Happy mid-Holidays to you!

Today found me back at my desk at work, pushing the boundaries of uselessness. Seriously, how many brain cells do iced sugar cookies kill, anyway? Here's hoping that the spirulina kicks in soon, because plain coffee ain't doing it today.

I checked the scale today for the first time since prior to Christmas, and found more or less what I expected, which wasn't horrifying or anything, but ... well... "up". But I'm not freaking out. That's actually going to be a totally separate blog post, though. Before I get there, I want to explain the hows and whys of the fact that I am in the much-maligned category of compulsive scale-checker. Yes, I am well aware that fitness gurus all over the planet just felt a tremor in the force when I said that, but it's true, and I'm not ashamed. (I won't be held hostage by your scale-checking shamefest, you trainer-peoples!)

Why do I do this? Isn't daily scale-checking supposed to be the shortest path to weight gain and/or a psychotic break? Yeah, well, like most things, I think there are good ways and bad ways to go about it. What does the bad way look like? It looks like this:

You see that? That shit ain't healthy. I am aware that some people make this face every single morning when they check the scale. If I did that, I'm sure I would be certifiable. 

Okay, so what's the deal here? If you're reading this, you probably already know that your body mass is a crappy way to evaluate your overall health. But even allowing for that, scales also lie All.The.Time. What's great though, is that scales lie in more or less understandable and predictable ways (as opposed to your insane neighbor Gary, who insists he has parked his car in your space since the Carter administration and refuses to move it). If you don't already understand the mechanics behind Scale-Lie, then super pretty pretty please go read this post:  http://ontheregimen.com/2014/02/09/what-those-scale-weight-fluctuations-really-mean/ This is a great, no nonsense, well-written explanation of the five basic ways that the scale will go completely bonkers on you.

Well damn, if that's true, then why on god's green earth would I ever want to use one? Several reasons:

1. I still have too much fat on me for commercially-available (read: affordable) calipers to be a reliable way to assess progress.
2. Even if calipers were reliable for me right now, fat changes way too slowly to be satisfying for determining progress. Here's an example: I have lost approximately 35lbs so far, pretty much exclusively fat, and that translates to a roughly 8% fat loss. Over the course of a year. That sort of positive feedback (you know, that what you're doing is working!) is glacial. It would be very easy to be discouraged even though I am making progress.
3. Tape measures are great, but a PITA, and like calipers, progress appears very slowly. I take all of my measurements approximately once a month, mostly in order to do good body fat estimates. So far I've lost a total of 19.5 inches off of my body. Yes, that's awesome. But that's also over the course of a year, and spread out all over the place: one inch here, a quarter of an inch there, etc. Tape measures are great for assessing long-term progress, and for ensuring that I'm losing fat and not muscle; they are terrible for giving immediate positive feedback and feeding my motivation.
4. I am still heavy enough that overall weight decrease matters. Once one's weight hits a certain low, then scales become a really bad tool, since what actually matters is getting rid of fat, which could mean in fact gaining weight as one adds muscle (e.g., someone who is 130lbs but 30% fat and working towards being 140lbs and 20% fat--much healthier!). But I ain't there yet.
5. If you understand the vagaries of scales, and don't take every reading as a set-down-by-Moses truth, then they are a quick, easy way to assess progress. Any given daily weight can be bullshit, but there should be an overall trend that's detectable fairly quickly--e.g., over the course of a week or two. 

Alright fine, but why daily?! Isn't that just batshit? Not for me. So here's a fairly common weight track for me:

Monday: 190

Tuesday: 190.2

Wednesday: 189.7

Thursday: 189.7

Friday: 189.7

Saturday: 188

Sunday: 188.4

Monday: 192.4

Okay, what's happening here? Well, mostly what's happening is that my weight is on an overall downward trend, but it bounces around a bit. Sure, it kinda sucks to see that last weight on the scale, but I know that in order for me to have gained four fricking pounds in one day, I would have had to have eaten an extra 14,000 calories on Sunday. A quick mental review of what I ate on Sunday establishes that if I'd done that, I'd be in the hospital for chrissake. I know that the spike there is mostly water weight, and maybe a bit of regular old body fluctuations. I'll watch what I eat on Monday and Tuesday, staying away from heavy stuff & tons of salt, I'll remember where I am on my monthly cycle (which has quite the impact on things), and I'll float back down soon enough. No worries.

Now, compare this with what my psychology would look like if I only weighed myself weekly--let's say, on Monday! Wow, so in my mind, I would've *gained* two pounds, and I'd have no context for understanding that no, I really didn't, everything's fine. I wouldn't have seen my weight go lower, or know that it's just not possible to gain four pounds of fat in one day (because I'd have no idea I'd been at 188 the day before). Weighing myself every week would make me nuts! I've seen my weight fluctuate as much as six pounds in 24 hours. If I check my weight daily, I can be sure that's not fat or muscle gain, just a "scale is nuts" fluctuation. Without the daily checks, though, it's hard for me to know whether or not that was a one-day fluke, or a genuine week-long trend.

Now the other perfectly sane response here is to take a longer view of things, that over the course of a month any regular weekly weight checks will reveal their genuine trends. That's fine, but I don't want to wait that long. I want to know within 1-2 weeks if what I'm doing is working, or if I need to make adjustments. It could take as long as three or four months just to determine whether or not various diet & exercise changes are having the desired effect. To me, that's a lot of wasted time. Really, I don't jump my diet around all over the place. But daily weighing helps me understand what various dietary choices do to my day-to-day weights, so I know how to react. I'll have the pizza on Monday with all our friends, knowing that some of those carbs are going to feeding my muscles (since I work out on Monday) and also knowing that my weight will bounce up on Tuesday from all the salt, fat, and carbs. Fine, it'll be back by Wednesday or Thursday, no biggie, and I had a great time with my friends without stressing about food. Win-win. Obviously I can't do that every day, but I can do it every once in awhile without serious issues. And when big holiday seasons roll around, I've got my mental map in place for how to cope with it. But again, that's a different post....

Now, before I hear from 18,000 trainers in the tri-state area yelling that this is terrible advice and that no one should do what I do, let me say--yes, you're probably right. Did you read the part in my bio where I said that sometimes my life should serve as a warning to others? I'm not suggesting this as a strategy to anyone. I'm not actually convinced that what I do is that good an idea. But I can say that this does work for me, and helps me keep a healthy relationship with the number on my scale. If you, gentle reader, sat there nodding and saying "yeah!" the whole time you read this, then know that you aren't alone. Maybe we're wrong, but we're wrong together, and it's working, so screw 'em.