Donating blood

RUNucbar

I am a daily weigher and the day after giving blood, the scale had, unsurprisingly, changed. My TOM started the same day and my weight dropped from my week-long plateau of 151.2lbs to 146.8lbs in a few days.

Since then, my weight has been creeping back up and I am now back to 150lbs though nothing at all has changed. I know some of the loss and some of the gain will be my body replacing the blood I gave to the lovely NHS Blood and Transplant team (they are lovely, they gave me extra tea and an extra biscuit because I was the youngest donor of the day) but how much? I have no idea how much a pint of blood weighs! I did not count my calories on that particular day but other than that, I've stuck to 1200 and have not gone over once in all the time I've been here (more than a month, I've seen the flowchart) but am slowly gaining!

Yes, I've seen the flowchart, yes, I weigh everything to the gram, and I log everything, including oils and salad dressing. So, how much is actual weight gain and how much is my body replacing the blood I gave?

I am 20, female, 157cm, 150lbs, 1200 cals per day, sedentary (due to limited mobility)

janejellyroll

I think you're over-thinking it. I give blood regularly and am also a daily weigher. Sometimes I'm the same afterwards, sometimes I'm down. Just focus on your trend, not the day-to-day.

ald783

So it sounds like you're actually down a little over a pound since before you gave blood, right?

Like @janejellyroll said, just focus on the overall trend over a longer period of time rather than on your weight on a given day or even handful of days.

sijomial

Well done for donating blood - a pint will weigh roughly a pound but as soon as you rehydrate that blood volume goes straight back on. So no net difference from one day to next relating to the donation.

It will also "cost" your body about 500 cals over next 10 - 13 weeks while your red blood cell count recovers if you are looking for a positive.

Agree with above - don't dwell on day to day fluctuations that are perfectly normal and mostly related to hydration levels otherwise when you get to goal weight they will mess with your head.

nordlead2005

1 pint of blood is going to weigh slightly more than 1lb, since most of it is water, and what isn't water is denser than water.

Anyways, if you went from 151.2 to 150lb in 1 week, then that is a decent rate of loss. Do you graph your weight with something like trendweight.com, happy scale (iOS), Libra (android), or otherwise?