Osric's Thread

OsricTheKnight

The way I'm thinking this group will work is we'll each create a thread for our data, and look and comment on each other's data and results. Hopefully we will all love learning from each other!

My main charts are trendweight.com. Here's 4w:



And here's 3m:



I'll add longer timeframes as they get encouraging to me :-)

Osric

hamelle2

hamelle2

whoa! sorry this is so huge!

OsricTheKnight

No problem, easy reading for my tired eyes - only just got back to MFP after a busy day ... 1.35AM here on the east coast.

So first off looks like you're making great progress! Wow -1.9lb in 7 days is nice. If you maintain that consistently you'd expect to be losing almost 6lb every 3 weeks.

Since you've just started using Libra, the moving average at the start is very close to your original weigh in data points - because there's no earlier data to average it with. So your start weight is about 199.6 on the scale and about 199.6 on the trend. As you accumulate data points while you lose they'll be below your trendline which will follow them down - and this is a good thing, because when you "gain" a bit on the scale because of a salty meal that makes you retain water you should be able to ignore that because your dot will hopefully still be below the line.

Right now, the scale loss of -6.3 might or might not be accurate, because you don't know how much water you had in your system in the start weights, nor do you know what you have now. Libra's 1.9 estimate would suggest that over those three weeks you actually lost more like 5.7lbs, and the other 0.6lbs are due to water.

But Libra's estimate isn't that accurate yet either, because there's not enough data in the graph yet. So in another week it may become slightly faster or slightly slower than now as more data points get put into your average.

In Libra, you can control how many days go into the smoothing from the settings. I recommend a fairly long setting like 10, 12, or 14 days, because those settings still enable you to see when you're messing up your trend but won't make you think you've made an eating error if one day your scale jumps up by 2 pounds due to water weight.

However, if you want the trend to be closer to your scale weights, you can reduce the size of the average and it'll track closer - which also means you won't be sure when you see a gain in your trend if it is a real eating problem or just a temporary water problem.

To sum up: the main reason you're seeing such a big discrepancy between loss on the scale and loss on the trend is because the start of your trend is your scale weights right now - whereas it should be higher, reflecting weights that aren't in the graph at all. But even once your trend is nice and straight, it will show at times more or less loss than your scale weigh ins show because your scale weigh-ins have water in them that isn't averaged away.

It's like just before you get on the scale an evil elf fills your body with some amount of water between 0 and 3 pounds worth and your scale shows that as a great loss or a great gain depending on how much water there is. The averaging that goes into the red line makes those random numbers become insignificant so that you can focus on the important numbers: how much you're losing per week and whether your weight loss each day is increasing or decreasing or staying on your target.

Hope that helps!
Osric

hamelle2

Thank you Osric. This has been very helpful! I changed my settings to 14 days. I need to get with my son today to find out if Libra can be installed on my computer and how to post a nice screen pic like yours.
Your weight loss is great BTW!
Thanks again for your help.

OsricTheKnight

Unfortunately libra is only an android app. Depending on how you're getting your weight data into it, you could also use trendweight which will give you the graphs I am using - and you can use both at once, too. Though if you use both it might be desirable to set libra so that it computes the same numbers as trendweight.

For Libra, you are either getting your data by syncing with a withings scale, or a fitbit aria scale, or you're entering the data directly into the app after weighing. I'm guessing it's the last - since I am pretty sure you also keep track on a paper calendar (where, by the way, I highly recommend you add the trend value instead of the scale value, or have both!).

If, instead of entering the data manually into libra directly, you enter it into fitbit's website (where you can create a free account to do that even if you don't have fitbit products), then you can set Libra to sync weight from fitbit and it will show you the graph just as it does now. Then you can also set up on trendweight.com and post links to the trendweight graphs that update whenever someone views them (that's how the graphs in my posts usually are, so that they are always showing my most recent weigh ins).

Osric

robertw486

Good info Osric, and good logging Hamelle2.

I need to start putting my weights into a spreadsheet or something, then get them entered into the Fitbit site so I can put them on Trendweight. Or I guess now I have the option of using Libra as well.

I have an older Health O Meter scale, and have no idea how many days I can store in memory.

OsricTheKnight

Not enjoying my results over the last two weeks ... but the scale doesn't lie and it's been a lot of up and down days averaging out to near maintenance. Ah well.

Osric

robertw486

I'm in a similar boat Osric. I reduced my weight loss goal to .5 lbs a week, as I was nearing a loss goal I was comfortable with. But it seems like that goal is closer to a maintenance goal for me as I've hardly moved at all in weight. I'm going to ride it out a little longer, since my schedule is changing a lot lately.

Beyond that I've got to figure out what is going on. I haven't been getting as much sleep lately, so that could be a contributing factor as well. Hopefully some data will point me in the right direction.

OsricTheKnight

Hi Robert! Like so many I'm back with more energy for the new year :-)

I am sorry I missed your posts back in October. How's it going now?

Osric

robertw486

Good to see you back Osric.

Got over my little blip quick, hit goal, changed goal, then hit the lowered goal. I did eventually use Trendweight and Libra to watch the trends, but after a while got tired of weighing so often.

I think this group could easily grow, lots of data hounds out there!