So it is early in the morning. One can hear faintly the sounds of the crickets still at work and the early morning birds chirping. In the other room, the low chain-saw-like growl of snoring, farting, and drooling resonates like a large commercial freezer set to chill (or perhaps an industrial woodchipper), as my wife lays sound asleep in bed. OK - I admit that was gratuitus. She reads this blog once in awhile... and I couldn't resist :smile:
So... quiet as a mouse ...I shuffle, bumble, and tiptoe into the bathroom, eyes still three-quarters shut. After taking care of the first order of business, then comes the second order of business - the one I've been waiting for (fearing, dreading, hopefully expecting) ...as I climb onboard my scale and stand in judgement.
The very first time the scale dips into new virgin territory I plant the flag and claim it for my own. I am like Juan Ponce De Leon or Chistopher Columbus (or maybe even Don Quixote in all his glory - tilting at windmills).
"*This* ...is my new land", I proclaim triumphantly! "I will LIVE HERE!", I think.
But I know, like a ghost or like a vapor, it is here but a fleeting moment. Here, and then gone. I anxiously await the next cycle of up and down to see if once again I will hit this newfound land, ...the land I have discovered and claimed and named in my own honor.
Slowly I dipsy doodle up and down on the scale until one day I sail momentarily lower than where I had last planted the flag, and I plant a new one on my short visit to this brand spankin' new territory.
"I proclaim thee Littlersizedohbuht, land of tiny people!"
OK - I am getting carried away here. But it is interesting the way I weigh myself. I do not climb all over the scale in gyrations to find the sweet spot. I *have* weighed myself more than once though I can honestly say, ...um, to ahhh, make sure my scale is still accurate on subsequent reads. Yeah,... that's the reason. But no gyrations. I always knock off reweighing after at least the fifth or sixth try, I promise!
Anyhow, in reading the blogs of experienced low carb weight loss champions I have found it interesting on when someone claims a weight for themselves and how they do so.
Over at the Carbohydrate Addict blog (http://stumblingtobethlehem.blogspot.com/), Victoria actually sets several goals for the weight. I am almost reluctant to recount them for fear of getting it wrong. But she measures and counts the weight if:
1. she hits the weight on any day
2. hits it on a Sunday
3. hits it four days in a week
And I think I have read previously and remember where she counts weighing the weight consistently for a week or more.
That demonstrates a maturity of thought and effort that I can appreciate, but am growing into still. I still want to have a carnival everytime I can hit lower weight, even if it is mere milliseconds or the result of some large object in space altering gravity momentarily as it sails past Earth or something. I'LL TAKE IT!!! :smile:
So it begs the question... What level of the maturity model are you at in your weighing, measuring, and metrics recording?
The Seven Levels of Weight Loss & Weighing Maturity:
1.) What's Maturity? I'll even jump up and down on the scale if necessary, to get that needle swinging back and forth! Anything for lower numbers!
2.) I'll take it if I see it, even if I *think* I might have seen it! Scale gymnastics ARE acceptable.
3.) I definitely must actually *see* the weight on the scale, though I would take the word of a one-armed, rabid, senile, demented, blind-in-both-eyes con-man if he offered it.
4.) The numbers gotta be there for awhile. Maybe a day, ...or at least an hour or so. OK, I'll take five minutes...
5.) I gotta have some hang-time there before I claim these numbers as my own!
6.) I will live at this weight for a month or I will absolutely refuse to accept it
7.) Ten scientists and doctors must conduct multiple experiments with lasers and atomic microscope powered Ultra-magnetic resonance imaging computer-precision scales to calculate the collective weight of all my individual atoms and ensure that the margin of error is beyond any question or doubt. Published papers in a medical journal on the subject (after peer review), might be considered, ...Maybe.
How do you do it? Are you weighing like a cheap carnival showman, or weighing and calculating like Albert Einstein might calculate it? Do you have any techniques? Do you have any couth? Do weigh with style? Or do you weigh like you tell fishin stories to your buddies?
Do you have a guilty conscience for the way you point the fan up from the ground blowing up on you and you jump and cluck and flap your wings in hopes of a few less ounces....
Do you weigh using the "Crane style" or "Monkey Style"? Do you adjust your position on the scale like someone adjusting old style rabbit ear antennas to get some really fuzzy TV station to come in... Tell the truth! Do you know exactly where the SWEET SPOT on your scale is? Have you actually LOOKED FOR IT? Have you found it?? Have you worn the paint off on it?
Would your weighing stand the scrutiny of your peers? Fess up.... You know you want to tell all!
I will offer my personal absolution (for what it is worth) only to those who clear their burdened consciences in whole, and leave nothing out in comments to this post. You will potentially receive the forgiveness of your collective world body of low carb weight loss peers. The one millionth comment on this post may possibly receive an Apple i-Pod!
:smile:
6 comments:
I just noticed that you have posted a link to my blog. Thanks!
The 1 millionth post may possibly recieve an i-pod! OOOHHHH. I'm gonna comment until my fingers fall off!!! :0)LOL
As far as how I weigh and what I accept. If I see it on the scale, I take it. I know that if it goes back up it's only water, so in my mind that's what I really weigh. That's the way I did it last time and that's the way I'm doing it this time.. and you know what? It works for me. If I go up, it's always back down within a couple of days.. and sometimes even lower.
I guess this doesn't fall into the mature category.. but it makes me happy and keeps me motivated. I celebrate every ounce as a victory!
First of all, what a great post!
My freakish weighing regimen goes like this. First I weigh myself at night for hint of what the scale will say in the morning. Then in the morning after the needs of biology, I take a deep breath and exhale as I step onto that sweet spot on the scale. Yes, I know where it is.
Then I step off and repeat...oh, 5 or 6 times. (honestly!). (Not to mention that if I really don't like the number I will move the scale a few inches left or right until I get consistent results.) Whatever number is see most often is the one I claim and shout from the rooftops to anyone who will listen. :)
Doesn't seem like anybody is in need of weighing absolution, tho we *ARE* getting closer to giving out that iPOD!!
:smile:
Did I hear you say iPod?! :bigeyes:
I have a very unreliable scale at home, an old dial model that depending on where exactly it sits on the floor, and exactly how I stand on it, it can read anywhere in a 10 lb range. Lean a little to the left, get one number, lean a little to the right, get another. I really don't use it for anything other than a "guesstimate", because of the inconsistencies. You might think that because I get different numbers with the leaning this way and that way, that I could just go with whatever it says when I stand still. Not so, even how much the high and low leaning weights vary from that standing still weight can change - one time the left lean is 5 lbs lower, the next time it's only 2 lbs lower, etc. So I get the "range" from the leaning, and there's my "guesstimate".
I do my real weighing at the gym, and try to remember to get on the doctor's office style scale there both before I swim and after swimming. The after swim number is usually a lower number than the before swim number, but sometimes it's as much as 1-1/2 lbs lower, sometimes only 1/4 lb lower.
I know, I know... why not just go with the after swim weight? Good question, and the only excuse I have for weighing both times is that sometimes I forget to weigh after swimming, so I want to have some idea of how it's gone that day. By the same token, sometimes I completely forget to weigh before swimming, so I want to make sure I at least have the after swim weigh. Why do both every day? Well... just because - at least I have some idea what to expect from the weigh in before and after - since they're so different, I wouldn't want to compare yesterday's after swim weight to tomorrow's before swim weight, it's just to have some kind of idea what would actually be consistent.
So which weighing gives me my "official" weight? The lowest one - the after swim weight, of course! LOL!
I gave up scale gymnastics when I bought my new digital scale. The old one was all over the place and this one says the same thing no matter how many times you step on it...the way I used to...in the sweet spot.
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