How a Defective Scale Reading Made Me Panic

Content warning: this article has references to weight, scale measurements, and eating habits, which can be triggering topics for many people. If you or anyone you know needs help, please find resources at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

Since I was 20, I have been around the same weight — I weigh 150 to 155 pounds on any given day. I’m 29 now. Being 5’6″, my weight falls into the overweight range by BMI standards, yet those who meet me in person typically find my weight surprisingly high.

Most of it (I think) is in my quads, where my body has adapted to handle high-volume distance running, something I’ve done since I was 12. Since 21, I have been running marathons, and I am training to run a 2:25 marathon this year.

I rarely think about my weight. There have been years when I did not go to the doctor or weigh myself because it did not cross my mind. Even if I ran 80 miles a week or more, I did not think about what I ate or how much I weighed. I probably should have been more conscientious about my diet, and a more focused diet would have likely improved the performances I care so much about.

I try to keep weight in the background because, as a runner, I know other runners who have struggled with disordered eating. We get the idea that thinner is better early on, but that’s often not healthy — so I see it as healthier not to care, which is the case for me the majority of the time.

Freaking out

Back in April, I saw a scale in my work gym locker room. I figured I should weigh myself since I’d been running 100 miles a week for several weeks — more than I’d ever run before. It would be good to see how that much running volume was affecting my body. I weighed around 150; this was lower than the last time I’d weighed myself, which was the year before at the doctor’s office. My weight was unsurprising — after all, I was running 100 miles a week, so I was still adjusting to making sure I had enough nutrition for the amount of running I was doing.

On some runs, I burned nearly 3,000 calories, so I couldn’t replace all those calories in one meal. I also struggled with being hungry right after huge 20+ mile runs (I’m not that hungry after marathons, either), so I needed to catch up later in the day.

After weighing myself, I continued to run 100 miles weekly. I would adjust the mileage a bit to have peaks and valleys — one week I would run 85 miles, and three weeks later, 110 miles. I was running a lot, and my body was getting used to it. When I started running this much volume, I was tired pretty much all the time. But after two months, I was feeling strong and seeing increases in fitness and workouts.

Around six months, I weighed myself again. I pulled a rarely used scale from our bathroom and placed it onto the carpet. I was shocked at the number — 144 pounds. One hundred forty-four pounds! I lost six pounds in less than two months. I’m a pretty small person to begin with, so I did not have much to lose.

From this one measurement, I needed to make drastic changes. I needed to eat more — a lot more. I Googled what it meant that I’d lost six pounds in six weeks and learned that I was operating at a daily deficit of 300–500 calories.

“Okay, that’s not good,” I thought. There were several ways I probably wasn’t eating enough. Anyone who has had a meal with me knows I can eat — a lot, especially for someone my size. But I eat only two meals a day. I tend to skip breakfast or only eat a bar because I’m in a rush to get out the door and catch my train. I also don’t snack much.

The adjustment

This all had to change. I had to be more intentional about breakfast, but I hated the inefficiency of spending entire hours just eating. This meant I had to snack more — a lot more.

I texted a friend and asked him if he had the same weight loss problem when he started running 100 miles a week. He did; he said it was hard to get in calories even when stuffing himself every meal. Instead, he made up the deficit by snacking.

So for an entire week, I ate a lot of snacks, mostly trail mix and chips. I visited my family in New York, which is a time when I eat more than usual. I didn’t enjoy having to devote more time and attention to eating since it’s just a human need that happens in the background — something I rarely, if ever, thought about. But I needed to stop the weight loss associated with my new training regimen.

Weighing again

I got back home and figured I should weigh myself again to ensure no further weight loss. I pulled the scale and put it on the tile instead of the carpet, like the time before. I expected little to change, but when I saw the number, I was shocked again.

One hundred fifty-four pounds. If the scale was correct, I gained 10 pounds in a week. If the difference were only 2 or 3 pounds, I would have accepted the number and realized I had overcompensated.

But 10 pounds in a week? That was impossible. There had to be something wrong, either with the measurement or the scale itself. I figured it could use some calibration, but then I realized something: the first time I weighed myself, it was on carpet. The second time, it was on tile. I Googled whether this makes a difference, and it does.

I weighed myself again on the carpet — 144 pounds. The surface I put the scale on made the difference in the measurement. I tried again on the tile — 154 pounds. The tile was likely more accurate, and it makes sense to be in that range; it was the range I’ve been in since the pandemic, and I devote time to bodyweight strength training, which could make me slightly heavier.

But all this meant I overcorrected my eating habits for no reason. Yes, there was merit to snacking, but I did not need to stuff myself. Like drinking water, I could, like most people, eat when hungry.

I resolved to stop thinking about it. The only time I would truly know how much I weigh is when I see my doctor. It’s been two months since that measurement, and I haven’t weighed myself or thought about weight much since.

I’m not saying weight is not important to health for many people. I also know it’s a very sensitive topic in the West (whereas my Chinese family will talk about other people’s weight bluntly and openly). However, something was clearly wrong with either my scale, the way I was using the scale, or both.

There’s a human tendency to take one isolated piece of data and create a narrative around it. I do this quite a lot, even when that one point of data is inaccurate. A conflicting second opinion can completely change that narrative. And I realize I do this all the time as a runner, albeit less than when I was younger.

Running a bad race often made me feel like a failure as a runner. I would interpret these poor performances to mean that I was doing something wrong in my training and I wouldn’t get better. These performances also meant I had to make huge adjustments in my race tactics and how I approached races mentally.

However, I also had good races, which would give me such a euphoric feeling where I felt on top of the world. A personal best would often give me this feeling, and as I got better as a runner and personal bests became more elusive, that euphoria became rarer.

My college coach once told us, “Don’t get too high on your highs and low on your lows.”

It was sage advice, but much easier said than done. I struggle to follow that advice in how I approach running, but also in many other areas of life, including as an attorney. In the grand scheme of a lifetime, running is just a single, long journey. One data point can move the needle, but it’s not deal-breaking. Everyone has bad days, and just like a measurement can have an error, a slow 10k where it was absurdly hot and humid is not an indication of fitness in ideal conditions.

For now, I’m just happy I can save some time and avoid freaking out for no reason. Until I go to the doctor, there’s no need to step on the scale.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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