I was looking at the threads on the Diet and Fitness board and its all "I weigh this much" and there are BMIs everywhere (which when I did work experience with a dietician I was told "are pretty much bullshit for young people in good health"). And not just on here and online but in general life, every girl (and a lot of guys) I talk to seem to be able to tell you how much they weigh on a week by week or every day by day basis.

And it seems weird to me because I really don't weigh myself and never have done.
My Dad is overweight and gets really upset about his body image, and tends to binge eat at times. When I was little he used to weigh himself every morning and it would effect his mood for the day, often meaning he'd starve himself during the day and then binge eat in the evenings (its weird because everyone seems to say "my mum had these issues with her weight and its rubbed off on me..." and you don't think it of dads). So my mum got sick of it hid the scales one day because it only made things worse for him to be worrying about tiny changes, and now we effectively don't own any.

Personally I think it was a really good idea of my mum's and I'm glad we have never had them. Going through the whole teenage body issues stuff and being a chubby kid it really helped that I couldn't put numbers on how much I weighed week to week. My parents were like "Just try and eat healthily, you can do exercise fine, you look fine, don't worry about it".
You generally know if you're putting on weight - you look bigger, you feel heavier, you're clothes are tighter and generally if you think about it your diet and lifestyle have changed. Most people here are within normalish weight boundaries and pretty young - does it actually matter how many pounds you are? Surely knowing you've had three healthy meals and done some exercise is enough without having to put a number on it?

Having known people with anorexia or body image problems and read a bit about them I really think that weighing yourself can only make you more obsessive about your body and seriously encourage any negative feelings you might have. And yet everyone seems to do it all the time.

How often do you weigh yourself? How does it make you feel? Does it shock you back into living healthily when you've let yourself go a bit? Would you be willing to lock away or even get rid of your scales?

I hardly ever weight myself. I usually find it at about the same place (112-115), so I don't stress over it too much. I know I eat healthy and I get enough exercise, and I've been gaining a bit of muscle mass recently (thankfully). I don't want to get rid of my scales, but I don't really have a reason to, anyways. I'm lucky.

I don't have a scale, but I always weigh myself if I'm somewhere that has one. I feel like shit about myself if I'm close to 104, even though I haven't seen myself at 103 for a long ass while. I'm at 98 right now and feeling okay about it.

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So I'm watching as his wings spread as wide as could be
Come on now and wrap them around me

I was happy before I started weighing myself and it became a slippery slope for me. I think it can cause more problems then it's worth.

me too. that way i can always say well those few extra pounds are probably just my clothes...

i admit to being a little obsessed with the number though.