Weight tracking is a helpful tool to use when involved in the task of losing weight or maintaining a weight-loss.  The scale is a measurement tool.  It weighs everything within one’s body.

Ultimately, however, scale weight will…over time…accurately reflect the RESULTS of one’s eating BEHAVIOR. I add the caution…over time…because there are many variables that affect a person’s daily scale weight. You can read more about that in "What About the Scales?" and "The Scale and the Big Picture".

I have found that Graphing or charting weight over time can help bring perspective and patience to my weight-loss or maintenance process.
As an example of how this works, I’ll share with you some current graphs showing my own weight progress.

1. Here is a WeightChart graphing my DAILY weight for the last 20 months.
 

 2. Here is a WeightChart graphing my WEEKLY weight for the last 20 months

 

3. Here is a WeightChart graphing my MONTHLY weight for the last 20 months

 These graphs are all from a charting program called WeightChart, and all of them use exactly same weights over the same 20 month time period. The Results are actually all the same. However my Efforts are reflected far more accurately in the daily graph than in the monthly graph, or even in the weekly graph.

Here is similar information using the graphing function of DietPower. Except that here the time period is for the past 12 months, a one year period.

1. Here is a DietPower graph of my DAILY Weight for the past 12 months.

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Here's my Opinion.
Lighten up.
Having a "Food Obsession" is okay.

Personally, I have no desire to reduce my own "food obsession".
I'm the kind of person who really gets into anything I do, any interest I have.
So what if I'm not "normal" around food.
So what if food, and issues around food, are important to me.
So what if I spend a lot of my time thinking about food and/or weight.
I'm not going to waste my life shaming myself because of it.
Food is just as important or interesting as anything else...
....in fact it is the one thing that is vital for life to exist.

Just because a "saying" is old, doesn't make it right.. 
  I think "Eat to Live, not Live to Eat" is just a B.S. Value Judgment.
It really is just another way for people who don't share my values to negate them.
Am I REALLY going to let that part of Society legislate my morality?
No.

Acceptance of oneself and one's personal interests apply generally,
in that much of modern Society now has a "live and let live" morality,
or "do what you want, as long as you don't' hurt others" ...
....but it makes a BIG EXCEPTION
about allowing a fat person to feel okay about food and their fat,
and it generally agrees that it's okay to tell a fat person
how they are SUPPOSED to feel and behave,
and to try to shame them into feeling guilty for what is natural to them.

Just watch one episode of the TV show, The Biggest Loser,
and see Society's current value judgments about the obese contestants.
Notice how the obese contestants buy into those negative Beliefs about themselves,
and how they state their belief that unless they are thin, they have no life.
Notice how they feel they deserve the ill treatment they get on that show,
including severe verbal abuse...and even (what I would call) physical abuse.

Then, when they lose weight, notice how they are encouraged to become
missionaries to the world and work to convert other fat people to their new beliefs.

"Obsessed is what the weak and lazy call the Dedicated"

Society in general, finds it acceptable for people to be obsessed with
exercise, sports, television shows, video games, hobbies, work, money,
shopping, relationships, family, sex, parenting, vacations, etc. etc. etc.
But, God Forbid, that anyone should feel okay about being obsessed with food.....

ESPECIALLY, if that person is overweight, obese, or very thin...
Only a "normal" sized female can acceptably demonstrate a strong interest in food...
and even that Acceptance is very limited.
Actually, this Quote is not exclusively related to food issues.
Dedicated, not Obsessed...

                        
An individual Fit is necessary
when it comes to Diets or Lifestyles.

Have you thought that if you did just what someone else does,
you would look just like them? Yet when you try to copy their
choice of foods and fitness activities, you’re miserable.

Then when you stop doing it, you feel like you failed.
You didn't fail. It was just a bad lifestyle fit.

 Each of us is an individual on our own journey, and none of us are exactly alike.
Some people need to follow a specific eating plan and have foods they never eat again.
A Plan like this makes some people feel deprived and leads to binge eating.
Some people need to eat smaller quantities of what they want at frequent times,
while taking extra care to carefully log that food into their trackers.

I don’t like any outside control on my eating behavior
I hate having well-meaning people ask: "Should you be eating that?"
Others aren’t any more right or more wrong than me.
We all want to save ourselves from obesity, and there are many options available.
The secret is to find what works for each one of us personally.
There is a lot of advice out there from the weight loss industry.
So many “medical discoveries” happening in the field,
So many magazines promoting “new miracle diets”,
So many tips and tricks.

Now Obesity is considered an epidemic
but there’s no vaccination…no one-cure-fits-all fix.
Each of us has to find our own way.
 We know some basics of calories-in and calories-out
which is one starting point of our physical problem.
However genetic, psychological, character-related,
disease-related, and other problems, are involved as well.
These are all variables which cause more than one problem
and require more than one solution.

Note that in “Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It” by Gary Taubes,
the basic belief in calories-in/calories-out is even termed the "Original Sin”.

What works for me may not work for you.
What works for you might not work for me.

Each of us wants to find a way to change our life without severely disrupting it.
That’s a tough Goal. To accomplish that, we need to gather as much information
as is possible, and make changes that work best individually.

                         
There are many different diets, ways-of-eating, and lifestyles.
I believe that each of us has to find his or her own way.

All of the Weight-Loss/Maintenance research and theories contain flaws, and
each of us is individually conducting an Experiment of One.

I totally agree with the following quote by an online forum member.

"You see a lot of contradiction in diet books
and on diet blogs and message boards.
Some people will tell you to eat certain foods,
others tell you to stay away from them,
eat six meals, or maybe just three meals,
do aerobics, avoid aerobics,
take these pills, don't take any pills.

Nobody's right. Everyone's right.

You have to think of a diet as a trip home for Thanksgiving --
it's a personal destination
and you should know better than anybody how to get there.

If you're driving east on the highway heading home for Thanksgiving,
you'll see a lot of cars driving west.

If the person in the passenger seat said,
"There's a lot of people heading home for the holiday,"
you wouldn't turn to that person and flip out and say,
"What the hell!
What a bunch of retards!
Don't they know home is this way?"

But that is what diet writing often is --
people arguing over how to get home."

The support and information that I’ve received from participating
in online forums has helped me toward my goals of weight-loss
and maintenance.

The majority of people in these online forums share a common interest
in diet, fitness, and related health issues. Matters of age, sex, race, size,
appearance, occupation, status, religion, and political affiliation tend to
become irrelevant as people join together to achieve their personal weight
and health related goals.

     I’ve found most of these people to be remarkably intelligent, articulate,
courteous, and kind. A member can share a personal feeling and opinion about a relevant issue,
and others will join in with comments on that topic. Whether I just read the forum comments
or choose to make a comment myself, as time goes on I become familiar with these people, and
begin to consider some of them as friends. Previously I wrote articles about this subject
in Online Friends and Imaginary Friends.

Over the years, a few of my online forum relationships with like-minded female forum members,
have progressed to e-mails, phone calls, and even personal visits, which has provided an
added dimension to the personal friendships in my life.
My entry into the online forum world was around January 2005,  when
I first became involved in the Monthly Challenges forum at Dietpower.com. This
was the only online forum where I chose to use my real name, Phyllis Collins,
and I did that primarily because I didn’t understand I could choose a different user name.
Since joining, I’ve posted in that forum every month, and today, I logged in
to reserve my spot in the March 2011 Challenge.

For those of you who might be interested in my real time weight-loss numbers,
and the process I’ve gone through since January 2005 and the present date,
you can see all of my personal DietPower Challenge Posts by looking at their
Challenge Forum Archives. I feature DietPower software at DietHobby, because
I consider it to be my most valuable individual tool. FYI, I have no financial interest
in DietPower..including any referrals or recommendations existing within this Blog.
Many diet book authors and diet gurus have forums on their individual websites.
One onli...