Proof that weighing daily is confusing unless you look at the big picture. (Spreadsheet!)

Lottiotta

I've been losing weight pretty consistently for a few weeks with a combination of calorie-tracking and my Fitbit. According to MFP and Fitbit I'm eating at maintenance and don't really have a calorie deficit on average, but I'm losing about .25 kg per week. My start weight was 62 kg and my goal weight is... uncertain, but probably 59 kg or a smidge lower.

Anyway, when I heard that weight can fluctuate by several lbs per day based on water intake, salt intake, hormone levels, recent exercise, etc., my "let's make a spreadsheet" reflex kicked in. This one, I enter my weight every day in the morning before breakfast, and that varies a LOT - but then, in another column, it tells me what my average weight for the past two weeks of entries is. And then it puts everything on a graph, so I can compare my calorie intake vs. burn, my weight every day, and my 14-day weight average.

{LINK TO SPREADSHEET}



In this graph, the red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that. The good bit is the thick green line, which is my 14-day average weight, and the thin grey line "behind" it is my day-to-day weight. See how it's all over the shop, but the thick green average line is steadily declining? If you don't look at the big (14-day) picture, it's very easy to think that there's no rhyme or reason to your weight. One week's worth of daily weight recording doesn't mean much at all, but a 14-day average over time will show you trends.

When my 14-day average weight changes, that's when I log the weight in MFP.

So I'm posting a link to my spreadsheet here, so people can:

• see how weight can fluctuate a lot day-to-day but *on average* consistently go down .1 kg every few days for many weeks. (I'm almost 2 kg down from my start weight, and it's taken me a little bit over 6 weeks.)
• copy the spreadsheet to their own Google Drive or download it to their computer to use themselves.

The moral of the story: weighing yourself daily is a path to madness - unless you obsessively spreadsheet everything!

elga_thres

Thank you for sharing this!

Lottiotta

elga_thres wrote: »

Thank you for sharing this!

No problem!

deckerp

I weigh everyday just so I can log it. If you don't record it you can't report on it later. It's good to see the progress over time. Yes it varies each day and you can just ignore the ups and downs, that's usually water weight. It can also be very encouraging to see a low number pop out there sometimes. It's easy for me to ignore the high numbers and enjoy the low numbers.

My glass is half full.

justrollme

As someone who was becoming a little scale-obsessed, I really appreciate that you've tracked and posted this. I'm going to take this as a lesson to cool my jets on the scale.

AJ_G

Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

Lottiotta

AJ_G wrote: »

Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

That doesn't take into account hormones, salt, and exercise. But even if it did, I'd still rather have a spreadsheet 'cause it's easier!

Lottiotta

justrollme wrote: »

As someone who was becoming a little scale-obsessed, I really appreciate that you've tracked and posted this. I'm going to take this as a lesson to cool my jets on the scale.

Happy to have helped! Also I like your avatar, it tickles me. :P

ohmscheeks

Interesting, though my weight doesn't fluctuate that much from day to day (this far, ha).

mgonyer123

That's interesting!

Sued0nim

If you have a fitbit or withings Aria scale that is linked to MFP, make an account on trendweight.com

If you don't, make an account on fitbit.com (you don't need to own a fitbit for this), synch to MFP, then make an account in trendweight.com

And you get lovely trend charts of your weight that help you track your fluctuations and ongoing weight

Like this

Sued0nim

AJ_G wrote: »

Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

Not true cos also sodium, change-up in exercise and hormones affect scale weight

Lottiotta

@rabbitjb That does look a lot tidier than my graph! I'll try it out. (I might not stick with it though - I find it motivating to see how weight loss is affected by calories.)

Thanks for taking the time to put in some screenshots.

Sued0nim

Lottiotta wrote: »

@rabbitjb That does look a lot tidier than my graph! I'll try it out. (I might not stick with it though - I find it motivating to see how weight loss is affected by calories.)

Thanks for taking the time to put in some screenshots.

I am an excel geek and love your graph @Lottiotta so don't stop, because the calorie overlay isn't available on trendweight

The thing with trendweight is so long as you log your weights in MFP and have synched them all up, it's automatic...any time you go in to trendweight it just sits there

yarwell

Trend weight is also a weighted moving average giving more weight to recent days than older values, I think. A straight 14 day moving average responds more to the difference between today and 2 weeks ago as all the other points are the same.

So you could put another line on the excel and tweak the EWMA parameters to see which is best.

Lottiotta

rabbitjb wrote: »

I am an excel geek and love your graph @Lottiotta so don't stop, because the calorie overlay isn't available on trendweight

The thing with trendweight is so long as you log your weights in MFP and have synched them all up, it's automatic...any time you go in to trendweight it just sits there

I already had a Fitbit account and I like the weight input thing in the MFP app, so it turns out TrendWeight is much easier for me than I thought it would be! I like how it shows the weird little fluctuations, it's different from my spreadsheet graph. I do still like that I can poke my spreadsheet and graph to show whatever I want (like calorie intake), so I'm definitely going to keep doing it - and now I've set up TrendWeight it'll just keep going in the background.

So, thank you!

swirlybee

Thanks for posting the excel file. I've been using trendweight but I like the calorie information on your spreadsheet. Comes in handy.

NikiChicken

AJ_G wrote: »

Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

Not true at all! No matter how "good" or rigid you are with you calorie intake, there are other variables that will play into your scale weight. Salt, hormones, heat (I swell in the heat), undigested food in your belly, water that you haven't yet peed out, as well as many other factors all play a part in your scale weight as well. You can think you have been perfect, but the scale might still show a gain. You have to always understand that weight loss is not linear, no matter how much you want it to be. The trick is to look at your overall trend, not the individual day-to-day weights.

mbaker566

AJ_G wrote: »

Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

that is completely untrue. utterly

Bacchants

This is really cool to look at! I weight weekly as I find the fluctuations difficult to deal with, but seeing it on a graph with a trendline looks really good. I might give this a go!

DarinGettingFitNow

I am both a scientist and a data geek, so I'm absolutely loving this thread. I mean, really, really loving it. Going to check out trendweight.

DarinGettingFitNow

Love spreadsheets too.

karbruce

This is really really amazing- Thanks for sharing.

fraserkr

Lottiotta wrote: »

@rabbitjb That does look a lot tidier than my graph! I'll try it out. (I might not stick with it though - I find it motivating to see how weight loss is affected by calories.)

Thanks for taking the time to put in some screenshots.

@Lottiotta, I was also going to mention trendweight plus weightgrapher.com; both I discovered via FitBit apps that sync with these two sites.

I like your spreadsheet graphing calories to weight. I've wanted to see this myself. But I wonder why you note 'red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that'. Where are the calories that you are not ignoring shown on your graph?

I splurged on the ARIA scale. I like electronic gadgets and like that the input gathered can be easily graphed by tools that sync with my weight tracking.

MFD7576

@Troutsy This is why excel is awesome lol

Brolympus

This is a solid post, I hope more people look at this and get less discouraged at the day-to-day fluctuations. Big picture, everybody!

EmmaFitzwilliam

deckerp wrote: »

I weigh everyday just so I can log it. If you don't record it you can't report on it later. It's good to see the progress over time. Yes it varies each day and you can just ignore the ups and downs, that's usually water weight. It can also be very encouraging to see a low number pop out there sometimes. It's easy for me to ignore the high numbers and enjoy the low numbers.

My glass is half full.

Same here.

I log my weight, and consider the data in relation to other factors (sodium intake and other factors affecting water retention, previously recorded weight, low to date weight, relative activity). I celebrate the "low to date" (and especially the 5 and 10 pound mini-goals!), consider the affective factors if the weight has gone up, and rock on with my day.

No drama, no angst, not crazy-making.

DanIsACyclingFool

Daily weigher here. I totally agree that the "big picture" is the only one that matters. But I have to point out that you can't see the big picture by weighing once a week either, not if the weekly weigh-in happens to land on some of the "funny" weigh-ins. There's really no subsitute for taking MANY data samples and taking an average. It's a form of "aliasing" (digital signal sampling error) from not enough samples.

For instance, what sounds "better", an mp3 sampled at 32kbs? Or one at 192kbs?

For the most complete picture you MUST weigh often and you MUST disregard the unusually high and unusually low weigh ins.

kommodevaran

I already use Trendweight, but I'm considering 7, 10 or 14 days' moving average too, because Trendweight is also all over the place

maillemaker

Yup, it's all about trends. I weight myself every day on my Withings WiFi scale that automatically uploads my results.



Lots of fluctuations, especially weekends!

Azexas

I use the Happy Scale app at the moment to track trends. Kind of the same concept