Weighing yourself shouldn’t be all that complicated. It’s a normal morning routine for many of us who crawl out of bed, brush our teeth, take a shower, and then step on the bathroom scale to see if that number has changed from yesterday.
It turns out that you may actually be getting an incorrect reading once you’re on that scale. It all depends on how you practice the daily ritual of weighing yourself. In fact, the daily weigh-in could be your first mistake and it might just be doing more harm than good every time you use your scale. There’s nothing wrong with checking your weight, we should all do it from time to time, but it’s also important to avoid the many common mistakes that come with it.
Step Away from the Scale!
The biggest mistake you might be making is stepping on that scale over and over again. Checking your weight in the morning is good, but it’s when you do it three, four, eight times a day that’s when you could be creating problems for yourself. This practice has a detrimental effect in two ways.
The first issue is that you put too much emphasis and importance on that number which can have a negative impact on the rest of your day. The second being that you’re only frustrating yourself in trying to magically lower that number with each step up and down. When you’re frustrated you’re not focused fully on taking the proper actions to lower your number and you never lose the weight.
The Day of the Week
If you’re not one of those folks who weighs themselves every day, you might be choosing the incorrect day to get the most accurate number. Monday morning is when we start our week and so many of us automatically assume that’s the best day to get a reading on our weight. Not true.
Think about how you act on the weekends, you might splurge a little more than you do during the week and eating habits shift and change. So weighing yourself at the end of the week will help you get a better gauge on your weight and inspire you to be more cognizant of your diet through the weekend.
Don’t Buy Cheap
All scales are not made the same. That ten dollar bargain you picked up at Target isn’t much of a bargain in the long run. Those cheap scales aren’t always as accurate as you may think. You may have even noticed this when you’re weighing yourself at the gym on a professional scale that cost infinitely more than the one you’re stepping on each morning. You find you weigh a few pounds more than you thought.
That’s your real weight, the scale at home is lying to you. So look up the best reviewed digital bathroom scale when you’re Googling next time and see what brands and models work best.
How Much Do Your Clothes Weigh?
When you weigh yourself fully clothed (but without shoes) you may compensating for the extra weight incorrectly. Women and men have different types of clothing with different weights, but for most women it’s an extra 1.75 lbs and for men it’s 2.5 lbs, on average.
Weight vs. Body
You must take body composition into account when you’re stepping on that scale because anyone with a lot of muscle might come across as overweight depending on the scale, when in reality they are anything but. Don’t take that number at face value, consider the way your body is built as well.