Should I weigh myself?
This is a question I get asked all the time, so I am going to dive deeper into this topic.
It’s not a black and white answer……
Should I weigh myself?
This is not as easy question to answer as it depends on the reason why the person is weighing themselves.
For some people the number staring back at them doesn’t mean much and it doesn’t negatively impact how they feel about themselves or the thoughts they have about their body.
For those people, weighing themselves is less likely to have a negative impact on their quality of life or result in feelings of shame and/or guilt.
As a result, it probably isn’t an issue for these people to weigh themselves and the irony is that these people are less likely to regularly weight themselves.
However, if you are someone who regularly weighs themselves as a means to control/measure your success, there are a few things you might want to reflect on to help you figure out if weighing yourself is helping you achieve your goal or if it is keeping you stuck.
Are the scales keeping you stuck?
While using the scales as a measurement isn’t inherently bad, there are certain situations when it may not be the best approach for some people.
Firstly, I want to acknowledge that for a lot of people Weighing yourself can feel like it serves a purpose.
It can provide a sense of control, reassurance or as a source of motivation.
However, the part of weighing yourselves that you may not be considering is the outcome you get after you weigh ourselves.
How many times have you jumped on the scale feeling good about yourself only to see the number hasn’t moved or has went up?
Which then ruins your mood for the rest of the day.
Instead you become more fearful, insecure, anxious and more critical of your body and how you look.
If you related to any of the above, weighing yourself will not be helping you move forward or supporting you to make choices that are aligned with your values.
Do you experience any of the following?
You have constant thoughts about your body and how to change it.
You have an intense fear of weight gain or seeing the number on the scale increase.
You regularly compare your body to others and feel like yours isn’t good enough in comparison.
You avoid situations that draw attention to how you look, or you wear baggy clothes.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, it is likely that weighing yourself regularly will not be supporting your goals and is actually keeping you stuck.
Instead of helping you move forward, you are reinforcing that your body isn’t good enough.
Which is the exact opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
What can I do instead?
Bring in awareness
If you are curious to see how weighing yourself is impacting you, take some time this week to reflect how often you weigh yourself.
Each time you weigh yourself ask yourself:
What am I hoping to achieve?
What was the actual outcome?
How did I feel afterwards?
2. Reflection
When you go to weigh yourself, ask yourself these questions:
What am I trying to find out when I check my body?
Why am I checking myself so frequently?
Do I feel better after checking my body?
3. Reduction
Can you experiment with reducing the number of times you weigh yourself each week or month?
Try reducing it for one week and see what changes you have noticed since reducing this behaviour.
If you had any realisations from doing this exercise, please feel free to reach out to me via email or on social media and let me know how you got on.
I love hearing from my community.
