Weight gain without ingesting anything

Jessie24330
Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have a question and I'm not looking for advice to stop weighing myself so often or critisim of same. It's a hobby of mine (yes, my life is that lame) and I like to see how my weight goes up and down over the course of the day...

So my question is...

I weighed myself yesterday evening and the scale said 102.8 kg. I then laid on the bed and played online for a while, two hours or so. I got up to go to the bathroom and weighed myself on the way back. I was 104.4 kg. I understand fluid retention and all that so it doesn't ever bother me when my weight fluctates but I can't understand as I didn't eat or drink anything between the two weighs so I don't know how it could have went up. Any ideas? And the scale was in the same place and I was unclothed both times so it's not that.
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Replies

  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
    edited August 2016
    In addition to water, the amount of food and waste also counts on the scale. That's why weighing once a day is best. Personally, I weigh once a week.
  • lithezebra
    lithezebra Posts: 3,670 Member
    edited August 2016
    CorneliusPhoton wrote: »
    If you didn't eat or drink anything, you did not magically produce any weight either. Your scale lacks precision.

    This, precisely. It's why I use the medical scale at the gym.
  • Jessie24330
    Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
    Roxie...so, I really don't care what you think of my life and I specifically said I didn't want comments on that. It's not hurting anyone, there is no need for anyone to care. I just had a question. In reply to colorscheme, I know these also count but if I didn't put anything extra into my body there couldn't be any extra food or waste in that time. It just confuses me. And Cornelius, I know that's a probability but it usually gives me very consistant results for all members of our family. It was just weird. Oh well.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    It's your scale. There's no other possible explanation to a change in weight if all other parameters were exactly the same.

    Also, I don't see how your weighing hobby would be a problem. It doesn't seem to me that you're freaking out, actually thinking you gained weight, but are just curious about the change in number.
  • Jessie24330
    Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
    daniip_la wrote: »

    Also, I don't see how your weighing hobby would be a problem. It doesn't seem to me that you're freaking out, actually thinking you gained weight, but are just curious about the change in number.

    Thank you! I really don't care about fluctations in weight and I don't panic or get upset when it goes up by a few pounds here or there because it always comes back down. I've had a very slow but steady loss (50 pounds over two years) and I've seen it go up and down by as much as 5 pounds overnight (thanks, PMS!) so I don't get worried about this stuff. It's just simple curisosity.

  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    You could be retaining fluid from something you ate or did earlier in the day and it just caught up to you within those 2 hours.
  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    Lounmoun wrote: »
    You could be retaining fluid from something you ate or did earlier in the day and it just caught up to you within those 2 hours.

    You cannot gain 1.5 pounds of water weight or muscle mass or fat in 2 hours without adding anything to your body.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    Since your profile says your female, I would go with the lovely blanket of "hormones".
  • ItsyBitsy246
    ItsyBitsy246 Posts: 307 Member
    edited August 2016
    I do the same thing, generally jump on the scale whenever I'm in the bathroom. And have had a similar experience. I'm not concerned what the number is, I'm just kind of fascinated by the ups and downs not only day to day but during the day. My official weigh-in day is once a week on Friday.

    Edited out irrelevant info.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    @Jessie24330 what kind of scale do you have and how much did you pay for it? I get these sorts of fluctuations with my cheap Thinner scale.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,990 Member
    Weight doesn't go up if you don't consume anything. So it's an error in your method of weighing again. Unless you picked up 2lbs of dead skin from your bed clinging to you. ;)


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  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    Is it an electronic scale? Maybe your battery needs to be replaced.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    What kind of scale? Where is it located?
  • oolou
    oolou Posts: 765 Member
    To be honest, after trying to use a digital scale that changed its mind about my weight every five seconds (and yes, I changed the battery), I went back to using an old pair of scales that use a dial! They may be slightly out, but I feel they are at least consistently slightly out :D
  • MiMi_5151
    MiMi_5151 Posts: 41 Member
    I agree that it is the scale. I have a digital scale that will display a different weight if I step on it 3 times in 3 minutes. I'm using it as a 'trend monitor' and not an accurate reflection of my current weight at any moment in time.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Scales guess
  • HippySkoppy
    HippySkoppy Posts: 725 Member
    I have noticed that our digital scales will post different readings like this when the temperature changes ie: getting warm under the bathroom lights, maybe between weigh ins the ambient temp. altered and affected the reading.
  • MarkusDarwath
    MarkusDarwath Posts: 393 Member
    Even the most accurate of scales can give an occasional off reading depending on how you stand on it, and it's basically impossible the step on the scale the exact same way every time. I've done the exact same thing with my digital scale, got a number that was up in spite of no intake. But when I stepped off and back on again, it went back to the earlier number. Basically that one reading I just stepped on differently enough to temporarily throw the calibration out.
  • hjlourenshj
    hjlourenshj Posts: 66 Member
    If its your hobby you could use standards to find out if the scale makes mistakes. But standards have to be used in the range under and over the measurement so thats going to be bit difficult. Find something heavy what is the same all the time
  • Purplebunnysarah
    Purplebunnysarah Posts: 3,252 Member
    edited August 2016
    Digital scales are also affected by humidity. I'm not sure how much of an impact it would have at the pound/kilogram level (usual see it at the mg or ug level) but it's a possibility anyway.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    Did you weigh yourself in two different rooms, where one is significantly higher than the other? :wink:

    It's likely just the scale. They all have inaccuracies. Congratulations on your loss.
  • mike_ny
    mike_ny Posts: 351 Member
    Weighing yourself several times throughout the day is a valuable exercise to show how much weight readings can fluctuate quite a bit due to several factors such as hydration, mechanical errors, etc... Even daily weighing is only reliable for trending. The only truly valid measurements are enough of them done over a longer time period.

    Trendweight.com is a great resource if you have a WiFi scale since it uses a rolling weighted average to smooth out high and low daily measurements and gives a much more accurate record and trending of your weight, body fat, lean mass, etc...
  • Mentali
    Mentali Posts: 352 Member
    If I lean my weight on the balls of my feet my weight is higher than when I lean back on my heels, which is lower than if I stand straight. Scales are stupid!

    I agree with using standards to check though, because I'm curious too - do you have anything big and heavy you can test it with? A big bag of rice or flour? Weights?
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Water from oxidation of fats ?

    Theoretical possibility.
  • leejoyce31
    leejoyce31 Posts: 794 Member
    Maybe it's not the scale. Someone mentioned on another post that since our bodies are made up of such a high percentage of water we are in a constant state of fluid flux. It may just be fluid retention.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    edited August 2016
    yarwell wrote: »
    Water from oxidation of fats ?

    Theoretical possibility.

    While fat metabolism does take oxygen from the air and form water, for every atom of oxygen that is brought into the body, you lose a greater amount of carbon atoms into the air (approximately equal for saturated fats, but polyunsaturated fats take fewer molecules of oxygen because they have fewer hydrogens).

    Oxygen is heavier, but to gain 1.6 kg of mass would require an incredible amount of fat oxidation. A fairly typical saturated fat oxidation reaction would be:

    C18H36O2 + 26 O2 -> 18 CO2 + 18 H2O

    Since the O2 and CO2 are exchanged in the lungs and the overall amount of each within the body is tightly regulated and not going to show big changes over time, the net change in mass within the body is:

    C18H36O2: atomic mass ~284
    to
    18 H2O: atomic mass ~324

    For a net gain of ~15% mass.

    To gain 1.6 kg from this 15% increase would require about 10 kg of fat to be oxidized - not reasonable for overnight :smile:
  • MarkusDarwath
    MarkusDarwath Posts: 393 Member
    Thank you for the chemistry math. My head hurts now :) At least you didn't pull out Avegadro's (sp) number.
  • amyk0202
    amyk0202 Posts: 666 Member
    edited August 2016
    I agree that your scale is probably off. I think mine changes depending on the surface the scale is sitting on. My bathroom floor is vinyl & I try to keep it in the same spot so that it will be as consistent as possible. I think it's more accurate when it's on concrete.
  • Wetcoaster
    Wetcoaster Posts: 1,788 Member
    I fluctuate 5 pounds every day......during the day. You are making a big thing out of nothing.

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