When people go to the gym regularly you’ll notice a lot of them develop a certain habit that really doesn’t benefit them at all. You might even be one of those people guilty of it. How often do you notice people, either on the gym floor or in the changing rooms, casually weighing themselves on the scales?
The part that makes this action a mistake is because they are usually fully clothed or in a towel, sometimes one that’s sopping wet if they’ve just come out of the shower. The main point in using a weighing scale is to check how much you weigh. Unless you know exactly how much your clothes, trainers, wet towel or anything else that you’re wearing or carrying weighs then you’ll never know your exact weight.
There are also many other factors that can determine how much you weigh depending on the time of day you do it such as if you’ve just eaten, if you’re bloated, if you’ve drunk a lot of fluids, if you need to go to the bathroom. The list goes on. For the majority of the time, if you have no reason to, weighing yourself is a waste of time. For those times when you do need to know, the best way to get the most accurate reading is this.
Firstly, you need to wear minimal clothing that doesn’t weigh much, this tends to be a pair of shorts or just your underwear. Secondly do it as early in the day as possible before you eat or drink anything and things later in the day can affect your weight. Thirdly, and lastly, choose a day such as Monday or Sunday and only weigh yourself once per week. For most people, apart from curiosity, there is no need to know exactly how much you weigh every day.
Apart from people who have a good reason to know their weight at all times, such as for professional sports or medical reasons, weighing yourself should always just be used as a guide to make sure you’re achieving your health and fitness goals and staying as healthy and happy as you can be.
