Weighty Numbers

I've been tracking my weight more or less daily since 1998. I used to weigh myself every day on an analog scale (where you leaned left or right to make the apparent reading change) and write the number down on a calendar nearby. Every now and then I would transcribe the numbers into an excel spreadsheet. I still use that very same spreadsheet today, but now I have a wifi scale that transmits the number automatically to the cloud, where I can access it from two different websites connected to the scale.

My routine is to weigh first thing in the morning without clothes, as I'm getting dressed. Some times "first thing" is postponed, especially these days where the motivation to bother to get dressed can be delayed until after several cups of coffee. Never-the-less, it's always before I eat anything. If I haven't weighed before I eat, I skip weighing that day entirely.

One of the things I learned from daily tracking of my weight is that the number the scale renders is quite volatile. It can vary by as much as four pounds in 24 hours. It's very common for it to vary by two pounds in a day. This variation actually creates a greater motivation to track daily versus weekly or monthly, as some weight-loss folks recommend. Since my weight doesn't seem to have a predictable fluctuation - not driven by weekly or monthly schedules, but instead by some complex equation based on what I've taken in (food, salt, liquids), what I've eliminated, and how much I've exercised and slept - I instead use an average or trend to decide if I'm gaining or losing weight. My excel spreadsheet relies on a simple weekly average, while one of my websites uses an engineering equation which looks at a greater period of history, but weights the most recent numbers more heavily than older ones.

Another thing I've learned is that my memory of what I used to weigh is extremely unreliable, from week to week or month to month. Having the record keeps my memory true, prevents me from either rationalizing ("oh well, I guess I'm stuck" when I'm really gaining) or despairing ("I can't ever lose weight"). 

With all of that, I don't want to lose my daily extensive record. But it's right now part of my daily routine to look at the website every single day. I think it's time to take a break from that, because I'm trying to manage what and I how much I eat mindfully. It's an experiment, and I want to focus on planning and executing that without regard to what I see on the scale. The point is to plan my food daily, try to execute mindfully, really tuning in to whether I'm hungry or not, and sensing when I've eaten enough. I want to be more in touch with my body, regardless of what the scale says.

But of course, I want to lose weight - I'm almost as heavy as I was when I started this blog back in 2010! Memory check with data: I've recently hit a single peak day that is eight pounds below where I was when I started the blog, and 18 pounds below my highest recorded weight. And that recent peak is about 20 pounds above where I settled for several years after starting the blog, which is where I'd like to get back to now. See why I like having the data!  

I'm trying a simple fix to try to meet these two points: maintain the data, but don't look at it. I put a little post-it over the numbers which is all it takes. Thanks to my wifi scale, I can step on it every day, have the number sync to the cloud without seeing it, and access it later. We'll see how it goes, how long I can stand to not look at it often!