Behold, a scale! In the ladies’ room! Not in the ladies’ room of a gym or a health club, in the ladies’ room of a regular corporate workplace. When I saw this standing against the wall on my first day, I was sort of offended. What was this scale meant to imply? I asked the guys in my office if there was a scale in the men’s room and they told me there wasn’t. They also told me about the horrors that could be found in the men’s room, which I will not terrorize you with, but did make me very glad that I had lady parts.

So, why was this rickety old scale placed in the ladies’ room? Did management think their female employees were fat and needed to watch their weight? Did they think women are all weight obsessed? I have no idea. I doubt the scale was placed in the ladies’ room as part of a nefarious agenda. I doubt much thought was put into it at all. Regardless, it always pissed me off a little when I went to take a piss.

* Grammar police: I tried to determine whether it’s the ladies’ room, ladies room, or lady’s room, but Google wasn’t much help on the issue. If I used the wrong form, I apologize. Please take that into account at my trial. Thanks.

Disclosure: I was sent the Mary Lou’s Weigh platform for free in exchange for an unbiased review of the product.

Mary Lou Retton is an Olympic gymnast who won a gold medal in 1984 and has recently developed the Mary Lou’s Weigh Platform, a scale which is not really a scale. Instead, the platform secretly records how much you weigh the first time you step on it and then tells you how much weight you’ve lost or gained since your initial weight.

When I say it tells you how much weight you’ve lost, I mean that literally. Mary Lou’s recorded voice not only relays your results, she gives you tips about eating protein and drinking more water. When you reach a new low weight, you get a round of applause. Every time you lose 10 pounds, the platform resets, part of a strategy to break huge weight-loss goals down into more manageable intermediate goals.

I like the philosophy behind the scale and the emphasis put on fitness and health rather than weight, particularly in the included booklet, DVD and the web site. Mary Lou has 4 daughters and has never allowed a scale in her house because she doesn’t want them to obsess over a number. I also empathize with people who are scared to look at the number on a scale. When I first weighed myself over four years ago I was scared to look at the number for fear that I’d crossed the 400-pound mark. Mary Lou’s Weigh Platform is a good way to track progress without becoming overly focused on a number.

However, it’s also kind of cheesy. I know Mary Lou Retton is not actually talking to me. I know the applause is not real. It’s just a computer giving me feedback. I find it annoying that the scale is trying to act like a person when it is clearly not a person. It is the same annoyance I feel when I call for customer service and an automated phone attendant asks me to say what department I want. I’d prefer just to see a + or – number on the scale rather than hear the voice, just like I’d rather hit a touch tone pad than to enunciate “Yes” or “No” creepily into the phone when everyone at work eyes me oddly.

Also, I know “perky” is her brand, but she’s just a bit too chipper for me to take, particularly early in the morning when I weigh myself. The designers of the platform seem to have anticipated this response though, including this Q & A in the user booklet:

“If I shoot my Platform, will it still work??”

Unfortunately, the Platform isn’t bulletproof. It will no longer work, if you shoot it.

“If I tell my Platform to ‘shut up!’ will Mary Lou Retton get her feelings hurt?”

Mary Lou will not take it personally if you need to express yourself during your daily weighing.

The scale also won’t work well for the hearing impaired or for people who don’t want to wake up their family in the morning. It is however very good for scaring cats who stumble upon the platform and tear off for the bedroom in terror at the chipper voice of Mary Lou telling them to “Step on the platform!”

The package also includes a booklet called “Lite reading” which is nicely designed visually and includes a lot of practical weight loss advice, though it’s nothing you wouldn’t find in the latest issue of Prevention or Women’s Health, just like the advice Mary Lou gives you after you weigh in. It sounds like a good idea in theory, to deal out small amounts of information daily, but I don’t want my scale telling me to drink more water. Duh, I know this. Just shut up already.

Evidently, in the future you will be able to buy cartridges that include new advice to preserve your sanity after Mary Lou has told you to eat more protein for the 30th time. They are not currently available on the site though. If they were, I’d be tempted to buy one just so I could hack it with my own advice. I have friends with soldering irons and deviant minds who could be of great help :)

The platform also comes with a DVD which includes an interview with Mary Lou that has that same bizarro quality found in any infomercial. Really, is anyone ever this happy to talk about a scale that is not a scale?

There was also a moment when I thought the universe might implode upon itself when Mary Lou stepped on her own platform and got advice from herself. It was like the moment in Being John Malkovich when he dives inside his own mind.

The DVD also includes answers to frequently asked questions, instructions on how to use the platform, and video of Mary Lou’s 1984 victory, which I will admit, was hella inspiring. It also revealed that Bela Karolyi is so ancient he may well be a vampire.

The platform appears to be a gateway to get people involved in Mary Lou’s website, which could hypothetically include more products in the future featuring her brand name. I like the attitude and the intent behind the program and I find it admirable that Mary Lou admits on the DVD that losing 20 pounds was one of the hardest things she had to do. I’m also glad to see her endorsing a healthy approach to weight management, particularly considering how screwed up gymnasts can be encouraged to be about their body image. As Mary Lou says:

People who know me understand that I don’t believe in quick fixes,” explains Mary Lou. “When it comes to weight loss or any goal, what’s required is a commonsense plan, proven tools, achievable goals and ongoing motivation.

Word.

Overall, I think Mary Lou’s Weigh Platform is a good idea that could still use some tweaking.

And now, you have a chance to win Mary Lou’s Weigh Platform! I’m sure there are a lot of people out there just starting their weight loss programs who would benefit from having this platform. For half a nanosecond, I thought of giving it to my brother who is in need of a scale, and then collapsed on the carpet in a fit of giggles resembling an epileptic seizure. This is definitely a girl’s scale.

To win the platform, you must be a US resident or be willing to have the platform shipped to a US address. (Sorry, I’m shipping this myself and don’t want to pay for international shipping.) To enter, you have until 11:59pm on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 to leave a comment on this entry with a phrase you wish Mary Lou would say when you step on the platform. A winner will then be chosen randomly. Good luck!

This contest is now closed

I did hold out for a week and a half. I was really tempted to hop on the scale after I had food poisoning because I’m sure the dehydration sucked off several pounds, even if they weren’t “real.” But I kept my ass on the couch. And when I saw my little kitty looking so slender in the kitchen, I was tempted to weigh myself and then weigh myself while I was holding him to determine his weight in the difference. But I resisted that urge to and got my mother to do it when we went out to lunch that weekend. Every time I opened the front closet door to throw out some trash, I stared down the scaled and thought, “Nope, not going to weigh myself. No, siree.”

Then one day I just hopped on the scale for no real reason. I was curious. Then I did at again several days later. I’d guess I’ve weighed myself 6 or 7 times this month. And every time I did, I looked at the number, thought about what I’d been eating and how much I’d been exercising and said, “Yeah, that seems about right.” There was only one day I was surprised, and it was because I weighed less than I thought I should. I’m at a point now where I know whether I’ve been treating my body well or not. I know when I’ve come home, felt tired, and eaten half my kitchen. And I know when I’ve come home, changed into my gym clothes and gone to a Boot Camp class. That’s really what I want to concentrate on, not the number on the scale, but how good I feel and how well I’ve been treating myself. That’s my main motivation for taking time off from the scale. Because there are some days when I’ve treated my body well and the number goes up, and other days when the numbers go down even though I’ve neglected proper care and feeding. It’s been nice to get away from checking in with the numbers every day. It feels like a mental weight has been lifted, if not a physical one.

My weight this month is 180, which is up two pounds from the weigh-in at the end of December, but actually down a couple pounds from my highest post-holiday weight. So, I’m heading in the right direction. More importantly, my life has settled down a bit and I’m getting back into a daily routine, though I’m still spicing things up by going to classes at the Y. I’ve decided I’m going to weigh myself at least once a week, more if I feel like it, but I’m only going to report on it once a month. Because I do feel a little psycho having to justify one or two pound gains every week, but I also don’t want to totally lose accountability and gain back 20 pounds. I’ll write again at the beginning of March to let you know how it’s going.

I see it as a reflection of what this blog is about these days. When I started out it was all about losing weight. These days, I don’t care so much about the weight loss as long as I’m taking care of myself and leading a healthy, fit lifestyle. My weight still matters, but it’s not the most important thing. I want to keep my weight within normal operating parameters, but I’m more concerned with being able to finish my half-marathon in May. Speaking of which, I have to go change now and run in 26 degree weather with my training group. Twenty-six degrees! That’s damn near tropical compared to last time.

There are many different philosophies on how frequently you should weigh yourself: monthly, weekly, daily, or not at all. Now that I’m switching to monthly, I’ll have tried them all. My philosophy? Choose what is best for you at the time. Different approaches work for different people depending on your situation and your state of mind.

Not weighing myself at all led me to gain 200 pounds. I do not recommend this method.

When I started losing weight three years ago, I weighed myself weekly. This worked well for about a year and a half. My body was so huge that it burned a lot of calories. I could easily lose 3 or 4 pounds a week and do a happy dance every Saturday as I stepped off the scale. The numbers almost always went down, I was positively reinforced, and my fresh and vulnerable little psyche didn’t have to freak out every day over small weight changes.

But as I got smaller, my weight loss slowed down. I reached a point where the number every Saturday was not a reliable indicator of weight loss. Weight fluctuates over the week and during the course of the day due to silly little things like how much water you’re retaining or what part of the menstrual cycle you’re at. It was possible that I’d lost fat, but my weight was the same. At that point I started to weigh myself daily and looked at the average over the past 7-10 days. My weight would bob up and down by a couple pounds day to day, but I understood why. I was confident in my abilities to lose weight so I wasn’t freaking out over the daily fluctuations and gauging the process on a daily basis gave me a better sense of where I was than the weekly weighing had.

Right now I’ve reached a point where my biggest barrier is mental. As long as I know I weigh under 180, I find it more permissible to eat an extra cookie or have another cup of yogurt in the evenings. Once I go over 180, my warning bells start ringing and I go back into weight-loss mode. I become more careful about what I eat and I’m more diligent about exercise. But once I start seeing 176 or 175 show up on the scale, I start slacking again. Some people in the comments theorized that I’d hit my body’s most comfortable weight, but I believe I’ve really hit my mind’s most comfortable weight. So, I have to mess with my mind if I’m going to make any more progress. I was talking to my brother about this problem and we tried coming up with solutions.

“I could try screwing with the scale so it weighs me 10 pounds heavier than I am. But even if I could figure out how to do that without breaking a $60.00 piece of electronic equipment, I’d still know the reading was fake and just mentally deduct it in my head.” I told him.

“Why don’t you get a bag of something that you don’t know the weight of and hold that when you weigh in?” He suggested.

“Hmmm, that might work. But after awhile I’ll be able to compare day to day and know that I’ve lost x amount of pounds and then I’ll just subtract that from my last known weight.” Damn my math skills!

Then it occurred to me that the answer was completely obvious and I was too stupid to see it. I could just stop weighing myself. It’s a somewhat dangerous idea because it could completely backfire. If I start gaining weight, I won’t have that feedback from the scale to know I need to adjust. However, I will have other feedback, like the fit of my clothes. I can take my measurements too. And best yet, I won’t be able to tell myself I can have another fudge pop because I weigh under 180 since I’ll have no idea how much I actually weigh.

So, January shall now be known as the month without weigh-ins. I’ve known other bloggers who have done this and none of them exploded into the Stay Puft Marshmallow man in just a month. On February 1st we’ll see how it goes. Until then, the sidebar shall remain as silent and no beeps shall emit from my scale.