Dear DOCTOR Owen:

I’ve been told in diet programs not to weigh daily. They say it would make me overly concerned with my weight and be discouraging. Some days, I weigh 3–5 pounds more than the day before. Next day, I may lose 3–5 pounds. This makes me “crazy”—especially when I am trying to lose but see that I’ve gained according to the scale. What is your opinion?

Scale-a-Phobic

Dear “Scale”:

If I told you today that 3500 calories equals 1 pound of fat weight, that you had gained 3 pounds in one day (10,500 calories), and that the daily calories needed to maintain your weight amounted to 1500 (for a 150-pound woman), would you really think that you ate 14,000 calories yesterday? This is the equivalent of three massive Thanksgiving Day dinners’ calorie consumption the day before “turkey day”! You and I both know that this is not possible.

How does one go about losing 3 pounds in one day? Well, if you were to consume only water (zero calories), you would lose just 1500 calories, or 0.4 pounds. But it is impossible to even measure 0.4 pounds . . . on a scale.

At my clinic, we diet and health counselors tell patients to look at their scale weight every day. We do not advocate this to create emotions of glee or failure. On the contrary, we urge the patients to confront their weight and health on a daily basis. Confronting a problem creates an opportunity to solve it. Ignoring a problem, however, allows it to continue to fester, and causes harm. Since food intake will occur every day, all day long, for the rest of our lives, then managing that intake will likewise need to occur every day, for the rest of our lives.

The act of getting on the scale raises a person’s consciousness. A “diet” is a conscious method of eating—to gain or lose weight, or to control a disease. Studies show that 57% of the people who quit diet plans do so because the scale does not reward them enough for the efforts they have made and the discomfort they have experienced in cutting back on their food intake. That is, they do not understand why the scale fluctuates daily—even when they are taking serious measures to diet.

The scale measures weight. “Body weight” is made up of lean tissue (more than 70% water) and fat tissue (minimal water). Therefore, fluctuations of more than a fraction of a pound a day are water. Water can “come and go with the wind”—literally! Two to four pounds of water in the skin can be sweated off, evaporated by dry winds and low humidity, and radiated by heat from the body.

The body stores glucose or sugar reserves in muscle and the liver by attaching the molecules with water. Some men with big muscle masses lose large amounts of fluid in one day. When they “pump up” their muscles with weight training, the muscles are filling up with sugar and water—not protein. It is possible to suck those muscles dry in one day! Most muscles have 2–12 pounds of expendable water contained within the sugar (glucose) stores, depending on the size of the muscle mass.

We teach the patients how to calculate water and fat loss. This computation helps diminish patients’ frustration if the scale “moves” the wrong way. No one complains if the scale shows a 6–8 pound loss. However, they scream if the scale shows no change or a gain. If they know the fat loss by provable mathematical formula, then the scale weight means less to them. It takes some patients months, even years, to use the scale as a tool rather than look upon it as an emotional experience.

Exercise is also another means of confrontation. Exercise means taking time out during the day to say: “I have a problem. I have a goal. I will do something about the problem.” Then, of course, people must act on it!

I tell patients: “Use the scale as a tool to calculate what is affecting your weight. Use it to prod your conscious mind into planning today’s exercise and today’s eating schedule.”

When used properly and when the math is applied correctly, the scale should not make you afraid of diet “failure.” Fear, anxiety, and avoidance are all attributes of someone who does not understand something. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”