Dieting and Weight Loss
How Often Should You Weigh Yourself If You Are Dieting?
If you are planning to start dieting once the New Year comes, you might be wondering just how often you should be checking your weight. After all, you will want to be able to gauge your progress, and checking your weight provides an objective measure of just how well your dieting efforts have been.
To Weigh Or Not To Weigh?
It used to be that experts strongly urged people who were dieting to not check their weight because it would lead to discouragement if they didn’t lose weight quickly enough or if they had gained any muscle mass, their weight would remain the same, even though their measurements would fall. According to some new studies, experts are now recommending that you weigh yourself regularly. For the most part individuals who are successful at not gaining weight or losing weight and keeping it off are the same individuals who weigh themselves regularly.
The Scale May Be Your Mentor
Avoiding the scale can lead to a sizable weight gain before you even realize it. If you weigh yourself regularly, you can see if you’ve gained a pound or two. You can immediately make modifications to your diet by decreasing the calories you consume or look for ways to incorporate more exercise into your day. Your dieting will likely be helped if you check in on the scales.
Patience Is a Virtue
The only danger to weighing yourself regularly is if you know that you will get frustrated if you don’t see results as quickly as you would like to. If that is the case, limit how often you weigh yourself. Dieting requires motivation, and if weighing yourself will hinder your motivation, avoid weighing yourself too often.
Stay Active, Keep Track
It’s also helpful for you to keep track of the physical activity that you get. Record any exercise that you get in a log book. If you walk over lunch, write it down. If you ran 30 minutes on the treadmill, write that down too. By writing down the amount of exercise that you get, you can easily add to it if you aren’t losing weight quickly enough. Dieting and exercise go hand in hand, so make sure you keep track of your progress with both.