tasty BBQ dinner tonight, and while any other night I’d at least feel accomplished, tonight I just felt… Denied. Same with my walking this week. Yeah, I can walk a mile and change now. Who cares? Doesn’t do a damn thing for me anymore.
I dunno. Guess I’m posting here for the ‘support’ part of the thread.
It sounds like you’re in a rut and need to shake things up a bit.
I’ve been riding my bike for 20 miles or so each time, and I’m trying to ride 5-6 days a week. I have a route that I know is 20 miles, but sometimes I go down a different road for a change in scenery or a different challenge. You might try mapping out different routes for your walk to change the scenery or work out a goal based on x miles in y days or some such. Right now, my goal is to ride 250 miles by the third week of August. It’s a doable goal, and for September, I’m going to set the goal at 350 miles. I use mapmywalk.com, which allows you to create routes on their website. They also have a GPS-based app for iPhone and Android that records your route for mileage, speed, and time, which is extremely helpful. (Also, you can use the GPS feature in case you get lost.) It’s free, but there is a paid subscription available.
In terms of food, if you want it, eat it, just make sure the portions are appropriate. There is no reason at all to subsist on plain baked chicken breasts and broccoli. The point is to make better choices, but one of those choices is to eat what you want and mind the portion size. I do this all the time. I’d rather eat a little of something I like and want than a lot of something I don’t.
I’ve got a backpack here with 86 pounds of potatoes in it, perhaps you’d like to wear it for a day?
Seriously though, congratulations on your loss, that is a significant amount of weight and I’m sure it’s taken a significant amount of time to lose. Is it possible that you’ve forgotten how it was back before you started losing the weight? Us human beings seem very quick to adjust to improvements in our lives and accept them as the new norm.
Hell- you have lost 86 pounds? That is something to be over the moon about. Okay, you feel like you need to lose more and if you persevere you will. To be able to lose that weight for yourself is really something else.
I really struggle to lose ten pounds. then I see posts like yours when you have shed multiple times that and I know I can do what I want to.
I saw this picture on another site and it made me laugh knowingly.
Actually the thread that created that image might be of interest to people. Link
From the OP:
I like this post a lot:
What you described is pretty much how I’ve come to think of it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life obsessed wtih some perfect ideal. I will go as slowly as I have to in order to make healthy behavior a permanent part of my life.
Went back to the gym today for the first time in four months. Unsurprisingly, my BMI increased (I’m still at the high end of “overweight”) and I gained 11 pounds. Weirdly, though, I lost 4% body fat… so I must have packed on some muscle somehow. I really don’t plan to weigh myself until our next check-in in three months.
No Sweets in the House is a lot easier lately, though I have to admit that dark chocolate trick does in a pinch. The only unhealthy thing I ate this week was some soda at lunch, and that is only because I was profoundly sleep deprived (started my new job… 10 hour shifts, 3 hours of driving a day, Olympics on til midnight, etc.) I have decided to drink cafeinated tea in the mornings and when I’m groggy instead of soda.
I feel pretty terrible right now, to be honest with you. My body is completely worn out and I am way behind on sleep. I am focusing on rest this weekend.
I didn’t know there was a weight loss thread on these boards! Neat.
I was 275 pounds or so in high school and about 5’9" or so. Then at the end of high school my equally obese mum and grandma wanted to try LA weight loss after hearing and ad on the radio for it. However, they wouldn’t let them try the program because of their heart medication, some sort of liability thing. So Antonio was appointed diet guinea pig, while they would follow along. I managed to get all the way down to 207, while they lost nothing but their cheerful demeanors. That was 2005.
Then the weight slowly began to creep back, and I was hovering around 215 the past year or so. During the Christmas season, I got up to 220, and I was at my wits end. I decided to sign up for weight watchers online, after Charles Barkley convinced me it was cool. From the last week of January until the end of my semester (i.e., end of April) I went from 220 to 190. A lot of it was really simple stuff; I switched from cream and sugar in my coffee to 2% milk. Instead of bagels or muffins at breakfast, I’d have a cookie or a granola bar. And I very tightly regulated my snack intake, too!
I weigh myself once a week, on a Saturday morning. Sometimes other times during the week, but those night weighings are unofficial and unsanctioned! They do more to undermine your confidence than anything else.
So yeah, hi all!