The Reasons Why You Should Throw Your Scale Out when Trying to Lose Weight

You worked out all week; you watched your diet with the preciseness of a diamond cutter. You wake up without the alarm on Saturday ready to get on the scale and start your day of joy. You take off all your clothes, take a deep breath, and step on the scale. You are afraid to look but you get the courage to do so after a couple of seconds and you look down. Disbelief smacks you in the face, you did not lose weight, and in fact you gained a pound. What happens now to most people on diets is they give up. They worked so hard and it did not present the results they wanted so they return to their fast food lifestyle until they get fed up again.

Stop putting so much faith on a simple machine. If your toaster burned your last piece of bread would you give up eating breakfast? Of course not, so why do you allow the scale to have so much power, and does it deserve it?

The scale gives you one simple number, what you weigh, nothing else. Your body weight consists of two things: body fat and lean mass. The scale does not break these down for you, so why does every diet book tell you to go by the scale weight to measure success? The reason why is because diet books are counting on word of mouth and when you begin any program that restricts your calories to lose weight, you will lose weight, and probably lose it fast, but then something happens. Your body adjusts to the new calorie deficiently and goes into starvation mode, and your weight loss stops. Now during those first couple weeks of weight loss you are flying, telling everyone you see that you lost all this weight loss diet, and then they go buy a copy of the book you read, and so on down the line, making so called experts rich in the process. The problem is the weight you are losing during this process is mostly water, some fat, and a great deal of muscle. Why is this important? Some people say weight is weight who cares if its muscle.

Two men of similar height stand on a scale and weight 170lbs. According to the scale they are the same health. Here is the difference; Man A has 120 lean body mass and 50 pounds of fat, while Man B has 150 of lean mass and 20 lbs of fat. Man A is considered obese while Man B would be in excellent condition. This is why the scale should be thrown out. Now if you are saying to yourself, but I spent all this money on a scale, why should I toss it? Ok, do not toss it but follow the following guide instead of using the scale as your sole means of measurement.

Buy a Myotape and measure every week. Myotape is a fancy name for tape measure that allows you to reduce the tension and get excellent measures by pushing a button (like when you pull the cord on a vacuum). Use this to measure your neck, arms, waist, hips, thigh, calves, and chest and do it weekly and one more thing and please remember this: WRITE IT DOWN. Nothing is more useless then doing something and not writing it down for future comparisons.

The next purchase you need to make is a body fat caliper. They sell for about $14 and are the closest thing to 100% accuracy you can get without spending hundreds on an underwater method (as seen on Celebrity Fit Club). Use these the same time you measure and write them down as well. Bodyfat is your true measurement; the number you should focus on. Getting down to the teens is ideal for most people, higher for the ladies, and lower for those crazy folks who like to compete.

Ok so you still have the scale and those are fine, but use it in accordance with these other tools. Without these tools the number on the scale might as well be in a different language because it tells you nothing!!

A couple more tricks of the trade that will help compliment your scale is as follows: Pictures, clothing, and an honest partner.
I am a sure you all heard about the before and after pictures and have seen them to advertise every diet pill out there. Now those pictures are not exactly used in the most moral sense (that is another article) but the idea is good. Take weekly pictures, and put them around your house. Of course at first they might make you cringe, but once you start seeing the results, picture day will be a welcome event. Make sure you take the pictures in the same lighting, at the same time of day. The best plan is first thing in the morning, go to the bathroom, take off your clothes, and measure, weigh, and take pictures.

Clothing is a great indicator of weight. If you are losing weight, your clothes will become looser, shirts will hang off, and a belt will have to come into play. Belts are great too because they have destination spots built right in, the loop holes will tell a story of where you have been on the weight challenge. Some people will frame their old belts and pants and put it somewhere noticeable for them to remind them where they were. In addition do not underestimate the power of a shopping spree. Losing weight means clothes do not fit, throw them out (or give them away) and go buy new clothes. These must be clothes that will not fit if you start to gain the weight back.

The final step I would suggest is listening to your partner, or friend. As long as you have an honest friend or partner, tell them you want their true opinion about how you are looking. They will tell because they care about your well being.

Remember that the scale is ok in theory, but do not count on it to tell you the truth, at least not the whole truth. Do other measurements to help compliment the number and never, regardless of what anything or anybody says, give up. When you do not lose weight, that is not a failure, it is simply a result, use that result to fine tune your program and try again.