Now That's A Great Idea! Thanks Jack!

My friend Jack gave me a great tip on using the scales to YOUR advantage. He and his wife, Terri, take their bathroom scales and skew the indicator to read something that is completely out of line with reality. e.g. Instead of an initial setting of zero you might choose 18.

How does this help? Well, when you look at the number. . .it's just a number and doesn't mean anything to you. Then record this number in a chart or spreadsheet and take the difference between this weigh-in and the last. Over time you can watch your "weight" trend up, down, or sideways.

Monitoring you "weight" this way removes the obsession with watching the scales. You then focus on progress. If you see the trend going up and you haven't been in the weight room building muscle, then you can arrest the fat gain before it's out of control.

On the flip side, if your "weight" is trending down and that's the direction you want to go, great! However, if you are in maintenance, or you are losing too fast, action can be taken immediately.

It is still better if you use a scale that measures bodyfat %, however, short of that this is a great tip. Don't overdo it on the weigh-ins however. Weighing more than once a week can be counterproductive.

Thanks again Jack!