Is a scale necessary???
 

Hello everyone,,

I'm a mom in my early 40's. I'm a training consultant (staff development) most days and a blogger the other few. So my life is somewhat inactive. Just started Leslie Sansone today.

I'm just beginning my journey to lose about 25 pounds...or at least I think that's what I want to drop. See, my gauge so far has been my clothes and how they fit and my dress size (currently a 12).

Is this a god way to track progress or should I break down and buy a scale?

Thanks so much for your input and advice!

Teri

Welcome! I guess a way to quantify your weight-loss and/or fitness goals will depend upon what, exactly, you're attempting to do. If pure weight loss is the goal, a scale would seem appropriate. If you're more interested in fat loss/muscle gain, perhaps a body fat monitoring device would be better (or a combination device). You can also keep track of your measurements to monitor changes in your body.

Regards,
Michael

PS I removed your link as sites with a commercial slant are generally prohibited--nothing personal. :)

I suppose it depends on what motivates you or helps to keep you in check. A scale is just a tool, for some it's helpful, for others it's a torturous device. Personally I find it very helpful, but ultimately it's up to you. Do you need a scale to lose weight. Absolutely not. But you do need to stay motivated over a stretch of time and maybe a way to gauge your success to help you stay motivated. Could be a scale, could be a tape measure, could be a favorite pair of pants, your belt, whatever. I use them all, because I need all the motivation I can get.

Very helpful!
 

Thanks, guys. This is very useful. I think a scale would drive me nuts, but it just seems to go along with the weight loss process. I'll stick with my jeans as a gauge.

Thanks so much and best of luck to everyone!

I started dieting a month ago and decided not to buy scales until I could see a definite difference in my body, judging by how it looked and the fit of my clothes. By the time the month was up, I had been tracking my food and activities on FitDay for three weeks (it took a week to decide that I wasn't going to get annoyed by calorie counting - it turned out to be easy and fun) and was actually quite keen to get the scales and see how things are moving. They arrived two days ago, so it's too early to say how much weight I'm actually losing, but I feel comfortable about using them now, which I didn't a month ago. Is that any help? Don't worry about the scales for now, and you can always change your mind once you're getting on comfortably with losing the weight?

You know, I pretty much followed the same tactic, Esofia. Although I didn't plan it out as clearly as you did. By waiting until I was well into my weight loss routine and was definitely at least 1 size smaller, the numbers on the scale became less significant. Only the direction from one week to the next was important.