Friday, September 27, 2013

What weighing in daily looks like in weight maintenance my graphs



I use a weight maintenance tool described in the book Refuse to Regain by Barbara Berkeley, MD.
I weigh in daily.

I know a lot of people "throw away the scale". That's cool. I get it . Totally. Long term weight maintenance is a complex road.  Building my own weight maintenance template has been key this time around.

I weigh in daily during weight maintenance. Daily weighing is strictly a data gathering system for me. I use the  data as a Quality Control tool. No shame, no blame. Cold hard data for my science brain.

What works:
1. Look for trends and shifts overall.
2. Look for foods that may be inflammatory (2 pound gain in 1 day)
3. As a way to objectively problem solve.
4. As one way to evaluate effectiveness.
5. As a way to save money for using the same size clothing month-in- month out.

Now to be fair, the inputs to the process- food types, emotional/binge eating remission, travel, death in the family and death of close friends, weight training, full time work, unplanned gluten exposure, chosen sugar exposure are highly variable and complex. Sometimes I may make the wrong decision about what to try next. I may conclude incorrectly cause and effect. That's okay, because I always re-evaluate.

I made it okay to make mistakes, make the wrong decisions, but I decide and move on. Right or wrong- the cause of weight regain will be told. Left for me to problem solve.  Which I know I can do.

Overall, I keep an open mind, positive attitude, and keep trying what works. It's an experiment. I don't have all the answers. But many times I can guess. It's made all the difference. Long term maintenance. Yeah!

What did not work:
1. Not looking at root causes for higher shifts in other weight maintenance attempts. Overeat, repent, repeat. ( eating Skinny Cow Ice cream and mini-Snickers bars caused the scale to go up, I'm not strong enough, I'll start my diet on Monday- not so effective.  Failure to connect the dots)
2. Not correlating wheat/grain  and sugars with weight gain, acne, high hs-CRP values
3. Blaming myself for "failing" at weight maintenance.Not looking at my process inputs/outputs
4. Stopping weighing in when the scale went higher and higher.
5. Spending $$ buying lots of different sizes  of clothing to accommodate the yo-yo dieting and weight gains/losses.

I'm enough. Strong enough. I needed to add the effectiveness check and good problem solving skills to the mix. Those are the basic skills I tap into for the long haul. Work them every day. That and an ability to be honest and make decisions. 

And tomorrow I will weigh in gain. One top priority. Life is good. Life is good  because I customized my own template in long term weight maintenance.



12 comments:

  1. Can you explain what hs-CRP is? :)
    Good post! Says a compulsive daily weigher. :)

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    1. Hello KCalla! hs-CRP is an inflammation maker. I believe our health screening includes it so that ,in combination with triglycerides and HDL, cardiac risks can be evaluated ( there are sets of about 5 tests summarized on a page with green, yellow, and red ratings). Bacterial inflammation, arthritis, etc can also raise hs-CRP. I love lab tests online for a trusted, peer reviewed site for lab test interpretations. I use it all the time to "translate" to non-lab peeps. Especially good for friends and family. :)
      http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/hscrp/tab/test
      http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/hscrp/tab/faq

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  2. I daily weigh as well... people have told me not to, that it's not a healthy behavior, but when I stop daily weighing, my weight continuously trends upwards till I am 10 pounds overweight! When I weigh daily, I stay within a 3-4 pound range, which is best for my physical and mental health!

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    1. Projection (their feelings projected on to you) is a peculiar thing, Jeanette. The people I know personally who maintain the tightest weight range with fewer large gains weigh in more often. I have a close friend who is a long term weight maintainer and I fought the idea for a while myself while loosing. Once I got to maintenance in the first year- I could see how my emotional eating brain could quickly take over and I'd be heading back up the scale again! Yes- I agree- 3-4 pounds- I think I give myself 2 pounds on the low side and 2 pounds on the high side for a range with 1 pound in the middle. Checks and balances for the WIN. :)

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  3. I also weigh daily. I find that if I don't, the scale can take a big jump up, just like Jeanette said above.

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  4. I wanted to be able to get to where I only weighed once a week...emotionally. But it just doesn't seem to work for me. Once a day it is. That is what works for me, too.

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    1. Joyful Susan and Primal Gwen- I did have to work through the mental emotional side when switching to daily weighing. I did it while in weight loss, so by the time I got to weight maintenance, I was over the scale up and downs and into data collecting. I don't mind seeing a gain in the scale when it's because of muscle building. My clothes tell the tale. :)

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  5. I weigh in every day and have for years ... I did still manage to regain while weighing in every day though, dang it. I just watched it inch up. I was never counting/controlling calories though, that needs to be daily for me too. Started that mid-May, I've lost 20+ and have another 20 to go to get to goal. And this time maintain! I'll continue to weigh, continue to count calories, continue to exercise.

    I LOVE graphs too, so interesting how just changing some of the numbers (your axis, or the time) can really change the look completely too!

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    1. Jen B, congrats on your success at loosing the re-gain. Sometimes it takes 3-6 months worth of data for me to really figure out what is going on. It's funny how different graphs might show different clues. Sometimes normal variation. If I eat an inflammatory food- the scale shows it. I''l be doing a blog post soon showing a big spike after eating pork again. I've got a pork sensitivity and the scale shows it. Like a poor man's allergy test!!! ;) Glad to find other graph happy people.

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  6. I too weigh every day except when we go on holiday. It is kind of freeing to not weight then and great when I return to find I'm still all good. I will have a week without weighting from today but as I will be eating my usual food I don't expect any changes.

    My weight hardly changed now and I eat well - not a lot of calories but I certainly don't go hungry. When we choose great quality food, you simply don't need as many calories to be satisfied.

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    1. Lynda- it is the BEST feeling ever to go on holiday, return and be RIGHT on track- clothes fit, energy is good, relaxed and feeling good. It's so true, once you are eating from a quality food template- the right calories/nutrients are there. My "stop eating " switch now works much better. Whew! Glad to finally experience normal satiety. I thought it might not be in the cards for me.

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  7. Great post!
    This is actually the exact reason I stopped weighing myself daily. Doing it daily or even weekly I have such big fluctuations, like 4-6 pounds at a time, that it made me crazy. It would affect my mood way too much. But weighing in monthly was the check in that I needed. It was almost always about the same and I never got wigged out over the fluctuations. ;)

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