As workout gear goes, scales are quite possibly the most overrated piece of equipment that actually works. Our society has become a slave to the scale. We judge ourselves by a number. The sad fact is, no matter how accurate that number is, it really isn’t giving us an accurate picture of what we want to know.
Every fitness pro has a different theory about weighing oneself. Some find it valuable, some would prefer you not do it at all if they are training you. Many people fixate on it, and weigh themselves obsessively and repetitively. This can be counterproductive. Your weight can fluctuate as much as five or ten pounds. This can be caused by many things, including fluid intake, digestion rate, the time of the month (women only, sorry guys), sleep history, stress levels, the close you are wearing, and whether you’ve gone to the toilet recently.
Weighing oneself in the nude, once or twice a week, is more than enough to give you a general idea of your progress. The signal to noise ratio for weighing oneself isn’t great. You really don’t need to weigh yourself at all, but if you are overweight, and training aerobically and dieting, or underweight, and training with weights and eating a lot, the scale can be an effective motivational tool. Everyone’s body has healthy natural target weight.
Many factors that affect our weight are beyond our control. These include genetics, bone density, pervious injuries, health conditions, and so on. Don’t base your ideal body image on what the media suggests you should look like; that will end badly. Make your goal to be the healthiest version of you that you can be, don’t try to aim for some ideal that has little to do with the real world.
When you weigh yourself, try to do it on a precision gym scale or medical scale so you get an accurate reading. Gym scales and doctor’s scales are maintained regularly, unlike the never-quite-up-to-it scale in your granny’s bathroom.
Scales are a very popular fitness accessory. If you have made a commitment to yourself to get fit and stay fit, odds are you know that you don’t really need all the bells and whistles. Fitness accessories make exercising and tracking your progress more convenient, however. Although fitness accessories are inessential, they can make working out more appealing. Working out is all about making progress, and there are many fitness accessories that are made to track progress.
If you are going to get fit, you will need to be honest with yourself. You have to recognize when you are making excuses to avoid a workout. Some gadgets such as scales can be useful in keeping you with the program and motivating you. The ones that track your progress motivate you by measuring progress you can’t detect with the naked eye. While you can work out without fitness accessories, they make your workout more enjoyable and your results more visible.
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