To weigh or not to weigh every day

I've been known to have a scale obsession or two. There was a time when someone put my scale in the trunk of their car so I couldn't weigh myself every day. It was really unhealthy, obviously. The scale and I did not have a good relationship and I would basically let that number determine how my day was going to go. If I was going to be happy that day, it was going to be because that number had gone down. If I was going to be a self loathing bitch face, it was because I gained.

Fast forward to the last 6-8 weeks and I don't know whats changed, but my scale and I are pals again despite the fact that I weigh myself every day. This time I feel like it is crucial to my success and has even helped me be  more accountable. First, who doesn't want to get up every morning and see that they are actively losing weight? It's instant feedback, and for an impatient control freak like me, it works.

Before anyone jumps on my case with a thousand reasons why you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, let me say that I am not telling everyone they should do it. We all know our personalities and can make this choice for ourselves. However, if you are planning to track this way, let me suggest some guidelines:

1. Stop eating before the same time every night.   I know there is a lot of controversy in the diet world about whether it makes a bit of difference and I say it doesn't, but for my purposes it makes sense. My logic is that if you don't eat after a certain point every night, by morning your body has had a chance to "reset". For me, I don't eat after practice and try not to eat after 9 on normal nights. Sometimes I don't always get all of my calories in before practice and HAVE to eat afterwards, but ideally I don't.
2. Weigh yourself upon waking, after you use the bathroom.  Ok, you've been sleeping for 8 (hopefully) hours and chances are your body has digested all the food you ate yesterday. Get up, do your morning business, and hop on the scale. Do not eat. Do not drink. Do not pass GO... Sorry, anyway this part is super important. Ever heard the saying "a pints a pound the world around"? It basically means that 16oz is a pound (duh, right?), but think of that in terms of food. If you get up and have a large coffee, you know weigh 1 pound more than when you woke up this morning.
3. Never ever weigh yourself more than once a day.  Some would say that weighing yourself every day is obsessive and I disagree, but weighing yourself multiple times a day is just crazy. Besides, chances are that you are going to eat or drink during the day and if you read number 2, that's not a great thing for weigh-ins.

Obviously not every weigh in can be a loss, but I know that I have had many more days in the losing column than that gaining column because I know I am going to face the scale in the morning. Weighing myself every day helped me catch my last plateau and fix it quickly. Also, I typically know in advance if I can expect to see a gain, especially if I ate things high in sodium the day before. I think this is an advantage over weekly weighing because I could have a great week nutrition and exercise wise, eat a bunch of sushi the night before and then be up on the scale the next day and then I feel like I didn't make any progress that whole week. To me, that is much more discouraging.

P.S. Down another .8lbs this morning, 3.2 for the week :) I love eating more!