Forced to not use a scale and so far so good?

Had a house fire and have not replaced the scale. I am very torn about this. Previously I would weigh myself several times a week. Given we only had the clothes on our backs we had to carefully prioritize purchases and the scale did not make the cut. Finally weighed myself yesterday when my daughter had an emergency surgery (she is ok, abscessed tonsil taken out). I was surprised that I clocked in exactly where I thought I would be. I had lost some over the last month due to stress. Now I am questioning getting one. Once I stopped worrying about weighing myself every day I just recently realized that I am more mindful of what I eat due to not being able to use the scale as the directive to reel things in. Not sure if that makes sense or not, but overall so far it has been positive. What I am pondering, however, is that my tendency is to avoid weighing when I go off the rails. I am not in that mode, but when I deal with a spurt I cannot decide if not having the scale will make it worse or do the opposite- keep it from going completely amuck, to begin with. Wondering if there are folks out there that do not weigh regularly and how that is going?

I am so sorry about the fire, and I'm glad your daughter is ok! No wonder you've been stressed. I'm glad things are going ok without the scale and I hope things are looking up for you & your family.

undies . . . . they're the key to assessing progress in the absence of a scale. hang tight, be strong . . . this fire will one day be an interesting tale to tell and the fact that you're safe and whole is the best!

jo

Clothes normally would be a natural measure as well, but all of them were replaced. At least now that I know what I weighed yesterday I can gauge, but up until that point even clothes were not terribly helpful. The biggest indicator to me is waistline- that is the first place I gain or lose, and even a 5 pound swing is visually obvious. So strange actually, as when I first started losing weight I lost over 60 pounds and people were not able to tell.

I'm so sorry this happened to your family! How stressful and depressing. Good news that your weight wasn't affected.

On the scale front, I too would avoid the scale when I was not eating properly in the past. I even cancelled doctor appointments a couple of times because of weight gain! There were times when I used clothing to measure gain, but I think that I can often stay in the same size until I've gained more than 10 pounds. That would not be acceptable to me now. When I decided to do WLS, I decided that I was going to do a lifestyle change to be successful in the long-term. One of those changes includes daily weighing for the most part. I actually feel like I get a reset every morning after I weigh, and find it so much easier to understand fluctuations and bring small gains back down. IMHO (for me).

That is exactly how I was before losing the scale. This is also why I was surprised that once I adjusted to not using a scale there was some unforseen benefits. That tendency you mentioned of avoiding the scales/docs is exactly my pattern as well- and that is the part I wonder about. The structured accountability thing- hmmm.