Weigh yourself once a week or ??

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  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
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    I weigh myself once every Friday morning :)

    Weighing daily is an option if you generally have a good relationship with the scales and understand that they will fluctuate (sometimes by a couple of pounds) each day. Daily weighing is good for tracking patterns but I think it's 'healthier' not to get too wrapped up in that number on the scales - there are so many factors that can cause fluctuations - even a lot of exercise.

    I'd personally advise you to keep it simple and weigh in once a week and record your results. Having said that, it really is personal preference :)
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    For me, desensitization is even more important than my love of numbers and data points. Weighing every day makes it a normal habit, not something I dread. I know that I can't have gained a pound of fat over night. A large sudden jump up or down is ALWAYS water weight (or poo).
  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    For me, desensitization is even more important than my love of numbers and data points. Weighing every day makes it a normal habit, not something I dread. I know that I can't have gained a pound of fat over night. A large sudden jump up or down is ALWAYS water weight (or poo).

    Very good points!
  • NotPoodle
    NotPoodle Posts: 4 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    Because of normal day to day fluctuations that easily can mask a week's true fat gain or loss, it's best to weigh daily. Or monthly. Or never. At least not weekly. But I'm probably the only one who thinks that.

    I completely agree. If you don't mind seeing the variance, daily is great for accountability and troubleshooting. Monthly is good if you don't want to see any variance. But weekly is the worst of both: the 2lbs +/- variance can show up in the weekly weighing and it's much harder to go back through your diary to try and find if there's a logging error, or some unusual activity that caused it.

    Just my 2p.
  • CurlyCockney
    CurlyCockney Posts: 1,394 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    For me, desensitization is even more important than my love of numbers and data points. Weighing every day makes it a normal habit, not something I dread. I know that I can't have gained a pound of fat over night. A large sudden jump up or down is ALWAYS water weight (or poo).

    Exactly this. If I didn't weigh daily (and my scales automatically log to MFP) I might have been disheartened this week because my weight is the same as last week. However, during this week I've lost and gained back 2 lbs, so my efforts weren't in vain and it's just normal fluctuations. In my experience, weeks like this are followed by losses that stay lost ;-)
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,203 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    For me, desensitization is even more important than my love of numbers and data points. Weighing every day makes it a normal habit, not something I dread. I know that I can't have gained a pound of fat over night. A large sudden jump up or down is ALWAYS water weight (or poo).

    This ^^

    And I can always tie in a weight gain with something that would cause me to retain water, such as eating something quite salty the night before. And then the next day I lose a bit, and the day after I lose a bit more back down to where I was, and then I usually drop a little bit more to a new low weight. :)

    Then it might jump a bit again because of salt, or because I did quite a bit more exercise than usual, or because of my TOM, or whatever ... and then it drops again. It's a regular, predictable pattern, so those small gains don't worry me.

    I'm also confident in CI<CO. :) I know that if I just stick with what I'm doing, I'll continue to lose.



  • hamptontom
    hamptontom Posts: 536 Member
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    dianamaine wrote: »
    LaceyBirds wrote: »
    I wake up, go to the bathroom, then take off my pajamas and step on the scale. I do it every day. I keep telling myself not to do it, because the normal fluctuations UPWARD can really bother me if I'm not in a good frame of mind, but I keep doing it anyway. >:) I only record losses because I would find recording gains discouraging. Do whatever works for you, and if it's not working, change it. :)

    This is exactly what I do! It would make me crazy to only weigh in once a week- what if that was the "up" day? Definitely a personal decision, as is everything when it comes to diet and exercise. What works for you is what you should do!


    this has been my regimen as well, for a couple of reasons - personally, i like to see what the number is every day so that - if need be - i can adjust my "caloric behavior" for the day if necessary based on what the scale is telling me, but also because it's been interesting to monitor the effect of my workouts on the scale.

    since i went from strict cardio-only to a mix of cardio and strength training, the effect on the scale hasn't been the same...but it's interesting to see which combinations of workouts and diet seem to have the most direct results.
  • cricketbird1
    cricketbird1 Posts: 16 Member
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    :D
    LaceyBirds wrote: »
    I wake up, go to the bathroom, then take off my pajamas and step on the scale. I do it every day. I keep telling myself not to do it, because the normal fluctuations UPWARD can really bother me if I'm not in a good frame of mind, but I keep doing it anyway. >:) I only record losses because I would find recording gains discouraging. Do whatever works for you, and if it's not working, change it. :)

  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
    edited September 2015
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    I weigh myself once per week except for days that end in a "y". On those days I weigh myself because I have found that on those days a person's weight is statistically significant.
  • OsricTheKnight
    OsricTheKnight Posts: 340 Member
    edited September 2015
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    For me, desensitization is even more important than my love of numbers and data points. Weighing every day makes it a normal habit, not something I dread. I know that I can't have gained a pound of fat over night. A large sudden jump up or down is ALWAYS water weight (or poo).

    It's not poo, it's always water. Even the air you breathe each day weighs more than your solid waste by a wide margin.

    figure355.gif

    Source: "The Hacker's Diet" which in turn credits the numbers to NASA.

    Osric

    [edit for spelling]
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
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    Nowadays i weight myself only when i feel "skinny" at that day, because our weight fluctuates from time to time especially women with all the hormonal unbalance, water retention etc. You could be 4-5 pounds difference in a week despite your diet and workout routine stays the same

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