By Jason Brick

It’s natural to want to weigh in frequently while you’re on a weight loss program. The feedback can keep you motivated when you succeed, and keep you on track by warning you that you’re starting to slip.

But weighing in the wrong way can have just the opposite effect, with your body’s natural rhythms giving you frustrating and inconsistent readings.

Weigh In Once Per Week

Your body weight will fluctuate from day to day by several pounds. If you weigh in daily, those fluctuations will give you an unrealistically low weight one day and a frustratingly high weight the next. Weighing in just once a week will avoid these short-term changes and keep track of the overall trend of your body weight.

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In a world where the media consistently projects images of the “perfect” female body, a new site called My Body Gallery promotes a positive body image by displaying real images of real women along with their height, weight and clothing size.

“In a world full of images of how we ‘should’ look it can get difficult to tell how we DO look,” the site says. “Most women have spent so many years looking at themselves in mirrors that we can no longer see what’s really there. The My Body Gallery project’s goal is to help women objectively see what we look like and come to some acceptance that we are all beautiful.”

While the site encourages women to accept that all bodies look different no matter what your shape and size, some women are skeptical that it will have a measurable affect on how a woman views her body.

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The reason anyone starts a fitness program is to see results, and the only way to know how far you’ve come is by knowing where you started.

P90X, the popular extreme home fitness program, understands the importance of tracking all indicators of fitness.

Instead of just tracking weight or measurements, P90X has an intensive Fitness Assessment that tracks your weight, measurements, strength, flexibility and cardiovascular capacity every step of the way.

The P90X program is split into three phases, 30 days each, and at the end of each phase, you will retest to see how much your health has improved. The first test is done before the first P90X workout so you know your baseline of fitness.

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UPDATE [5/2/11]: This episode of Tyra will air again on Monday, May 2.

Tune in this Wednesday, March 10 to The Tyra Show when she features her own Circus of Weight.

No. It’s not some new diet, but rather the Circus of Weight is a social experiment that uncovers the stories behind weight stereotypes.

From being called too fat, too skinny or too muscular, Tyra’s stage is filled with a panel of men and women that come in all shapes and sizes.

In an open discussion, they share their stories of body discrimination and also share their desires and fears for why they look as they do.
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NWA's new flight attendant dresses, designed by Richard Tyler. Photo via Washington Post.

There has been controversy over weight issues with airline passengers in recent years. But now the issues are coming from within as employees of Northwest Airlines (now owned by Delta) are getting a bit perturbed by the uniform design approved by their employers.

Delta Airlines hired fashion designer Richard Tyler to design their flight attendants’ red dress uniforms. Tyler wanted them to “look sexy.” The problem is, some workers are complaining that they are too small.

The Northwest chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA has filed a grievance against Delta. They would like to see the company offer the red dress up to size 28. Currently, the uniform is only offered up to a size 18.
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