How often should I weigh myself?

zoielouise
zoielouise Posts: 21
in Health and Weight Loss
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

  • brendacs21
    brendacs21 Posts: 180 Member
    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.
  • zoielouise
    zoielouise Posts: 21
    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.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    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.
  • zoielouise
    zoielouise Posts: 21
    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?
  • cicisiam
    cicisiam Posts: 491 Member
    Whatever works for you. I personally would not take the number on the scale seriously till it has remained the same for a month.
  • berriboobear
    berriboobear Posts: 524 Member
    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.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member

    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.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    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!
  • g2124370
    g2124370 Posts: 1
    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!!
  • oldandhealthier
    oldandhealthier Posts: 449 Member
    I try to weigh once a week. Some times more but I only record what it says once a week
  • oldandhealthier
    oldandhealthier Posts: 449 Member
    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!!
    this is what I should have said
  • zoielouise
    zoielouise Posts: 21
    Thanks for all your replies!
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    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.
  • TheDarlingOne
    TheDarlingOne Posts: 255 Member
    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. :)
  • bobf279
    bobf279 Posts: 342 Member
    I weigh and record weekly although I do sometimes check weigh during the week before and after exercise
  • SkinnyMusic
    SkinnyMusic Posts: 52
    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.
  • FrankieTrailBlazer
    FrankieTrailBlazer Posts: 124 Member
    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.
  • nm_353
    nm_353 Posts: 16 Member
    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!
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    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.
  • Scott_2025
    Scott_2025 Posts: 201 Member
    Bump for later
  • heyyoudontgiveup
    heyyoudontgiveup Posts: 64 Member
    If you weigh daily like I do, use a website like TrendWeight to track trends instead of worrying about the every day amount.
  • scrapjen
    scrapjen Posts: 387 Member
    I weigh in every morning, but I also keep a log and highlight a once a week "official" weight (Friday morning) to watch the weekly trend. I have a Fitbit Aria scale, which connects wirelessly ... I do wish MFP had a setting where I could tell it to ONLY report weekly. It is a bit silly to have a tiny loss posted to my newsfeed each day (or a slight loss after a slight gain, so not a new loss). I know I can go in and delete them, but it would be nice if it had a calendar setting to only show progress on Friday. I do love having MFP and my Fitbit work together in every other aspect!
  • zoielouise
    zoielouise Posts: 21
    Thanks for all your help guys. First step is trying to weigh myself only once a week!
  • MelissaL582
    MelissaL582 Posts: 1,422 Member
    I'm a scale addict. Lol! I record my weight on paper every day ( I just like to see how my weight fluctuates) and every pound I do lose , I log it on MFP.

    It's best to weigh yourself once a week so you don't get discourage.
  • Scott_2025
    Scott_2025 Posts: 201 Member
    Here is a note I just sent one of my friends about daily weighing. My friend is a monthly weigher and on weigh in day she had not lost a single pound even with lots of cardio and watching calories closely. I also had a bad weigh in on Friday morning. I responded to her note and told her my friday weigh in was terrible as well. I was mad at the scale because I was expecting a new low and what I got a a 2 plus pound gain in one day. But this morning (24 hours later) I weighed in and had lost nearly 4 pounds in one day. Maybe my scale was off, maybe a lot of things. Who knows.

    My note to a friend here on MFP.

    Well, today is a whole new day. I weighed this morning and was down nearly 4 pounds from Friday morning. So, I had a nice loss this week. At least it seems I have. With fluctuations like that, it is hard to know what I really weigh.

    I usually don't talk about my weight in actual numbers, because I still hate to admit what I weigh, but here they are some recent entries in my body media account. By the way, I love my body media armband.

    June 5: 258
    June 9: 256.4
    June 12: 255
    June 13: 254
    June 21:255.6 This one is the one that kills me. I just knew I would hit a new low.
    June 22:252.2

    My weight had varied a lot, but my practice was only to log new lows, rather that log everyday. I feel if I am eating a deficit then the up days will only be temporary. I logged June 21 because that is 5 weeks before we go on vacation. And I have a goal to lose 10 pounds in the last 5 weeks before vacation.

    There had been several days where my weight was up big time between those weight logs.

    I think what I am getting at is the importance of weighing every day for me. If I hadn't weighed all those intermediate days and saw only the June 5 and June 21 weight after working my *kitten* off with cardio and watching what I ate I may have jumped in a pile of tootsie rolls ( Love those things) and ate every damned on of them. Not a good analogy, but it's the best I could come up with on short notice.

    I feel the weight fluctuations are due to sodium, when I eat my big meal, how full my digestive system is and other factors i don't even know what they are. I often read posts from Women about "time of the month" issues as well. I don't pretend to know anything about that issue.

    So, I guess I am saying don't jump in that pile of tootsie rolls over one weigh in.
  • toutmonpossible
    toutmonpossible Posts: 1,580 Member
    At a frequency that will keep you on track but at least once a week. I try to weigh myself three or four times a week. There are fluctuations, but if there's a big change in either direction I usually am not surprised.
  • MagicalLeopleurodon
    MagicalLeopleurodon Posts: 623 Member
    monday, wednesday, friday. i track to see how certain foods affect me.
  • ShereeseMuhammad
    ShereeseMuhammad Posts: 10 Member
    I never even owned a scale until MFP lol! now I am on it everyday and sometimes I feel like you and get discouraged if I don't lose everyday... BUT REMEMBER it's not really healthy to lose so much weight so fast. Think of it like this... If you lose 1 pound every day that is 7 pounds in 1 WEEK! That's no good. :) So... just change your thinking around it... try not to GAIN anything... because losing takes time.
  • mem50
    mem50 Posts: 1,384 Member
    I weighed every day and started making myself nuts.

    Hubby hid it on me and brought it out once a week. Then come to find out it was not working right. Went and bought a new one.

    Now I have it in my head to weigh just once a week.
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