Nutrition Bite: Scales hurt worse than shots

I am going to start off this week’s nutrition bite with a “visualization” for you. I would ask you to take a deep breath and close your eyes but then you wouldn’t be able to read the rest of my blog; instead just take a deep breath. Got it? Good. Now, imagine your next trip to the doctor’s office. You check in and sit in the waiting area for 30 minutes awkwardly avoiding eye contact with all of the other people in the room with you.  You check your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, and email on your phone and are left with nothing to do after those first five minutes. Maybe you get a little crazy and pick up the latest issue of Good Housekeeping and flip through it, maybe not. After 25 excruciating minutes of pretending to be Ms popular on your phone when in reality you are really just stalking people on Facebook, the nurse finally calls your name and takes you around back. Now, judging from the scowl on this nurse’s (or murse, hey it’s your “visualization”) face, she has had a heck of a morning and is not in a good mood. This nurse has absolutely no sympathy for you this morning and is going straight for the philosophic jugular. That’s right, she is taking you to meet your worst enemy; judgment day is here. She is taking you to the dreaded scale. This could make or break your day/week/month/year.  Better take off not only your shoes, but your socks as well…

You may or may not cry before you even get that shot…

Ok, end visualization. For those of you that closed your eyes, you can open them now. Now that I hopefully got you to slightly crack a smile, I will get to my point. If you got a little sweaty, felt your heart race a little, or had a mini anxiety attack, you are not alone. Judging from the amount of memes that I found when I googled this topic, it is pretty evident that lots of people tend to get pretty caught up in and bent out of shape when they get weighed. Here are a couple more of the trials and tribulations of weighing yourself just for your amusement…

Now, I am going to ask you to sit down for what I am about to tell you. As a Dietitian you may expect me to tell you that you should weigh yourself three times a week or whatever number you would like to insert here. What if I told you that I don’t even own a scale?

Yes, it is true, but don’t put me in the same medical phony category as Dr. Oz just yet.  

I leave it  up to my clothes, that really honest family member, or friend without a filter to tell me if I have been splurging a little too much, not numbers on a scale. Yes, in a medical practice as part of a routine check up, weighing yourself is important. Is weighing yourself everyday important? No. As the blog article that I am about to share with you talks about, your weight is constantly fluctuating over the course of the day, not significantly but a couple of pounds here and there depending on the time of day and hydration status. For this week’s nutrition bite, I am going to share a blog article that will  help explain why the scale and your weight is not the be all or end all of how healthy you are. Without further ado…

Throw Away Your Scale from fANNEtastic food

Like your age, your weight is just a number that everybody lies about anyways. Until next time!

Keep it Fresh,

Keep it Green,

Beth