Last week when me and my sister Lucy went to get weighed, I realised we had subconsciously developed a pre-weigh in ritual.
Ritual's in sport are really common. Paul Ince would never put his shirt on until he was in the tunnel, Rafa Nadal won't put his headband on before he comes onto court, Laura Trott has to put on a new pair of socks and step on a wet towel before she leaves the room and Bobby Moore always had to be the last one to put his shorts on in the dressing room.
Now, I'm not saying that I had to wait for Lucy to put her trousers on before I could leave the house, but we have fallen into our own little pre-weigh in ritual and I don't think either of us was aware of it until last week.
We arrived at our Slimming World class and Lucy walked straight up to sign in. I was faffing about (I know hard to believe) I was looking at something, or talking to someone and just generally not paying attention.
Lucy made her way to the scales and I continued to faff. She's had years of me faffing, so now she just cracks on and waits for me to catch up.
All of a sudden she stopped and said, 'Katie, you need to go first!'
I thought this was a ploy to make me hurry up, 'why do I?'
Looking panicked, Lucy replied, 'because you always get weighed first and if you don't, neither of us will have lost any weight.'
At this point, you'd be forgiven for thinking that everyone looked at us like we were crazy, but they didn't! You see to the dieter, the pre-weigh in ritual is just as important to them as it is to a sports person about to play the match of their life. If you don't follow that routine to the letter then you will absolutely have put on weight.
Some people have to wear the same outfit to get weighed in, most dieters will only get weighed in their heaviest clothing for their very first weigh in, after that it's the lightest thing you own. One of my friends will even strip down to his shorts to get weighed in.
For others, they have to arrive at the same time every week, or maybe sit in the same chair, eat the same things on weigh day, listen to the same music on the way to class. We all have our own quirks.
Deep down, we know that what really makes the difference on the scales is what we've eaten and how much exercise we've done, but we can't take the chance that our efforts will be in vain because we've worn the wrong pair of knickers or drunk our tea out of the Michael Buble mug instead of the 'Wagatha Christie' mug our friend bought us for our birthday.
A dieter cannot and will not take those sort of risks on weigh day, only a crazy person would do that.
Heeding Lucy's warning, I stepped on the scales..... I had lost 2 and half pounds!
Lucy got on next and she'd lost 5 and a half pounds.
You see, the science behind the pre-weigh in ritual has been proven and you can't argue with science.
I'd love to know what your pre-weigh in / pre-work / pre-holiday / pre-sports ritual is.
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