Getting to and maintaining a healthy weight is vital for your wellness and wellbeing, but there’s a thin line between being dedicated and being obsessed. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with increasing your fitness and improving your diet, when thoughts about your weight start to creep into every part of your life, it may indicate that it has gone too far and you need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
For many people, that obsession revolves around the bathroom scale. Stepping onto the scale and seeing the numbers go up or stay the same can make the rest of the day go wrong. Seeing those numbers drop can make absolutely everything else in the world feel perfect, and your self-esteem start to soar.
Of course, it’s very important that you try not to define yourself by how much you weigh. There are some classic signs that you may be thinking too much about your weight, and if you find that any of these sound familiar, it’s time to have a re-think about the priorities in your life.
Firstly, do you find you are constantly worrying about weighing in? We don’t meant a little bit of a worry from time to time; dieting is, after all, really hard work and it can be nerve wracking to stand on the scales and see if all your endeavours have paid off. If you find, however, that you are often worrying about what the scale is going to say on weigh in day, it may be a sign that you are becoming obsessed.
Another such sign is weighing in more than once a day. This is a common mistake, as people hop on and off their bathroom scales every time they use the toilet. Any dietary expert will tell you that you should weigh in no more frequently than once per week – even less if you can manage it. Your body weight fluctuates naturally over the course of a day, and can also vary from day to day based on hormones, water retention and so on. This leads to a rollercoaster of emotions as you watch the numbers go up and down.