Whether or not we realize it, we’ve been trained from a very young age to keep close track of lots of the things that we do every day. From the moment we arrived in Kindergarten, where our report cards and marks started tracking how well we were learning, there have been all sorts of ‘trackers’ in our everyday lives.
The speedometer in our cars tells you how fast or slow we’re driving. The ‘likes’ on our Facebook pages tell us how many people we’re connected to. And the numbers on our weigh scales tell us if we’ve gained or lost weight.
We put a lot of emphasis on the tracking numbers in our lives. If the number on the speedometer doesn’t match the number on the speed-limit sign, it’s an indication that we might be driving dangerously. If our Facebook likes are too low, maybe we’re not popular.
But those tracking numbers should not always be taken to mean the same thing in all cases. For example, driving at the speed limit during a snow storm could be very dangerous. And fewer likes on Facebook might simply be due to how few times we post as opposed to having anything to do with our popularity.
While those examples may be obvious, there are times when we need to understand what the tracking devices in our lives are telling us beyond the straight-forward ‘you are over or under the speed limit’ information.
Perhaps nowhere is that truer than the number you see when you step on your weigh scale. Is there any other number in your life that can rule your emotions, increase stress, make you happier, or sadder, than the one that pops up on the scale?
The Truth About the Number on Your Weigh Scale
Fortunately, the number on the weigh scale, like the numbers in the examples above, should not always be taken as an absolute indicator of how well you’ve been doing with your weight management or how healthy you are.
The problem is that very few of us realize that, and, even worse, the vast majority of us ‘live and die’ by the number that pops up each time we weigh ourselves.
For a number of reasons, we all need to stop paying so much attention and hinging our lives on the weight shown on the scale. Here are just a few.
1. It Could Be the Biggest Threat to Your Weight Loss Success
Just like everything else in your life, your weight goes up and down, even when you’re trying to lose it. But, we place so much emphasis on the number, when it goes up, regardless of the reason, we feel like we’ve failed, like we’ll always be ‘fat’, like we should just quit. There may be no single device that defeats more weight loss programs than the weigh scale – even when those programs were actually producing results.
2. It Might Be Lying to You
OK, maybe ‘lying’ is too strong a word, but at very least, your weigh scale can be misleading – and that has nothing to do with its accuracy. Especially if you have a formal exercise program, but even if you’ve simply added more activity to your day, there’s a good chance that, in addition to burning more fat, you’re also building at least some. Muscle tissue is heavier than fat tissue. That means, if you’ve added as much muscle mass as the fat mass you’ve lost, you could weigh more, while actually having lost fat – and inches.
To see some examples of what we mean, check out these before and after photos:
3. It Might be Dangerous to Your Health
We are so desperate to see drops in weight on the scale, that we may be tempted to take our weight loss to extremes. You might dream to one day wake up and see that you are 20 lbs lighter than yesterday, but that sort of drop in weight will do more damage to your health than the lower weight could ever overcome. It might be an extreme example, but the point is our addiction to ever lower numbers could lead us to hurt ourselves in an effort to keep making them happen.
In the end, whether your weigh scale derails your weight loss program, or causes you to lose weight too fast, it’s your health that suffers. To find out how to stay healthy as your lose weight, talk to the nutrition specialists at your nearest Herbal One Centre.
It could be the worst enemy of your weight loss
It might be lying to you – OK, if maybe lying is too strong a words. But, especially if exercise is part of your at very least, it can be misleading about significant progress you make in
It could be dangerous to your health