The weight of the scale –

One balance in the bathroom is an obligatory object for many people. Wake up, pee, take off your clothes and go upstairs to see where the display points. Some people also weigh themselves at night – and observe, almost without exception, the weight variation.

if weigh daily has positives or negatives. There are those who benefit from climbing the balance frequently, as this can help the person to maintain a weight that they consider interesting. This person usually has a good relationship with food, does not live on a diet, understands that we all have small weight variations and lives a neutral relationship with his own body. If you are that person – that is, you don’t suffer to weigh yourself, you don’t enslave yourself by the number and you maintain the weight without major fluctuations in number and behavior – follow your habit.

But if the balance determines your food, and your mood and your physical activities: time to rethink the habit. There are several common behaviors among people who weigh themselves a lot and see their weight fluctuating – up or down.

A lot of people see the weight increasing and start restricting – or give up food care for good; whereas, when you see the weight coming down, it releases completely – or tightens the siege excessively. I.e: step on the scale can often cause anxiety and lead you to make decisions without much sense.

Another balance problem is the reference. There are people who would like to be at a lower weight, with a smaller body, but they haven’t weighed themselves in years. It has in memory that number of years ago, when life was different. When stepping on the scale and seeing that this number has changed, the suffering is intense. For some, so intense that drastic decisions are made based on a number that symbolizes a very different moment in life.

When to weigh yourself?

There is no right formula for weighing yourself: 1 time a week, 1 time a month, every day… Going up and looking at the number on the display can affect a lot or nothing – it depends on each one. But in general, I don’t think such a constant frequency is fundamental.

Once we get on the scale and get stuck at a target weight, we forget about our bodies. We give way to a number instead of our body consciousness. Who never felt better in their own skin but when stepping on the scale saw no change and felt frustrated? And who is never satisfied, even though everything around is very good?

The habit of weighing yourself is learned from an early age. As the numbers showed, most learned to weigh themselves by watching their parents weigh themselves. Treating the scale number link as normal can be dangerous.

A survey carried out by the São Paulo State Department of Health in 2014 showed an alarming result: in a group of girls and women between 10 and 24 years old, 46% of them said they believed that skinny people they are happier. The pressure to lose weight, the idea that living on diet is normal is learned from an early age, through the media and also at home. And one of the ways of living this forever is seeing parents stepping on the scale.

I talk a lot in my office about charges related to weight and diet habits. Most people start early in this life, influenced by parents who also believed in the need for standard body and in one perfect food. I always say that you can’t go back in time and explain to these parents that, even if they act diligently, this charge could have bad consequences. And you can’t blame them: the vast majority of them had good intentions. However, you can think about what we are going to be from now on.

If you reached the end of this text and recognized that your daily struggle with the scale (and with the body) is a family heritage, I invite you: you may not be able to completely deconstruct and rebuild all of this. But you can change your way of thinking and your relationship with weight and body from here.

Start to understand that, most of the time, what you are looking for is a good aesthetic feeling, which is independent of the world. And what weight classifications are currently used is up for debate. In the next text, I promise to tell you a little about the BMI, so you consider whether or not to continue with this daily habit of weighing yourself.

Oh, and of course. If you have an eating disorder or believe you do, talk to the specialist about it.

To the next!

Marina