Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I’m your host, Dr. Kasey Jo. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we’re gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we’re going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply.

To your health, fitness, relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it’s not all serious and sciencey around here. We’re gonna have a ton of fun too, and I’m so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let’s go ahead and get into the episode. Hello. Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another mindset show.

Today we are talking about something that is pretty hotly debated, and that is the topic of weighing yourself frequently. And I say it’s hotly debated. I probably don’t even need to explain it ’cause I know I’m talking to a lot of health and fitness coaches out there, a lot of people who have focused on transforming their own health, fitness body, et cetera.

And you can understand why this would be hotly debated and why we should or should not be encouraging people to weigh themselves frequently because on one hand. If we’re not weighing ourselves frequently, but our goal is weight loss, how do we actually monitor progress? And I think we can all understand that, especially in the early stages of going through a diet phase, intentionally trying to lose fat.

It can feel like we’re doing a lot and not seeing any results in the mirror. Not really feeling any different, but there could be something happening, right? We could be starting to see a downward trend when we’re actually looking at scale weight over time. However, on the other hand, we also know that if you’re weighing yourself.

Infrequently, say once a week, you’re probably not getting the full picture. There are fluctuations. You could be ending up weighing yourself on the days that your weight is fluctuating at the highest week after week and think that you’re not making any progress. But all other six days of those previous weeks, you could have been hitting a lower weight.

Right? Like we all understand this, however. On the other hand, other hand, there’s also the psychological component of this. And when we’re hyper focusing, let’s say on body weight and what the scale is saying, that can kind of mess with your head, right? So then it becomes, okay, well do we use the scale? Do we not use the scale?

It’s obviously important data, but to, to what degree does the importance of that data actually. Benefit us beyond maybe some psychological impacts, negative psychological impacts that we, we would be getting, you know, and obviously, obviously it’s very dependent on the person. So one person might be able to see the scale with total neutrality and just see it as data points where someone else might weigh themselves in the morning and then think about it all day long.

And that is absolutely the case. So, and I, and I know as I’m speaking to health and fitness coaches that you’ve seen. These varying degrees of relationship with the scale in your clients, and many of you listening have probably your relationship with the scale has probably changed over time too. Or you can like remember a time when you were more focused on it and when you’re not even within, you know, the span of a year.

Right. So reflecting on my own health and fitness journey, I. Really am at a point now that the scale means next to nothing to me, and I actually do still weigh myself relatively frequently. I use a, an app actually called Happy Scale, and I’ve been using it since 2015. I will say I use it far less frequently than I do now, but for the longest time, and this is me just being like a data research nerd.

But it’s so fun to just see and watch the trends over time and to also be able to pick up on where there are trends, where there are fluctuations, and how oftentimes when it feels like, oh, things are going up and down. But the reality is like we’re still kind of seeing a steady line over the course of time.

But you can only notice that if you do have enough data points, right? So. I don’t have a lot of emotion attached to the scale anymore. There definitely were times at the very early stages of getting into health and fitness and wanting to change my body composition that I was a little bit more focused on it.

There was more emotion involved, but, you know, call it exposure therapy. But I feel like the more often I was doing it, the less, the less weight it held. Pun very much intended. So. Really what we’re talking about today, and I wanna talk about, of course, the psychological impact of weighing yourself frequently and what that looks like.

We’re talking about actually. A pretty well validated tool when it comes to wanting to change your behaviors, wanting to improve something, do something different, and that is self-monitoring. You will see this come up over and over and over. Again, in the research when it comes to wanting to change habits and behaviors, and again, like improve yourself in any capacity.

It doesn’t have to be weight loss, but we do see this a lot in the health and fitness research when it comes to weight loss or just health behaviors in general and self-monitoring. Does not have to mean weighing yourself every day and keeping track of it. This also includes things like paying attention to your portion sizes and tracking that in some fashion, logging your workouts.

Uh, tracking macros is a form of self monitoring, right? And with all of these things, I don’t know, I guess there some people could probably get obsessed with tracking their workouts and like putting down like the minute details of everything, but I feel like more often than not I. When we’re having the conversation of like, but is this actually good for us psychologically?

In the health and fitness space, we’re talking about food, you know, tracking macros or tracking your body weight and like very closely monitoring those things. However, like I mentioned, self-monitoring is something that is really important because if you don’t know what needs changing and you can’t monitor your progress, like how do you expect to ever see success, right?

So we’re kind of like playing the space of like, well, clearly some of this is, is helpful, but. What are the detriments that come along with that, and is the helpfulness worth it in light of the detriments? So this episode is all about tracking your body weight specifically. So that’s the piece of self-monitoring that we’re going to get into.

And obviously, again, it’s pretty easy to imagine how. Someone might start to experience psychological effects, negative or, or positive if they’re weighing themselves every day and looking at that every single day, especially if that’s something, not something they were doing before, and it is something that they’re using as a tool to track their progress.

I think where this really gets dicey from like a negative psychological perspective is when clients or you who are listening to this right now are placing. More meaning onto what that number means to you, for instance, your self-worth. If that’s the case, then I am, I’m pretty certain you’re gonna have a hard time psychologically with weighing yourself every single day and tracking that and monitoring it over time.

If you’re thinking, even if it’s not something that’s super. I guess like direct and just like indirectly in the back of your head you’re thinking like, oh, this means something about me, who I am as a person, my worth. Like, yeah, obviously. And that’s like, that is a whole nother thing that needs to be unpacked.

And if you’re going to use a tool like that, then you need to unpack that stuff that comes with it. Right. And that said too, there’s, there’s another part of this that if. If we, if our clients don’t understand weight fluctuations or that weight loss isn’t linear, then it can. Eat away at you psychologically too, like this is kind of where knowledge can be powerful, right?

Knowledge is power in this case because if you can understand what different things make your body weight fluctuate, and that it’s more so about the trend over longer periods of time, rather than like what that number says about you every single day. That makes a big difference, right? So we have like a knowledge piece to this.

We have like a how are you assigning meaning to your body weight piece to this, which is all really important. But on the flip side, obviously we know that. Monitoring your progress is going to help you be more successful because otherwise you, how do you be successful without understanding whether or not you’re progressing?

Right? It’s, it’s next to impossible. And of course, there’s other ways to do this, right? You could be taking photos, measurements, whatever. Um, but again, we’re unpacking this idea of self weighing specifically today. So the questions are. Are there any negative psychological impacts to weighing yourself frequently?

What does the research say, and also how helpful is it for weight loss progress or weight loss maintenance? Again, according to the research, we all have our own experiences with our clients, with ourselves, but what we’re getting into today is studies research specifically. So what I am speaking to, and I have my little notes here to make sure I.

Get everything in about this systematic review, which I know I’ve mentioned before on this podcast. Systematic reviews are essentially like a review of a handful of studies that are all looking at a similar topic. So rather than me saying like, okay, this one study says this in, like, that’s what we should live and die by instead, this systematic review actually has 17 different studies all about.

The impact of self weighing. But it’s important to keep in mind that not all 17 studies were the exact same. So they’re not all doing the exact same things, asking the exact same questions. But essentially, researchers went and compiled these 17 studies based on their features. They also know that they are decently well done studies, you know, kind of sifting through like, oh, we don’t really love the methods of this study.

It kind kind of seems a little sketchy. Let’s toss that one out and came to the conclusion that these 17 are something that we wanna pay attention to. So the first thing that this systematic review looked at was weight change as an outcome, obviously, right? If we’re looking at weight loss, then in order to determine whether or not self-monitoring weighing yourself frequently is helpful, then we would need to see if these people actually did lose weight and maintain that weight, right?

So this is actually pretty impressive. All 17 of these studies that were reviewed in the systematic review reported. More frequent self weighing was actually associated with greater weight loss. Less weight regain and better weight gain prevention. So even beyond, you know, in, into the sort of maintenance realm, someone has lost the weight.

Continuing to weigh yourself frequently helps keep that weight loss off, which again, kind of makes sense. ’cause it, it just keeps things top of mind, right? Rather than like, okay, I lost the weight. I’m just like, I’m done here. Which we understand also from just like. A food and exercise perspective too. You can’t just like stop those things.

And I know that’s different ’cause one is in action and one is like monitoring, but same sort of idea here. So every single one of these studies, more frequent self weighing, was associated with greater weight loss, less weight regain, and better weight gain. Prevention. So that’s pretty significant, right?

And so then you may even be questioning this already. Well what, what is frequently weighing yourself? Like what does that actually mean? Are we talking five times a day? Are we talking one time a month? Like what does this actually mean? So I broke this down a little bit. Five studies of the 17 reported that daily weighing was asso associated with.

Better overall outcomes. So that was five of the 17. And again, remember all these studies studies were different. So some of them didn’t even have them weighing daily. That does not mean that the other 11 studies said that daily weighing was bad. Okay, so don’t, don’t twist that. Two studies demonstrated that weekly weighing was associated with better weight loss and better weight loss maintenance.

So that’s like something to think about, right? So maybe during a time when we’re really focusing on changing body composition with our clients or with ourselves, that daily weighing is beneficial. Later on, maybe you don’t need to do it every day. Maybe weekly is enough. From a maintenance perspective, one study showed that participants lost more weight with daily and weekly weighing than monthly weighing, which I don’t think anybody is surprised by that.

Just having it, again, more salient and top of mind and doing it more frequently. It’s kind of in your face more and you’re also just getting better data that way. Right. Versus weighing only one time per month. Okay. So that’s kind of what I pull this far as the frequency component. So I guess like my professional opinion.

Would be exactly what I said that daily weighing. Again, this is according to the these studies that I’m pulling here daily weighing is great. As far as monitoring your progress, especially during a time where you’re trying to lose weight, maybe you can shift to weekly weighing after that, once you get into a maintenance period, and maybe then after that you don’t need it at all.

Um, again, there’s just like so much nuance and individuality to this stuff, but we’re just pulling from this systematic review. So the next thing is psychological effects, which is kind of the topic of this entire podcast. This may be surprising to you. But no adverse effects were found related to frequent self weighing.

No adverse psychological effects were actually noted when it comes to frequent self weighing. What else we learned here is that increased self weighing was associated with an increase in dietary restraint. Makes sense, right? If you’re weighing yourself more frequently and you’re paying attention to that, again, you’re keeping it top of mind, then your behaviors may follow that.

If you think about it, you’re starting your day, getting on the scale, weighing yourself, you’re probably then looking at that number and thinking about your health behaviors associated with that. So you’re starting your day thinking about. Health behaviors and the choices that you’re going to make based on yes, that little number at your feet.

But either way, you know, and again, I don’t know how many times I’m gonna say this and I just like don’t, I don’t want my number one, I don’t want my words to be twisted, and I don’t want you to think that I am dismissing the fact that this could still negatively impact someone. But regardless, you’re starting your day thinking about your health and fitness behaviors and.

Yes, there’s ways to do that without stepping on the scale, but I think what we’re seeing here is that people who are stepping on the scale every single day are starting their day thinking about health behaviors, which, if you’re thinking about them, then chances are you’re probably gonna make more choices in alignment with the behaviors that you want to be choosing that are actually supportive to your goals.

Right? They also saw that increased self weighing was associated with body satisfaction. I, I say it that way because again, I think it, it can be surprising, right? Like we’re already seeing no negative adverse effects from daily weighing and no impact on body satisfaction. In fact, I. We see an increase in body satisfaction in people who are frequently weighing themselves, which I think is kind of like a, a misconception, right?

We automatically tend to think the more that someone’s weighing themselves, the more dissatisfied they are with their bodies. But these studies are actually showing something quite different. Also, interestingly. Increased self weighing is associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms and a decrease in weight or body shape concerns.

I feel like we need to like spend a whole podcast just like unpacking this, right? Because again, it’s like if you’re weighing yourself every day, the. The idea is that that’s because you don’t like your body and you want to change your body, so you’re focusing on your body weight. So that must mean you’re dissatisfied with your body, you’re unhappy and that you are concerned with your body weight.

But that’s not necessarily the the case. That’s not something that we see in this systematic review. Reviewing 17 different studies, and again, individuality matters, people are different, but. Just something interesting to think about is, I think in general, daily weighing and weighing yourself and paying attention to your body weight is quite demonized when the reality is maybe it actually helps you make better decisions and.

Gets you excited about the progress that you’re making and that you’re staying consistent with something, right? I think that that’s probably like the underlying notion here, and there was one study of the 17 that actually showed that daily self weighing was perceived positively, easy to do, easy to remember, and helpful.

Which again, like I think sometimes with stuff like this, okay, first, let me say, this was one study of the 17 that says this. That does not mean that the other 16 studies said the opposite. It just means that the other 16 studies didn’t necessarily look into these specific things, how positively the participants.

Thought self weighing was for them, or how easy to do it was for them. Easy to remember, helpful. The other studies just didn’t simply ask that, right? So we’re just like, we’re pulling this specific result from one study because they’re the only ones who have that data. Um, but anyway. It, it does make me think, I don’t know why, this is the example that comes into my head, but bear with me.

Um, you know, those like teacher review sites that you would have in college where you could like write My professor, that’s what it was called. And I remember there was like the chilies too. It was like how many chilies next to their name is like how hot the professor was. Wow. Yeah. I very much remember all of this.

Um, anyway, it makes me wonder, like I, I taught at a university level for a while. I wonder if I’m on there anyway. Um, besides the point on that, people would usually go there if they had something really bad to say or something really good to say. And the same thing goes for like Yelp reviews or anything like that.

So I think a lot of times when we’re hearing like people who are. Negatively impacted by the scale is because they were negatively impacted. So that’s what we hear about most. Whereas, you know, according to this stuff, the studies we’re going over here, I think the majority of people aren’t really impacted as negatively as we think.

It’s just the negative. The negative stories and connotations are. The things that are broadcasted and the things that are spoken the loudest. So it’s just like something to keep in mind and like also how I want you to be perceiving anything that you’re coming across on the internet or that people tell you to like really think about.

And it’s like, oh, is this one person’s really strong opinion and that’s why I’m hearing about it? Or is it actually that? The majority of people feel this way, like what’s actually the reality here? And that’s how you start thinking like a researcher, right? Okay. So overall, yes, the research does support frequently weighing yourself if you’re looking to lose weight, maintain weight loss, or even prevent weight regain, and the psychological impact is actually not that much of a concern.

Again, this is based on the research. Some of you may be like punching the air right now and being like, that’s not true. This is how I feel. This was my experience or this is what I see with my clients. And yeah, your experiences are still true and valid. I’m just saying it’s what these studies are telling us and research obviously, obviously is looking.

Results in aggregate, meaning that we’re talking averages across people, right? We’re, that’s what is being reported here. So yes, there are people that fall on either side of the bell curve, people who are negatively impacted, and then also people who are positively impacted. And so like kind of what we’re seeing is what is the most, what’s the average across all of these people?

So with that said, the question really becomes here, how do we leverage self-monitoring and self weighing? Same idea here, right? Because we know it helps, but without any negative psychological impact. Even if these studies are saying, for the most part, we’re not seeing any adverse effects of it. Like I think we all know it’s still possible.

And like I said, these results are based on averages, so. My whole podcast, my whole life rather, is focused on this stuff. It’s focused on mindset, it’s focused on the psychological aspects of health and fitness behaviors. So some things to keep in mind, and I kind of came up with these based on thinking about this podcast and knowing that a lot of you are like, yeah, but I’m still experiencing this stuff with my client.

So even though the research says there’s no psychological negative psychological impact. I’ve seen it and I’m dealing with it. So Casey, what do I do with this information? ’cause it’s not actually that helpful. So some things to keep in mind if you’re a coach. You’re having clients weigh themselves frequently, but you’re worried about the negative side effects of that.

The first thing is to, we really wanna understand the baseline relationship that our clients have with the scale to begin with. What does it mean to them? How does that number impact them? How has that relationship with the, with the scale changed? Over time, if it has, are you asking your clients these questions?

Like, this would be such a great conversation to have at intake with a new client or on your intake forms even. And just asking what their relationship is like with the scale, like to describe it in detail and how that’s changed over time. And I mean, you could even like paint the picture for them, like you’re stepping on the scale every single morning like.

If it goes up or if it goes down. Tell me about what emotions come up for you, if any, so that you can have a really strong understanding of like what you’re getting into with that person if you’re going to be asking them to weigh themselves every single day. And I think that’s something I. Somewhere like we do go wrong as coaches.

A lot of us have got to the point personally where we’re like, yeah, the, the scale’s just a number. It’s just a tool. It’s just something that helps, like there’s no like serious emotions attached to it. Yeah. But just because you’re there doesn’t mean your clients are there. And for the most part, your clients are not you.

Like 99% of the time, right? Because you are at a much different level, much different place in your health and fitness journey than your clients are. So getting that baseline data is so important, ’cause that’s gonna help inform you how you need to have conversations about the scale, what that needs to look like, and how you need to address that relationship with them.

Next thing I had written down here is to share with them the utility and the value behind it. Showcase how it’s no different than collecting data in any other way, whether that is taking measurements, taking photos, logging your workouts, tracking your food. They’re all just numbers than data. My friends, um, I know easier said than done, especially for people who maybe don’t have the best relationship at the scale, but having that conversation with them and say, Hey, the scale is a tool.

These numbers are. Just data points that we can track over time and monitor trends. We can make sure you’re on track and if we need to make any changes, like we have this information in front of us, that’s like pretty clear cut, right? So having that conversation beforehand with them and just hearing them out and whether or not they agree with that and if they have any pushback can be really, really helpful and very insightful for you as a coach.

But educating around. The utility of it and also describing it in that way can be really helpful. The last thing I have here is just like in general, I think the goal is to guide clients to more of a neutral perspective with the scale to see it and go, okay, that’s the number for today. Good to know. Let me go put that in my Happy scale app or track it in my spreadsheet for my coach.

And then move along with my day and then, oh, it’ll be so interesting to see what the average ends up being by the end of the week. You know, and maybe kind of getting, helping them get more curious on it. And, and this is where you can like, educate on scale fluctuations and things like that. And like, oh, well it makes sense because you had dinner way later than you normally do.

And that’s why we probably saw the scale up. Half a pound this morning or at a really high sodium meal the night before. And so that could mean you’re retaining a little bit more water, you’re really sore. And that could be, uh, be something that shows up on the scale as far as it, it being up a little bit today, right?

Because of the, the recovery process of your muscles and da da da da and like, and teach them in that way. And that can help them see it more objectively too, rather than wrapping emotions around it. So guiding them to more of a. Neutral perspective, like, not even necessarily positive or negative, just like this is, this is the data we got for today.

Um, again, you know, easier said than done, but like that should be the goal and like, I think that that’s what’s going to allow less of the negative psychological impact that we are concerned with. So. That is it. That is all. That is all I have for you on the psychological impact of weighing yourself. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.

I was, to be honest, a little bit worried about sharing this ’cause I was like, damn, this is, these studies are saying things that are quite different than a lot of the things we see online on social media, especially when we’re talking about weighing selves and people who have like, got really caught up in it.

But again, i I, I want you guys to keep in mind that. Everyone has such individual experiences, and this is why research exists too, is so rather than taking individual experiences from social media, we’re actually like going out there and using rigorous scientific methods to better understand like what’s actually going on.

Um. But yeah, I thought it was very interesting. I hope you did too. And that is all I have for you this time, and I’ll see you in the next episode. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Not Another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one, because if you’re anything like me, if the episodes aren’t popping up for you automatically, you’ll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it.

So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and make it super easy for you. And of course. If you wanna see more episodes just like this one, I’d love for you to let me know by leaving a review. I know, I know it’s super annoying to do, but the few seconds that it takes means the world to me and also ensures that I can keep providing free education and value to you.

And just to sweeten the deal, I am going to be picking a random reviewer every single month to receive a free workshop or product from me if you’re looking for more free resources. Or just wanna connect, hang out, chat a little bit. Come find me on Instagram. I’m Coach Casey, Joe over there. That is where I hang out the most in the land of social media.

Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth. I’ll see you next time.