[lapcat]

It's really not that complicated. I can tell a lot of things by looking in the mirror. That I need a haircut. That I need a shave. Despite the fact that I've literally never used a measuring tape on my hair. That my hair color changes slightly (lighter or darker) with the seasons. That my hair has gotten grayer with age. (I would prefer to deny that, but eyes can't actually lie that much.) I can tell if I'm sunburned (I never tan, sadly). And yes, I can tell that my stomach has gotten thinner or thicker over time. These are not exact measures, but you can in fact reliably tell when your body changes. Subjectivity is not blindness.

By the way, your previous comment was flagged dead. You might want to reconsider the way you reply in light of that.

[throwaway74432]

You're right, it isn't complicated. The beauty of a true good measure (ie, a scale or other measuring device) is that you can track actual discrete progress over a very short time span. If you didn't know your hair grew, could you track the amount that it grows in 24 hours by looking in a mirror? With a measuring tool, you can. That's a good measure. Compared to it, looking in the mirror is a poor measure. That's why scientists use measuring devices when trying to track quantities, instead of "eyeballing" it and claiming its good enough because they noticed some change.

[lapcat]

> If you didn't know your hair grew, could you track the amount that it grows in 24 hours by looking in a mirror?

Why in the world would I want to track that? It's not a good measure; it's a dumb measure. Nobody sane measures their hair in 24 hour increments. I don't know anybody who measures their hair at all. Even hair stylists eyeball it!

> The beauty of a true good measure (ie, a scale or other measuring device) is that you can track actual discrete progress over a very short time span.

This is a mistake, in my opinion. People are too obsessed with measuring their weight weekly, or even daily. That's not a good measure. Health is a marathon, not a sprint. The key is persistence: stick with the exercise, stick with the diet, and the results will come in time. A week is nothing. Even a month is practically nothing. Progress is never magically uniform. Plateaus and even setbacks are inevitable. Impatience just leads to premature doubt and failure. It's really about changing your lifestyle permanently rather than some temporary weight loss gimmick. I've never thought in terms of losing N pounds. I think in terms of becoming a healthier, fitter person, and losing N pounds is simply a side effect of that.

[throwaway74432]

You're changing the subject now. The article wasn't about measuring health in general, it was about weight control. And the line of discussion that we're on is a good measure of weight. A good measure of weight is different from a good measure of health. I'm not interested in discussing the latter.

Also, you seem to have missed the point of me mentioning measuring hair, which wasn't to say it was a good idea, but to say how you could do it if you wanted to. You're getting hung up on why anyone would want to do that, which misses the point.

[lapcat]

> You're changing the subject now. The article wasn't about measuring health in general, it was about weight control.

I'm not changing the subject now. Rather, I changed the subject 4 hours ago, in my original post, a comment on the submitted article, which said: In general, weight is not really a great measure. You can lose weight by losing muscle. I "measure" my own body by looking at it in a mirror. [Note that measure was in quotes, implying imprecision.]

> A good measure of weight is different from a good measure of health. I'm not interested in discussing the latter.

Then you shouldn't have replied to me in the first place, because I had already clearly rejected measuring weight.

In any case, scales can lie too. I was actually stunned recently to discover that there was a full 20 pound discrepancy between the scale in my building's exercise room and the scale in my doctor's office. It's fine, though, because I was always a little surprised by how little I weighed according to the exercise room's scale. I just didn't imagine that it could be so far off. I only step on the dumb thing because it's right by the door evilly tempting people to use it.

[throwaway74432]

"weight is not really a great measure" followed by saying you measure yourself by looking in the mirror, on an article about weight control is a pretty confusing way to communicate that you measure your health by looking in the mirror. you've made a few other confusing statements, like "Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle", so take this entire thread as another data point that you are not communicating your thoughts clearly or precisely.

>In any case, scales can lie too.

Can you stop with low effort bait please? Is it really worth our combined time to draw people in with silly statements about miscalibrated scales?

[lapcat]

> "weight is not really a great measure" followed by saying you measure yourself by looking in the mirror

No, it was "weight is not really a great measure" followed by saying "You can lose weight by losing muscle."

Body weight is everything, the good stuff (such as the aforementioned muscle) as well as the bad. And 50-60% of body weight is water, which you can gain or lose rapidly in various ways.

When people say they want to lose weight, often what they actually mean is that they want to lose their gut. Or maybe their butt. For health, for superficial reasons—i.e., looking good—or both. On men at least, the gut tends to be the last to go, so it's a pretty good indicator of how far you've gone, and how far you have left to go. As far as I'm concerned, body weight is "just a number", and it's unclear what the ultimate goal should be, whereas the appearance of your body is clearer to evaluate in terms of an end point. Moreover, it tends to change more slowly than weight, which is actually a good thing, because it's less random and arbitrary than total body weight.

> you've made a few other confusing statements, like "Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle"

I actually said "Long term, higher intensity cardio builds muscle and endurance", but for some reason people keep cutting off an essential part of my statement. It was followed by, "The more strenuously you exercise now, the more strenuously you'll be able to exercise in the future." In other words, building muscle and endurance now helps you to burn even more calories later. I'm not sure why that's confusing.

> Can you stop with low effort bait please? Is it really worth our combined time to draw people in with silly statements about miscalibrated scales?

This whole thread has been a waste of my time, and I should have just let your flagged reply die silently, but I'm kind of a glutton for punishment. I don't know why it's silly, though, to mention the imprecision of scales when you seem to be so focused on instantaneous, scientific precision.