Sunday is the weigh-in day for the Healthy Again group at Lumpkin Road Baptist Church (the rest of you reading along who do not attend our church will just have to skip over the church-specific stuff). Here's a couple of weigh-in tips that apply to anyone.
1. There is a lot of debate over whether or not you should weigh every day. Some weight loss experts discourage it, because your weight can fluctuate from day to day (women are particularly susceptible to this problem). Some encourage it to keep you on track. Personally, I do weigh every morning - not to be obsessive about it, but because I can make mid-week adjustments to my diet if I sense a slow-down in my loss. If it slows, I eliminate some of the starches from my diet, or work a little harder on exercise, or make some other change. As part of the Augusta's Biggest Loser competition, our official weigh-in is once a week, but our nutrition center weighs us two other times a week. They only see their regular clients once a week, but because we are in a competition, they don't want to wait a week to see about changing our food plan. If there's a problem, it shows up in a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks.
2. To get an accurate weight each time on the scale, the following may be helpful:
- Wear the same (or similar) clothing each time you weigh. If you are weighing in at the church on Sunday, this may be difficult. Just do the best you can.
- Weigh at the same time each time you weigh in. There can be as much as a four-pound difference between what you weigh in the morning and what you weigh in the evening.
- If you began by weighing without shoes, make sure you weigh without shoes each time.
- When you step on the scale, stand up straight, look forward, and exhale. It's best to have someone else look at the dial / display for you, because when you lean forward to see your numbers, you are most likely going to put too much pressure on the front of the scale, which can distort your number either up or down. Swallow your pride and let someone else record your weight loss.
- Tempting as it may be, don't try any "tricks" to artificially get your number down before you face the scale. Boxers and wrestlers know all the tricks to get their weight just exactly what it needs to be for the moment they have to weigh in. As far as I know, there are no boxers or wrestlers in our group. Don't delay more than one meal to face the scale (for example, if you weigh on Sunday night, postponing dinner until after the weigh-in is fine), but don't starve yourself on Sunday to get a good number. You could slow your metabolism down and make it more difficult for the pounds to come off later.
Eat right, drink right, exercise right, and let the scale worry about itself!
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