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The Scale Lied to Me

scalelied-585Jenn and I are always saying that you shouldn’t let the scale make or break you. After all, you shouldn’t let some silly number on some hunk of metal ruin your day, right? I’ve been following our anti-diet rules, weighing in at most once a week or so, and typically even less than that. When I discovered that the scale was moving a little more slowly postpartum than I’d like, I was even less motivated to get on it, and instead I decided to let nature take its course so I’d have some progress to see when I do step on.

One of my recent check-ins gave me even more of a reason to avoid the darn thing and visit less regularly: My scale is a total liar. A complete and utter liar.

Let me explain. I had checked in the previous week with little to no progress. Whatever. I’m hungry and breastfeeding and it’s not exactly my priority. And with a loss of a pound here and half a pound there, imagine my total shock to see that I’d dropped 10 pounds in a week! For the shortest split second imaginable, I was kind of pumped. But then super skeptical. Because, well, I didn’t FEEL different. I didn’t feel a loss of 10 pounds. So I got on again. Again, it was screaming a number at me I hadn’t seen since my first trimester.

Was it possible that I’d stealth-lost 10 pounds? Hahahaha, no. I knew it just wasn’t possible. So I picked up the baby bouncer that was conveniently in the bathroom and stepped on the scale, then got off and back on with just myself. Sure enough, the scaled bounced back up to the number I was expecting. The extra weight of the baby bouncer seems to have reset the scale so that it accurately reflects my current weight. Come to find out, the battery is on its way to deadville, so until that gets replaced, who knows what sorts of numbers I’m going to see!

The Big Scale Lie got me thinking though. It really doesn’t matter what that number says if you’re not where you want to be. Had that low number been right, I still wouldn’t have been satisfied because I didn’t feel like my old self again even if the scale was trying to tell me I was there. Likewise, if I felt like my old self again, would it really matter what the scale said? So, confirmed: It’s all just a number that gives you some indication of where you are, but it’s definitely not the whole story.

Has the scale ever straight-up lied to you? —Erin

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