I’ve gone back and forth over the years on the value of weighing myself. Sometimes it seemed important to track, other times it seemed like it just stressed me out. Articles haven’t helped – some laud the importance of marking the ups and downs, others emphasize that how you feel and how clothes fit tell you everything you need to know about your weight. I’ve landed on a system that might seem a bit OCD but is actually what’s best for me. Unfortunately, it does involve stepping on a scale every single morning.

Oh joy.

But you see, weighing myself each day gives me a lot more information than just pounds on this frame. It helps me catch patterns before I’m too far down the rabbit hole. Eating clean and exercising? Yep, there goes half a pound. Exercising but bringing home Chipotle for dinner? I can get away with it once, maybe, but another cheat and doink! I watch that scale tick up a pound or two. Sometimes the guacamole’s worth it, sometimes it’s not, but at least I”m making an informed decision either way.

It was when I started doing that cleanse that I began weighing every day. Tracking my pounds plus logging my meals helped make it easy to see what foods triggered me. I laid off the habit for a long while and boy, it sure is easy for ten pounds to sneak up on a girl when she isn’t paying attention. So here we are, back on the bandwagon. We’ll see how it goes.

Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “weigh/way/whey.” Use one, use ’em all, bonus points if you do that last thing. Enjoy!