Obsessed with numbers

[A Touch of Evil]

During dieting and trying to lose weight, do you guys find yourselves obsessively weighing yourselves or even thinking about it? I find myself always thinking of what to eat and how to make the portions smaller and healthier. It's like weightloss and food are always on my mind. I even find myself weighing multiple times a day. Usually, I just weigh myself once a week, but sometimes I get pretty obsessive about it too.


This isn't unhealthy, is it? I don't really think it is because it's not causing me to want to starve myself or anything drastic like that. I'm still losing weight at a slow and steady pace. I'm actually losing weight very slowly.....nearly 3 months almost and lost 17 pounds. So I'd say that's pretty healthy.  

[pigeonsoup]

It's only unhealthy if it's paired with disordered eating habits or if it gives you a negative mindset.  

[Munkers]

Revamping recipes to see how much fat I can omit and how far I can reduce the calories has become a game for me. And yes, when I'm on track, I definitely find myself thinking a lot about "should I eat this or that?" and how many points I'm comfortable spending for a meal, etc.

I don't think there's anything wrong with spending time, even a lot of time, thinking about your diet and exercise. It's a labor-intensive process and requires a lot of planning which, if you're doing it right, is going to require a lot of thought.  

[Soi Tsuba]

I'm a little nervous about it. While weighing yourself multiple times a day isn't hurting you now, it has definitely set you down the road to possible having an eating disorder.

Try and limit yourself to only weighing in once a day. Your weight fluctuates by at least 2lbs or more a day so any more then once a day is setting you up for disappointment.  

[A Touch of Evil]

I know, my weight fluctuates all the time. Weighing myself doesnt put me in a bad place or cause me to have disordered eating habits or anything. Sometimes I get obsessive about weighing myself, but usually it's just once a week. What I meant was is I'm always thinking about my weight and foods I can eat as opposed to foods I should eat. I'm just happy my weight is going down. Even if I can lose 30 lbs, that would put me at 150, I'll be happy because I'll be in the "normal" part of the BMI. But ultimately I want to get down to 130.

Also, I don't think I would ever have an eating disorder or be on the path of one just 'cause I weigh myself excessively. I know I'm a little overweight but I don't think it's too bad. I don't think I look horrible or anything. I'm glad I can still fit in my high school jeans size 14 and I wear a shirt size of adult M. Besides, Matthew and I love to cook. We love cooking new things together and experiencing new foods. So honestly, I don't think I would ever go down the eating disorder path because I love food too much (that is to say however, I love healthy food, I hate greasy fast food crap.......especially Kentucky fried CRUELTY, I guess abused chickens taste good to them........I swear, they'll never get a dollar out of me. It's not just KFC, it's most fast food and meat industries).  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

I think you're loosing at a really good rate. That's about what I did after high school. 20lbs in about 3 months. But I wasn't weighing myself at all. I was just attempting to live healthier.

Looking at your numbers can be really helpful in weight loss to see that you are indeed making progress. But being obsessed with a specific number can generally be bad. Because you don't really account for how much the muscle you gained weighs. So like I only lost 30lbs in total since high school, but I looked like I weigh half what I use to. Cause I probably gained 10lbs of muscle.

Also, water retention can make the number a lot higher, but it's healthy to have some water retention.

A compromise might be to start measuring yourself. Or I like to put on old pairs of pants and look at how massive they are on me. xd I actually keep a pair just for that ninja

I do have an obsession with 1 number. 130. It was my goal in HS. I made it to 135 and plateud there and decided that I could stand to loose another 5lbs but for a long time I didn't. I think it was after I got dumped I found the motivation and I've been under 130 since. But then I went so long without weighing myself that 7lbs crept up on me! Being a lil bit MORE obsessed might have helped me catch it sooner. I guess I just got comfortable, it seemed like I could eat just about anything and keep my weight but I'm a lot less active than I was in the summer and it caught up faster than I thought.

So now I'm trying to find any kind of activity and I'm laying off the junk a lot. (not completely, just filling up on the good stuff so I only have like, one desert lol)  

[A Touch of Evil]

Yea I agree, being obsessed with one number can het pretty frustrating, so I have set many short term goal weights.

Hehe, it's 8:00am and school starts in 30....and I'm still on my bed in my pj's......I lost track of time crying