Prediabetes is life by the numbers, whether it’s A1C, glucose levels, body weight, nutrition or just about anything else you can measure in your daily routine. The quicker you deal with the data, the faster you’ll get at determining your progress with the condition.

If you have an aversion to numbers, I’ll be blunt: Get over it. Despite what you’ll often hear in health-plan commercials – usually with diet programs – you need to start counting from the first day you decided to tackle prediabetes.

People often see bad news in numbers, whether it’s in balancing the checkbook, figuring up tax returns, or estimating what’s needed to fund a full retirement (just don’t go there). If you avoid the totals, you avoid the negative.

Prediabetes goes by the numbers; the medical community will say, over and over, that there’s no almost or borderline with A1C. You’re prediabetic when you hit 5.7-6.5 on the scale.

You can work on that with two scales of your own. (You might even own one, although you might need an upgrade.) Neither measure your glucose levels – there are other devices for that – but both are key in changing those numbers for the better.

One is the standard body-weight scale, which is standard in most households for adorning the bathroom and often collecting dust.

The other is the kitchen scale, which is something you probably don’t have  … and will soon become the most-used appliance in your home. (I’m covering that in a separate blog.)

For decades, the bathroom scale was my tool of avoidance. My curiosity in my weight came up maybe once a year after the annual physical checkup; all I saw was bad news.

It’s not unusual behavior for anyone. Occasionally, there’ll be a New Year’s resolution on losing weight, or a scare when a like-aged friend or acquaintance drops dead of a heart attack or dies from a fast-moving cancer, and regular weigh-ins go for up to several months. Eventually, though, the scale goes into a corner or a cabinet and renews its dust-collection duties.

It’s one of the main points of this blog – and you’ll likely tire of it soon – is that losing weight is a byproduct, and not the goal, of treating prediabetes. Unfortunately, in our weight- and exercise-obsessed society, it’s the top item on the health scorecard, and you’ll be asked constantly by everyone you know (and that’s not an overstatement), so you’ll need to have some kind of answer.

My aversion to weight measurement kept me away from my own bathroom scale for the first three months of my prediabetes treatment. Clothes seemed to be loose-fitting and I didn’t grunt much when getting out of chairs, so I finally listened to my spouse and pulled out the scale.

In mid-August last year, I weighed 271 lbs. On Nov. 28, I weighed 242 lbs.

I suddenly got very interested in my weight.

Oddly enough, that massive (for me, anyway) change leads to my first recommendation on a body-weight scale: Unless you acquired your model in the past year or two, buy a new one. And make it digital.

After that first shocker in November, I started weighing in every Saturday morning. My analog scale proved to be a pain in trying to zero-out for each weigh, and the weekly weight loss made me suspicious of accuracy. A new digital scale confirmed the downward count, but seeing exact weights to the tenth-of-a-pound gave me a more-realistic view of my progress.

I’ll admit that I took the easy route and bought my scale at Costco. The Weight Watchers WW401GD has performed flawlessly for the past six months and, outside of telling me the unfortunate truth about gaining a pound this summer, is a weekly source of good news.

Weight Watchers lists this for a $39.95 MSRP, and I got it for half of that at Costco. Amazon.com will sell it to you for $17.95.

To be honest, I don’t recommend this particular model; it’s certainly worked for me, but it’s not the easiest to find, and Amazon’s own stock is limited. For the budget-minded, there are dozens of models priced at $25 or less at Amazon, Walmart or your nearest low-priced outlet.

The price goes up for scales with more functions. You can pay $150 for units that connect to smartphones via Bluetooth, send data via wi-fi, and analyze all sorts of items, including bone density and water weight. There’s a detailed comparison this month in PC Magazine.

Even for a gadget geek like me, the scales often seem like technology gone amok. (My pick for strangest feature goes to the scale that doesn’t show weights to pregnant women, but sends data via the Internet to their doctors.) Many of the high-tech devices also use impedance measurement via electrical impulses, which is pain-free and healthy – except for pregnant women and people with pacemakers, where the results can be really heart-stopping in shock value.

And, for all the hookups with your mobile devices, you don’t get linking with diabetes-specific apps such as logbooks. (You’ll find this happens with a host of other devices, including glucose meters and fitness trackers.) You’ll still need to enter the numbers yourself, which brings you right back to a $25 model being good enough.

Again, weight’s not the main target in dealing with prediabetes, but dropping some pounds is better for your overall health and the one visible sign to others that you’re making progress. It’s worth the effort to give it an accurate value.