Why Weigh Yourself Daily?

A short summary about the psychology involved in gaining a new habit and some details of why weighing yourself daily will help you achieve your goal of maintaining your weight over the Holidays.

• Most people can only adopt a couple new behaviors at a time. More complex changes usually fail. (We try to change everything a new diet, exercise program, social agenda, etc. all require time and energy and often we just do not have enough time or energy to succeed.)
• You need to have time or make time to do your new behavior. The best method is to link the new behavior to an established behavior, such as, weigh yourself after you brush your teeth– link the new behavior with a current habit.
• If the new habit requires time, excessive preparation, thinking, or planning and has no immediate reward, it will fail.  Whatever you choose to do has a better chance of being adopted if it will move you towards your goal, is fun, and does not require a lot of thinking or additional work. If you hate going to the gym but are forced into going it will not take long to find another program or drop out altogether. (health clubs count on people dropping out–over 50% of people who sign up for a gym program never show up.)

And now to the point of this post:

• It helps the habit-adoption-process if you have a pregame warm-up routine. Pregame preps prepare your brain to think about what will happen, how you think about the day, gives feedback on how you are doing, and gets you ready to do it.   Athletes, actors, lecturers (most everybody who performs) have a pregame routine. Getting on the scale every morning puts a little voice in your head that will have you thinking about what you are going to do that day.

• Preparing the night before will jump-start your daily actions. I have my gym clothes laid-out, my Performance drink made, and plan what I will do in the gym that day.   I am on autopilot until I get to the gym. I weigh myself after I take my shower and that will direct my behavior for the rest of the day. Before I take a cookie, I will remember that I gained a pound, and therefore need to cut back to a half a cookie.

• Weighing yourself daily is a calculated pregame warm up. You will know when you may have eaten too much, you are retraining water, or better, you lost a pound because you were careful what you ate.

• Remember, ultimately the key to success to reach our goal of not gaining weight through the Holidays is to act and stick to your program. People who are not successful are those who drop out. A reasonable plan, limited to a few key habits will work.

• So, from now until January 2^nd weigh yourself daily. Note: you will get all kinds of pushback from people who will not agree with the idea of weighing yourself daily and sometimes it is best not to tell others what you are doing. Show them the results

• You will fail sometime during the 4Q Resolution process. The goal is for you is to get back on the program and pick up where you left off.  This is normal.

• Finally, if you have not yet joined our closed Facebook group, we invite you to join. Pat and I will keep the site updated with fresh ideas and research that will help all of us achieve our goals. Moreover, we want to hear from our group members about their successes, issues, and questions.

Go to your Facebook account and look/search for 4QResolution in the groups section.

Jack and Pat