Make Friends with Your Bathroom Scale

By Rigel Celeste on March 18th, 2010

If you want to look your best you should start by making friends with your bathroom scale, because research shows that women who weigh themselves daily lose more weight and keep it off longer than those who weigh only weekly, monthly, or (the worst option) not at all. The scale might have been a scary source of bad news in the past but that shouldn’t be the case anymore — not with these good news surprises:

The more you weigh, the more you’ll lose One study found that daily weighers dropped twice as much weight as those getting on the scale weekly. (Amazing.)

Cheap is best Skip the fancy body fat measurements — they’re hard to understand, can fluctuate wildly, and can make it easier to lose focus. All you really need is a scale that tells you your weight, rounded to the nearest 1/2 or 1/8 pound.

5 lbs overnight is okay It’s normal for your weight to fluctuate as much as 5 lbs over a 24 hour period based on where you’re at in your monthly cycle or what you ate over the day and hours before. Get the most consistent reading by weighing yourself at the same time every day (i.e. first thing in the morning).

You can lose sizes without losing weight Muscle is denser and weighs more than fat, so if you’re strength training you’re probably replacing fat with muscle, which means you’ll be physically smaller without actually weighing less.

Where you put the scale affects the results Scales need a flat, firm surface to give an accurate reading so most bathroom floors will work just fine. Uneven tile shifts and distributes the weight unpredictably while thick rugs can absorb some of the weight and be off by as much 20 pounds.

(Photo courtesy of nubuck on stock.xchng)