31 days of fitness- Day 30-TT- Scale

Yes, my scale is one of my favorite technologies.  While I don't always like what it tells me, it does help me tremendously!  There is much debate out there about how often you should weight yourself, but I am not going to get into that.  To me, it really depends on you.  If you are able to look at the scale and realize that is not the whole picture, then it is a very useful tool that you can use as much as you want.  If you aren't able to realize it's not the whole picture, then my advice is to limit how often you weigh yourself to once a week... or month even.  Because, IT IS NOT THE WHOLE PICTURE.  You can be burning fat like crazy and gaining muscle like crazy or for whatever reason retaining water like crazy and the number on the scale might not be changing.  But that does not mean you aren't changing.  And if your a woman... guess what TOM and hormones could be affecting the numbers too.

I, personally, weigh myself every single morning.  As I already said, I don't always like what the numbers say, but it does help me.  I don't see losses in pounds every day, I see gains in pounds at least a few days a week.  But I know that those pounds is not the whole picture.  My scale is quite useful for other information as well.  My particular scale also tracks Body Fat %, Bone weight, Water %, and Muscle %.  And I can create a profile and enter my gender and age and it will show me my changes in body fat % and pounds from the previous measurements (yay!  i don't have to do the math!).  Having these extra features help me realize that the pounds is not the only measurement.

Earlier this month I reached the point where my Muscle % was finally the same as and then lower than my Body Fat %... More muscle than fat..... AWESOME!  And 13 weeks ago my Body Fat was 37.5% and is now 32.7%,  uh what a change!  Pretty soon I will be under 32% and you know what that means???  Do you???  It means I am no longer considered OBESE.  Tell me that isn't awesome!

Bone weight is useful too.  My bone weight fluctuates from 4.2-4.4.  Yes I know my bone weight doesn't change that much, or shouldn't, but I think the fluctuation is just because the scale is not 100% accurate (no scale is 100% accurate) so some days the readings are just off.  Anyways if all of a sudden by bone weight starts dropping... say under 4 pounds, well then I know I better call a doctor, something is seriously wrong.

Water % is probably the most frustrating for me.  I drink at least 64 oz of water a day.  And for a long time my water % was in the 47% range.  Lately it has been in the 49% range....

Which brings me to a comment about the %.  If you added up my daily % for today, they equal 116%.... yeah I don't know either.  So i don't know what the % of is, because your body can't be 116%.  But I try not to worry about it too much I just look at each number seperate and see what I can do to improve that number....

Back to water.. there is so much that can affect the water % that it frustrated me because I never know what to change.  Body fat-workout more.  Do more cardio to burn calories or make sure I am not eating fatty foods.  Muscle fat do some more weight lifting.  But water- it could be anything- Not enough fiber, not enough water, too much salt, hormones, bladder issue, etc.  There is so much it could be that it is hard finding just the right change to make.

Muscle % is my second favorite measurement right now, body Fat % being first favorite (remember almost no longer OBESE! who wouldn't love that number!).  I am loving seeing the Muscle % number climb and climb and climb.  I didn't start tracking this number till week 5 in my adventure.  So I haven't seen that much of a change yet, especially since I haven't been doing my workouts like I need to, but there is still some change (34.2-34.6)  and it is much harder to build muscle than burn fat (I think). Or at least harder to build lasting Muscles.  I will see this number go up only to see it drop because I haven't done any muscle building exercises in 4 days.

As already mentioned, the scale can be a great tool, if you have the right attitude towards it and know how to use it.  My advice is to find one that measures more than the pounds so you have more than one number to spread your focus and get a better idea of the overall picture.

Now it's your turn... how do you feel about the scale?  Love it, hate it?  And how often do you  weigh yourself?