Happy & Healthy

4 CRAZY THINGS WE ALL DO TO AVOID THE SCALE

“I haven’t been on the scale in a long time.” These were the words of the first soloist of The National Ballet Igoné de Jongh in a recent interview. Not entirely crazy because research has shown (yes, scientific) that if you stand on a scale too often, you’re weight fluctuates. When your kids are raised in a house without a scale, they’ll have a more balanced relationship with their body later on in life.

And admit it, how annoying is it when you haven’t gotten your hands on any carbs in two days, you’ve been able to avoid all the lattes and wine yet you still managed to gain an extra half a kilo? This results in having a ‘f*ck it’ mentality the following day in which the scale doesn’t show another half a kilo. Downright unfair.

Thats why (and because a lot of us prefer having a lower body weight than others) a lot of women throw out their scales. Although we do keep a close eye on our measurements in other ways that aren’t as as drastic. Here are a couple of things I do for you to start off with.

1. My mothers ‘should I make you something to eat, dear?’

When she asks me this (she’s not a huge fan of cooking) then I know I’m on the right track. Followed by a ‘don’t forget to eat something, dear’. Believe me, this is better than a scale showing you the number 54.

”You don’t just loose weight around your stomach and your upper legs, but you loose it everywhere.”

2. The wobbly watch

You don’t just loose weight around your stomach and your upper legs, but you loose it everywhere. Better yet, usually you start losing weight in the areas that don’t matter before you finally notice a significant change in you ‘problem zones’. Your wrist is one of those areas that says ‘okay, I surrender’ as soon as you indulge in a couple of calories. I have a friend who always shakes her wrist to see how tight her watch is, and if the watch shakes, she knows she’s on the right track.

3. The muffin top check

Part of my morning ritual is to check my side profile in the mirror to see if I do or don’t have an extra layer of, well, let’s call it a cushion for the pushin, hanging over my undies. And if I’m anywhere that doesn’t have a fitting room mirror (like in the holidays at a rented home), then I start to panic after a certain amount of time. I need to know how all of it is hanging, or preferably not hanging. When necessary, I’mm maneuver myself into the most uncomfortable poses to be able to take a side selfie just to be able to see the state of my hips.

4. The ski pants

I know someone, I won’t name any names, who uses their ski pants as a way to check their measurements. If it’s over 30 degrees out and it’s a less is more temperature, she grabs her ski pants to see if they still fit comfortably around her hips.

All in all, we do a lot of weird things to avoid the scale. Can we really blame men for having a hard time grasping us females…