How I Lose Weight Without Using A Scale-- Ever

Getting on a scale can be a dreadful proposal when you're chunkier than you should be. For myself, the mere thought of clambering onto a scale brought with it a sinking feeling. Part humiliation. Part discontent at the knowledge that I could be doing something about it. And I wasn't. It felt easier to avoid the scale and ignore my ever-tightening belt than to take action.

And that obstacle- small though it may seem to some- was one more thing in the way of change. And so I came to an odd solution. Why not toss out the scale altogether? 

The scale is a neutral party, about as unbiased as it's possible to find. Like a good reporter it tells you the facts and nothing more. But anyone who's ever had to face that reckoning and recoiled at the numbers will attest- sometimes you fantasize about taking a hammer to it. Or setting it alight.

It could be therapeutic. Symbolic, even. Releasing the anxiety of meeting ridiculous self-imposed standards. Embracing the relaxed pursuit of a healthy life. And letting yourself get in better shape as a byproduct, not the end result.

Not to say that you have to break your scale. It's not the most environmentally friendly idea, if you're into that sort of thing. You could hand it over to a friend for safekeeping. Or shove it so far out of the way that it's out of mind.

I'm not saying that there's no utility in having a scale. There definitely is. In some situations it's very, very helpful. Necessary, even. But if you're more than twenty pounds overweight you don't need it.

Getting hung up on the numbers is a great way to feel miserable. Very rarely-if ever-will they move down fast enough for your liking. Why torture yourself?

So what can you do instead?

'What gets measured gets managed' said Peter Drucker. And that's good advice. Unless the thing you're measuring negatively affects your behavior every time you do.

When the stock market goes down enough many choose to sell their shares for far less than they bought them at. These aren't stupid people, nor are they ignorant. Many of them understand that it's far better to hold onto what they have, that in the long term odds are they'll do well. But rational thoughts get swept away when uncertainty and panic steps in.

You get on the scale after a week of effort and the number hasn't moved. Or worse, it's gone up. And despite yourself, despite understanding that being heavier doesn't have to mean that you're fatter… You start worrying.

What if your diet is terrible? What if you aren't training hard enough? What if it's you, somehow? Maybe you're genetically wired to be fat. Maybe you have the wrong hormones or they're all messed up somehow. Maybe you don't have any willpower and those cupcakes you caved to on Thursday ruined all your progress. Maybe it's impossible for you.

After all, your parents were overweight. So is your sister and some of your cousins. And is it so bad anyway? It doesn't make you a bad person. You've been heavy for so long after all, in the end nothing will change if you quit.

And you get to eat as much chocolate as you want again, without guilt. You've missed pizza and burgers and ice cream. It's so much effort to prepare all that healthy food anyway and you're so busy as it is.

But you'll regret it. You'll regret caving in.

Instead of going down that rabbit hole, focus instead on the behaviors that will get you there for life. Drinking enough water, cutting out soda, getting enough sleep, avoiding junk food. Anything you feel would get the needle moving in a positive direction. That you could maintain forever.

You don't need a degree to see the value of this, even though many hard scientists would agree. It's common sense. When you're always focused on that magical number you've set every weigh-in serves as a reminder that you're not there. It's constant negative feedback.

But if you track behaviors instead you stack up little wins every day. And that momentum builds up your self-esteem and makes it easier to stay committed for the long haul. It becomes easier to exercise when you're not doing it only so that the numbers go down. It becomes more enjoyable to eat good, healthy food when you don't feel like you're forced to just to get to the end of the race.

It feels addictive too, changing yourself. When you decide to fix your sleep and your energy levels start going up and up. Or when you realize that you can't stand being on a treadmill but love swimming so you do more of that. Because now you're not all-consumed with being 160 pounds by the time summer rolls around.

Of course, you could take that idea too far and decide to change a hundred things at once. And that's a recipe for backsliding waiting to happen. And part of why so many people who manage to lose weight and get in great shape end up as heavy as they were before a year or two later.

They changed their behavior so much in such a short span of time that they couldn't sustain it. Because they didn't give any of it time to settle in and become habitual. Or they never intended to do it for longer than the 90 days of their diet plan.

One of the mistakes inherent in going on a super restrictive diet is that no one wants to do it forever. It's not intended to be done forever. If you're eating nothing but bone broth or meat, how could it be?

Diets that have you eliminating wide swaths of food or drink-or even entire macronutrients- may help you lose weight fast. Really fast, even. But they're almost certainly not what will keep you there. Or have you wanting to stay healthy.

If you're willing to make lasting change then focusing on 3–5 behaviors at a time should be more than enough to change your body profoundly. And without being so much that you crumble and call it quits.

Those behaviors should be small, though. And they should feel anywhere between near-effortless and moderately difficult. If it feels really hard for more than a few days at a time then you should scale it back or replace it temporarily. And the harder the things you choose to change the less of them you should do. If all the behaviors you want to work on feel moderately hard you may only be able to reliably do 3 of them at once.

When it becomes easy you may add another or replace a bad habit with a good one. Until, eventually, you're doing everything that keeps you in great shape. And without expending an ounce of 'willpower'.

Here are a few examples of behaviors to track:

• Eat a healthy breakfast each morning
• Go to bed by 10PM and get 8 hours of sleep
• Cut out all soda
• Take a daily multivitamin
• Replace bread with rice or vegetables
• Go for a 10 minute walk after dinner
• Exercise for 30 minutes, thrice a week
• Attend a yoga class each Saturday morning

Note that I haven't assigned a difficulty rating to any of them. Difficulty is completely subjective and your circumstances or preference may bias you towards or away from one or the next. When you read through the list above you may have sorted how difficult you feel each is instinctively. Use that gut feeling as your base difficulty rating and then adjust it up or down as you feel after a week or so of doing it.

As a rule of thumb you'll want to make sure that you have both 'move more' and 'eat less/better' habits. The exact split will be up to you - try to pick a few things that interest or excite you.

When you've decided on the habits you want to inculcate, track them visually at the end of each day. This can be in a spreadsheet, journal or on a whiteboard in your office. By ticking off each accomplished habit each day you build a streak and get a little rush of satisfaction for a job well done. And if you miss a few days in a row it helps you see that you need to adjust that habit down a level or two for a while. Until it becomes easy and you can scale back up, even higher.

To summarize, you don't need your scale to lose weight. It can even get in the way of your health and happiness. It's a better option, long term, to choose healthy habits and track them to the point of automaticity. And even though you may not get results in a month or even a year, when you do get there you'll be more likely to stay there for the rest of your life.