Weigh-in day pressure...

Since I started this thing back in January, I've been losing weight and inches at a pretty good pace.  Generally about 2 or 3 pounds per week, and 1/2" or so off my waist.  Indeed, this week I'm down another 2 lbs and also lost an inch around my waist.

However, up until about a month ago, I would consistently feel quite a bit of pressure when it came to "weigh-in day".  I was weighing in once a week - always on Saturday morning.  I found that I became increasingly obsessed during the week thinking about what number would show up on the scale come Saturday.  I even started doing crazy shit like eating a very small meal the night before (or sometimes even skipping dinner), and hardly drinking any water on Friday night, since I knew I would be stepping on that scale the next morning.

I think this mindset stems from some of the unhealthy, ridiculous shit we would do trying to cut weight on my high school wrestling team.  Coming off football season, I would weigh between 160 and 165, and would cut down to the 145 lb weight class for wrestling season.  Practices were brutal, and I'm sure we would burn a ton of calories, but cutting down to 145 was fairly tough, especially for those first couple of matches.

So when it got to a day or 2 before a match, here's a partial list of bat-shit crazy things we would regularly do:

• Eat next to nothing for a day if you knew you were going to be close to not making weight
• Drink next to nothing 12 hrs prior to your weigh-in if you knew it was going to be close
• Wear plastic sweats while running/jumping rope/or just sitting in a hot room trying to drop that last bit of water weight before weigh-in if you knew it was going to be close
• Continuing our dehydration theme (here's my favorite), carrying a can around with you and constantly spitting into it in an attempt to further lose water weight (I'm beginning to think this one may have had a negative impact on my social life)
• Having a huge cache of food and liquid to binge on after you made weight, because you had about an hour until your match actually started

Doesn't that sound like the perfect recipe for a lifetime of unhealthy eating and fucking up your metabolism?  Maybe even throw in an eating disorder, too.  Actually some guys would occasionally practice "binge and purge", but I never went there.

I think this past nuttiness definitely contributes to the increasing pressure I would feel before weigh in, so I decided to eliminate "weigh-in day" altogether (sort of).  Now, every day is weigh-in day.  I weigh myself first thing in the morning, and enter that number in my iPod using an app called "Weight Diary".  I considered going the other direction, weighing myself only once a month or so, but I think that would have just increased the pressure I was feeling with weekly weigh-ins.

Here's the graph of last month's daily weigh-ins from the app:

It feels like a huge weight has been lifted.  I now feel no pressure at all while thinking about the scale.  From the graph, I see that there are daily ups and downs, but the overall downward trend is very good.  Of course, I can rationally say I knew this was happening, but I guess it just helps to see it, too.