Why the Scale Will Always Derail You

I remember those days all too well – waking up in the morning and immediately thinking about my weight. Pressing on my stomach to see if I felt skinny enough that day. Lying in bed and either judging or celebrating the decisions I’d made the night before. Had I been virtuous or weak? Would the number on the scale delight or destroy me?

The morning was spent trying to make myself as light as possible for the inevitable weigh-in. I would run 3 miles first thing, then have some coffee to dehydrate me, go to the bathroom as many times as possible, and then, finally, step on the scale (but before I showered so my wet hair wouldn’t add any weight). 

That number defined my day and my self-worth. Either I had been good and was worthy of praise, or I had failed and deserved to feel terrible. Either I was allowed to be happy, or I needed to be punished.

There are so many reasons that weighing yourself is unnecessary and downright damaging to your health and psyche. 

Your weight is not a reflection of your health. In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say all this nonsense about needing to lose weight to be healthy is just a clever way to avoid being blatantly fat-phobic. We now know that losing weight does not necessarily make you healthy, and I’m sure you know as well as I do that many of the things we do to lose weight are not mentally or physically good for us. If you want to improve your health, you need to focus on health-promoting behaviors (see But I Have to Lose Weight for My Health), and starving yourself is not one of them.

Obsessing over a number on the scale also disconnects you from your body in a really unproductive way. Instead of thinking about how you feel and seeking genuine pleasure, health, and comfort in your body, you are doing anything you can to reduce your size. That often means being chronically dehydrated, eating “light” foods that don’t have much nutritional value or are full of chemicals, overexercising (often leading to injury), and creating a nutritional deficit that leads to muscle and bone wasting.

It’s also important to remember that the numbers we are using to analyze our body mass and health are completely arbitrary. Both weight and BMI are made up. They have no actual value except what we attribute to them. Neither take into account your genetics, lifestyle, muscle mass, bone density, relationship with food, ethnic background, health history, age, or body type. They’re meaningless for so many reasons, yet we let them guide so many of our choices and so much of our self-esteem.

If you are a die-hard scale devotee, I understand how important that ritual is to you right now. It helps you feel like you’re in control. You’re almost a little addicted to the drama of discovering today’s number. You can’t imagine going through a day without knowing the “truth” about what’s going on with your body. I completely get it, because I lived that way for years. Breaking up with the scale was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my eating disorder recovery.

The damage of weighing myself really crystallized for me one day about 8 years ago, and the impact was so dramatic that I haven’t been tempted to weigh myself since. 

I stopped weighing myself regularly during my outpatient binge eating disorder treatment program. It was liberating. I felt reconnected with my body and able to take care of myself without worrying about the numbers, and it was really a revelation.

But then in 2015, I decided to stop drinking alcohol, and that little old diet voice whispered, “Hey, I bet you’re losing weight since you aren’t drinking anymore. Just jump on the scale and see what’s going on.” And, in a moment of distraction or weakness or complete insanity, I did.

I was shocked by how abruptly my mentality shifted from self-care and flexibility to recrimination and judgment. Honestly, I can’t even remember if the number was “good news” or bad, but I can distinctly recall how immediately I was catapulted out of my healing journey and back into diet mentality. 

I was suddenly thinking about how I could change my eating habits and push myself to exercise more to bring the number down – and not in a healthy “I love myself” kind of way. I was stressed and anxious and had that old diet dread of feeling like I was never going to be happy or enjoy food again. It was absolutely horrendous.

I know first hand what a stranglehold the scale can have on your life, and I also know the joy of being free from it. It isn’t easy to give it up cold turkey, but think about how you can take baby steps to give the scale less power and reclaim your freedom. The less you focus on those numbers, the more you can tune in with your body and find genuine health and happiness.