How often should I weigh myself?
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zoielouise
Posts: 21
When I diet I tend to weigh myself everyday but it can get disheartening. How often should I weigh myself?
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Replies
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im kind of like you, i used to weigh almost every day. then id get so upset if i didnt lose. then i tried to weigh weekly but it never happened, i ended up weighing every couple of days. i read an article where a woman had the same issue, her husband hid the scale since her whole day was based on what the scale said. he didnt let her weigh for a month! im kinda trying that right now. i just quit weighing. im still working out, eating as healthy as i can and im going to weigh at the end of the month. i dont know if its going to work or not but we'll see.0
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im kind of like you, i used to weigh almost every day. then id get so upset if i didnt lose. then i tried to weigh weekly but it never happened, i ended up weighing every couple of days. i read an article where a woman had the same issue, her husband hid the scale since her whole day was based on what the scale said. he didnt let her weigh for a month! im kinda trying that right now. i just quit weighing. im still working out, eating as healthy as i can and im going to weigh at the end of the month. i dont know if its going to work or not but we'll see.
Yeah, I get like that. It's hard not to weigh myself but since I don't have any weighing scales at home unless I go the gym I have to rely on the wii. But from now on just as a start I think I'm gonna weigh myself once a week.0 -
It's a very individual thing. Some weigh every day, some weekly, some less often than that. I personally have been weighing in twice a week but just started weighing daily because I'm interested in seeing my trends and that helps me. For you, if weighing daily is disheartening I'd suggest backing off to a maximum of once a week to start with, just because it's more likely you'll see a motivating loss. Plus for me, seeing a bigger number (1-2 lbs weekly instead of 0.2 lbs on a daily basis) was way more inspiring and kept me going.0
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It's a very individual thing. Some weigh every day, some weekly, some less often than that. I personally have been weighing in twice a week but just started weighing daily because I'm interested in seeing my trends and that helps me. For you, if weighing daily is disheartening I'd suggest backing off to a maximum of once a week to start with, just because it's more likely you'll see a motivating loss. Plus for me, seeing a bigger number (1-2 lbs weekly instead of 0.2 lbs on a daily basis) was way more inspiring and kept me going.
Thank you for your reply. How long has it taken you to lose 41lbs?0 -
Whatever works for you. I personally would not take the number on the scale seriously till it has remained the same for a month.0
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I weigh everyday morning and night, although I only "officially" count my weigh-in once a week in the morning. I find it interesting and informing to see how my weight fluctuates and why.0
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Thank you for your reply. How long has it taken you to lose 41lbs?
I've been active on MFP this time for like 122 days I think. My 120 mark was a couple days ago but I don't remember exactly :laugh:. My last weigh in was the 18th of this month.0 -
Whatever works for you. I personally would not take the number on the scale seriously till it has remained the same for a month.
That's a little extreme. If my weight stayed the same for a MONTH I'd be gutted that I hadn't lost anything at all in that timeframe!0 -
Is not easy because you want to see your progress if any right? I would say you should try to pick a day of the week and stick to it. Once per week gives you a good and consistent measure. I think you should also consider not just weighing yourself but take your measurements, because if you are combining diet with exercise sometimes you may not be losing weight, but you are losing inches and that's very encouraging as well. Well good luck in your journey. Stick with it!!0
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I try to weigh once a week. Some times more but I only record what it says once a week0
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Is not easy because you want to see your progress if any right? I would say you should try to pick a day of the week and stick to it. Once per week gives you a good and consistent measure. I think you should also consider not just weighing yourself but take your measurements, because if you are combining diet with exercise sometimes you may not be losing weight, but you are losing inches and that's very encouraging as well. Well good luck in your journey. Stick with it!!0
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Thanks for all your replies!0
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I recommend daily weigh-ins, with a huge caveat: you need to do some math to find the difference between your actual weight loss and the daily fluctuations, which are much larger.
Your weight fluctuates depending on water, salt, and fiber intake, and other factors having nothing to do with calories. Using an exponentially weighted average can help you filter out the noise and focus on the trend, as John Walker explains in "The Hacker's Diet" (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/). The chapter on "The Rubber Bag" explains, briefly, the source of these fluctuations. The chapter on "Signal and Noise" explains how some simple math can filter them out. Walker explains how to do the math, but you can also set up a free account on his server to do it for you, or use a service like Beeminder.
If you want to see how this works in practice, look at my Beeminder weight loss graph: https://www.beeminder.com/brianogilvie/goals/weigh
The dots are my actual morning weight for the last 5+ months (except when I was traveling and didn't have a scale). The skinny purple line is my exponentially smoothed weighted average. Notice how there are periods such as late March/early April where my daily weigh-ins didn't seem to go down (the rose-colored dots are Beeminder's "optimistic" view of progress, and it's flat then. However, the weights were still all below the skinny purple line, so I could be pretty sure that I was still losing weight.0 -
The best thing that happened to me in this journey so far - is changing to only 1x a month weigh ins.
Beforehand, I would keep the scale under my bed. I would wake up each a.m. roll out of bed pull the scale out and weigh in. I would ALSO use it again before crawling in bed for the night.
Found I would use this as an 'excuse' to go off on a bender. "Oh, you gained 2lbs in 1 day? I'll show you mr scale. let's see how much we can change the #'s tomorrow!" --- sounds 'silly' i know - but it dawned on me I was using the change in #'s as an 'excuse' to say 'oh i can't do this why bother!??'
soon as i moved the scale to the other end of the house and had my mom 'hide it' and went to only 1x a month weigh ins - things started to change.0 -
I weigh and record weekly although I do sometimes check weigh during the week before and after exercise0
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Once a week is what I do. Every Friday for me. It's easier and less hard on myself. I use to do every day, but I couldn't deal with the ups....well, just ups lol.0
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I weigh myself once a day when i wake up (after business and before eating/drinking) . That is the best time to measure for consistency.
That being said, weight loss isnt always a straight line down so dont get disheartened.0 -
I weigh every day. The reason I do, is because it helps me keep my food intake in check. Plus it gives me an idea of what I'm eating that's good and what is bad. When I was only weighing once a week, it wasn't helping me very much. Since I have started to weigh every day and know every days progress, the weight has started to fall off. Even if it is just a .2-..4 loss a day. Even that little bit keeps me motivated!0
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I tend to only log my weight about once a week, but I weigh myself every day. HOWEVER, I don't take that number all that seriously, and by weighing myself daily, I have a greater understanding of fluctuations and how little that number actually means.
If I only weighed myself once a week, and that day happened to fall after a heavy workout and/or high sodium when my weight goes up, I'd be disappointed. If I weigh myself every day and see that it's been fairly stable except after a heavy workout or high sodium, then I wouldn't be disappointed if the number was a little higher.0 -
Bump for later0
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