Ten past seven, before the kettle — The scale is a poor judge

You're up. You've been to the bathroom, and before the kettle, before anything that might add weight, you step on. You do it the way you always do it, one foot then the other, and you stand still and look down and wait for the number to settle. It settles. And in the second after it settles, something in you settles too, or doesn't.

If it's down from yesterday, even by a little, the morning is fine. You get off, you feel lighter than the difference could possibly account for, and you go and put the kettle on with something like goodwill. The jeans on the chair go on without a thought. If it's up, the morning is not fine. You stand there a second longer, as though the number might change its mind. You think about last night, and you find the thing that did it. The curry. The second glass. The bread. You get off feeling heavier than the difference, and the jeans on the chair are a question now, and breakfast is a question, and you're a bit short with whoever's next in the bathroom.

Some mornings you get off and on again. Different position, or without the pyjama top, or after the loo. The second number is sometimes kinder, and you take that one.

That's invented, but I'd guess yours is close. Some words. The step is getting on the scale. The number is what it says. The swing is what the number does to your mood, up or down, in the second after it settles. A good morning and a bad morning are your own words for a low number and a high one, and I'll use them in your voice. Noise is the part of a day-to-day change that isn't fat, which chapter 3 argues is nearly all of it. The line is the direction the number is going over weeks, which is the only thing the scale can actually tell you, and chapter 16 is about how to see it. The settling up is what you do to pay for a bad morning and what you allow yourself after a good one. The second step is weighing again a minute later. The weigh day, the average and the break are the three options in chapter 17.

Before you go on, do one thing. For the next seven mornings, keep weighing exactly as you do now, but write three things down each time. The number. How the morning feels in one word. And what you ate and drank after six the evening before, roughly, including salt and alcohol. Don't change anything yet. You'll want the sheet in chapter 4, and again in chapter 16.