SCALING DOWN

You awaken to a beautiful morning.  The sky is blue, the birds are singing, and all is right with the world.  You stretch and rise from your bed, padding softly toward the bathroom, and suddenly you have that undeniably spooky feeling that you're being watched.  You look up and, sure enough, there it is lurking menacingly in the corner.  It's evil, sinister, and waiting for you -- THE BATHROOM SCALE!  Run!  Run while you still can!  Save yourself!

Okay, everybody, let's take a couple of deep cleansing breaths -- in with the good, out with the bad -- and collect ourselves.  Now then.  Here's what I want you to do.  Go back into the bathroom and pick up that scale from hell and PITCH IT IN THE TRASH.  Go on, I'll wait right here . . . dum de dum dum dum.  Did you do it?  No, of course you didn't.  I have yet to convince a single client to throw the daggone thing away, but consider this:  If you are a regular and faithful weigher, chances are that most mornings you ease yourself slowly onto that judgmental torture box with your eyes closed, leaning sightly to the left (because that's your lighter side), and toss up a silent prayer to the Goddess of Skinny before opening one eye, peering nervously down, and cursing.  Am I right?  How often do you read that number and do cartwheels of joy across the room?  Why on earth would you want to keep putting yourself through that?

As fall begins, vacations come to an end, and we all get back to our regular fitness routines.  It's the perfect time to stop setting ourselves up for disappointment with that confounded scale.  Instead, get yourself a handy dandy tape measure, wrap it around the important parts, and write those measurements down.  Then select a pair of jeans from your closet that are a little snug, or pathetically snug, or -- let's not kid ourselves -- that you can't get past your knees, and hang them up in a conspicuous place so you'll have to look at them every morning.  In two weeks, take all your measurements again and see if you can get those jeans any closer to the promised land.  If you've been following a realistic nutritional program and getting enough of the right kind of exercise, chances are very good that you'll see some satisfying results.  Keep charting your progress every two weeks.  In a couple of months, if you're still getting results and IF YOU FEEL YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST, then climb back on the scale, but please do not call me if you don't see a drastic change.  And that alone should prove something -- if your measurements are going down and those consciousness-raising jeans are fitting better even when the scale isn't budging, THROW THE GODFORSAKEN THING OUT and consider this new way of charting your progress as you embark on your fall fitness program.  Good luck!

Do you have a scary scale story of your own?  Please share it in a comment!  (Look for the instructions in red at the end of the articles.)