Saturday, April 01, 2006

WWJCD?

I find myself caught on the horns of a dilemma*, dear reader. For the past 18 months, I've used the electronic scales at the gym to weigh myself each week -- just once per week, mind, and using the same set of scales. In this manner, I've managed to track my weight and incremental fluctuations of a few hundred grams. However, to my horror, I returned from holiday to find that they've removed the scales and replaced them with the old-fashioned variety with a needle. Not only has this disrupted my careful measuring regime, but it has also made me realize that I need new contacts; I can't actually read the scale when standing up, and bending down distorts the reading (I think). In addition, the scale in the ladies changing room indicates that I have lost 3 kilos (unlikely) in the past 2 weeks, whereas the one upstairs near the machines suggests that I have gained 0.5 kilos, despite (barely) subsisting on miso soup, nuts, and berries (also unlikely but more in line with what I thought I weighed).

My question, therefore, is which set of scales should I use? The implausible ones that make me happy or the more accurate ones that make me miserable? In this situation, what would Joan Collins do?

* I must also confess that for many years, I also thought dilemma was spelled "dilemna". I don't know where I got that idea from or why I never spotted the error until, embarrassingly, Microsoft Word's spell-checker pointed it out with its wavy red line. Odd.

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