5 Seconds In Your Morning Routine That Can Shed Pounds

Weighing Yourself Daily Can Help You Lose Weight

When was the last time you stepped on a scale? If you are like most people and would be a little happier without the extra pounds then listen up!

Here is ONE thing you can do that will help you to lose weight that takes 5 Seconds

This might sound a bit odd at first but when you think about it, it really starts to make sense. One thing I have found in life if you need to have a laser focus to succeed in anything! Weighing yourself daily helps to keep you focused on your weight which in return will help you to naturally eat healthier (since you are conscious of it). To phrase it differently, weighing yourself daily will help to connect your weight to your diet, this also makes it easy to spot any weight increase and you can easily course correct.

Tip on weighing yourself, you need to do it the same time every day - for me it makes the most sense to do it when I first wake up, if you need it willy-nilly then you wont get an accurate representation because your weight changes by 10 pounds or so throughout the day based on how much you ate, drank, going to the bathroom etc.

Catching any unintended weight gain very early will be easier to fix than if you catch it 50 lbs later, because lets face it, weight really sneaks up on us. It's like the boiling frog alliteration.

If you start adding this to your daily routine you will be amazed at how something as small and trivial as this can have such a huge impact on your weight! Just doing this alone might help you to lose 15 or so pounds in several months! There was even a study done showing the benefits of daily weighing.

"According to a first-of-its-kind study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, researchers from Duke University Obesity Prevention Program and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill reported that those who weighed themselves daily lost about three times as much weight and body fat, compared to those who were less diligent about stepping on the scale.

The six-month study included 47 overweight men and women who were randomly assigned to the “intervention” group, which included the use of electronic scales that were networked to the researchers' computer network. All 47 subjects were instructed to weigh in daily and were given some basic advice about healthy eating and exercise behaviors to promote steady weight loss (i.e., increase water consumption, walk more, eat fewer snacks, enjoy more fruits/veggies). Using objective data from the subjects' e-scales, the researchers could objectively track the frequency of weigh-ins as well as the subjects’ weights.

Results? Compliance to frequent weigh-ins was very high, with 75 percent of the subjects weighed in at least six days a week. Those who weighed in daily (51 percent of all subjects) lost an average of 20 pounds, compared to an average of 7 pounds lost among those who weighed themselves an average of five days per week. Subjects who weighed themselves daily were also more likely to report following through on recommended diet and lifestyle behaviors.

According to one of the study’s authors, Dr. Deborah Tate, director of the Weight Research Program at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, “Daily weighing helps with self-regulation and directly linking eating and activity behaviors with weight. You can quickly see very small daily changes in weight of 0.1 or 0.2 lbs. that tell you whether your current eating and activity are enough to help you lose weight or if you need to do more.” This study adds to previous studies that also reported that those who weigh themselves more frequently lose more weight and are less likely to gain weight over time.

However, many dietitians don’t recommend frequent weigh-ins for fear that their clients will be discouraged if the number increases or obsessed with the scale. However, according to Tate: “We conducted two other studies – both included overweight and obese adults without eating disorders – and both studies showed that beginning to weigh daily was not harmful in terms of eating disorder or depressive symptoms.”

Other dietitians are against traditional scales because they can’t account for body composition. “I don't recommend using the scale at all,” says registered dietitian Stephanie Mull of the George Washington University Weight Management and Human Performance Lab in Ashburn, Virginia. “We have many clients who see little changes in overall weight, but have significant reductions in body fat. That is why we use dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry or InBody assessment to accurately measure fat and lean tissue of our clients."

Bottom line

If you like setting goals and can use the number on the scale as objective data (without judging or attaching negative emotions to the number), I recommend trying frequent weigh-ins. Are you in the market for a new scale? Consider a scale with bioelectric impedance so you can see changes in percent body fat. Other ways to help determine if you’re losing body fat is to measure your waist circumference every three weeks; if you’re losing inches from your waistline, you’re reducing body fat. You may just be surprised to find out how this simple daily habit can help improve your diet. Hopefully you can take away good information from this. Starting losing weight and improving your life!

5 Seconds In Your Morning Routine That Can Shed Poun