The numbers game

Many dieters are emotionally attached to their scales. It is their scale that tells them how they should feel about themselves that week, or that day, or (in very extreme cases) that hour. We who have battled our weight most of our lives still don't get how some days we can be "good" with our food and the scale says we have gained. Then some days after being "bad" the scale says we have actually lost weight.

Body weight is affected by multiple factors...fat gain/loss, muscle mass, water retention, hormones...there is a heck of a lot of stuff going on in our bodies every day that we don't (and wouldn't want to) see! When trying to lose weight, to me it's the trend that counts.

At work we measure all sorts of things to be sure we are delivering our product or service to the customer as quickly and accurately as possible. We plan strategy around these numbers. But we don't change our strategy every day based on what happened the day before. We watch the trends, because we know that multiple factors (most being temporary) affect the numbers.

For example, if your team's productivity target is 10 widgets per person per day, the actual productivity might be 12 one day and 9 the next. You stick to your strategy until the trend starts going down and staying down. Then you look at the cause and adjust accordingly to address the cause and bring productivity back up.

Losing weight is hard enough in itself. Over the years (decades), I have made it a mental and emotional nightmare in several ways, including letting the scale be my guide. This time, while I will continue to weigh myself every day, it will only become part of my "permanent record" here once a week. And the other measurements that they take at the gym will be posted once a month.