One of the most interesting tools I discovered in my journey of trying to lose weight was a surprising one – the daily weigh-in ceremony. When I first read about it in Dr Greger’s book “How NOT to Diet” – I thought it was some kind of a joke. How can the act of weighing myself daily help me to lose weight? Just climbing up the weighing machine (about 2 inches high) and climbing back down was unlikely to consume many calories. However, I decided to give it a try. Good Decision #1
I did not have a weighing machine and Dr Greger recommended that I buy a “Smart” Weighing machine that hooks up to my phone and transfers my weight and other parameters and allows me to chart my progress. I first thought, what a waste of money, this kind of machine will cost me Rs 4000 (USD 60 approx), and a regular weighing machine would be a lot cheaper. And I could note down my weight in a notebook. But on a whim, I decided to go ahead with Dr Greger’s advice and buy a smart weighing scale. Omron HBF 222T. Good Decision #2
The recommendation is to weigh your self twice a day, but I thought that was a bit too much. Let me start with once a day, I thought. So every morning, after answering nature’s call, I stripped down to my underwear, removed my specs (every little bit helps 😊) and climbed onto the scale, and it showed by weight and quickly synced with the mobile phone app that came with the scale. I kept doing this every day at around the same time in the morning for three months. Good Decision #3
Now, what happened? Amazingly, I began to lose weight!! I lost almost 10 kg in three months! Of course, I was following a diet, eating carefully, but the very fact that I was weighing myself every day, made me a lot more conscious about what I was eating. If I wanted to eat a piece of chocolate, the thought that came to mind was, I am going to weigh myself tomorrow, and it is going to show. It made it easier to resist temptation.
Another benefit was that I could see my weight going down every day, that was a great motivator. Thirdly the machine gave me immediate feedback. If I ate something wrong or ate a bit too much one day, I would know from the machine the very next day. So I was able to make instant adjustments to my diet. In addition to my weight, this scale calculates my BMI and measures my Body Fat Percentage, Visceral (Tummy) Fat percentage and uploads these values to my phone and tracks it as well!
The last benefit was that I could see the results charted by Months, Weeks or days. when viewed monthly, it shows a nice downward trend
But when viewed weekly, you can see the ups and downs
So its not all smooth sailing, the ups and downs are inevitable. But the key thing is to keep going and not give up!
But are there all pros and no cons to the daily weighing-in ceremony? Wait for my next blog for details.
Cheers!
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