Determined To Succeed

My friends, good morning to you. Well, I kept my promise to you (and to myself) and purchased a new digital scale.

If you’ve been following me for a while you will know that my scale has been a bit wonky as of late so I took myself to Target yesterday and stood in front of the endcap for at least ten minutes trying to decide which one of these things was I going to buy. As an aside, I always advocate getting an electronic scale because it is far more accurate than the old kind with it’s bounce-back-and-forth wheel-of-fortune hash marks.

I mean, really. There were scales there ranging in price from about $19 – $45, and I was torn between being a cheap – er, I mean, economically frugal – guy and a guy who cares about good quality and accuracy in his weight loss battle. The Weight Watchers scale, which was $45, would do everything including measure your BMI (body mass index). I seriously considered buying that one but then two things hit me. 1) I despise the BMI scale. I think the BMI scale is detrimental because it simply doesn’t take into account a person’s individual build when “calculating” how much they should weigh based on their height and solely on height. 2) It really wasn’t work an extra $15, especially in today’s economy, to get that one when the next one down looked good, just as pur-ty and did almost all the same things.

So, I went with a scale that was mid-range. As a man with heft I always like buying electronics that have heft (clue: to a guy that means it’s sturdier and works better) so I took a deep breath and bought the Taylor brand scale with it’s extra-large readout screen that glows at night (for that oh-so-important need to read the scale but not necessarily see yourself in the process). I was at first skeptical of Taylor because the supposed “long-life” scale I purchased about two years ago. That one was supposed to last me a millennia or something like that and I trusted it…that is until it LIED to me and started telling me what I wanted to hear and not what I needed to hear.

After a frustrating bit replacing the batteries in my “brand new” scale (grrrr – if you buy one take it out of the box and try it in the store) I got on and holy s$%t was my old scale off. It had been lying to me for some time and wow did I buy it. Like a friend who says “oh no, you’re not fat.” Turns out that old, broken-down scale was 12 pounds off.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

While that 12 pounds was my guess (remember I thought it was at least ten off) I wasn’t prepared to see 238 again on the scale. Egads, I’ve been slacking off and eating waaaaaaay too much bad food. I do get up and work out every day but wow, I now know I need to cut back on food again and re-lose (sigh, again) 13 lbs.

I am grateful to my new electronic scale friend. It is that friend we all NEED in this weight loss journey, the kind that will not lie to you and let’s you know exactly what’s up. That old scale is the friend you don’t need but sometimes WANT, who while there on the journey, comforts you when it really should be kicking you in the pants and telling you “no, that’s not good and you need to work harder.”

Stupid scale.

Well, I just want you guys to know I am human and I now have an accurate-as-hell scale to tell me my butt needs to lose weight. But I will. Not just because that’s part of my covenant to you guys as a human being but because I finally can stop living in my dream world of the number I want to see and start living in the now.

Ugh.