My scale isn't reflecting my nutrition or fitness

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Replies

  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    edited August 2016
    Nzamora0728 wrote: »

    Yesterday I drank my 10 glasses of water, ate very healthy and low-salt. Stayed within my allotted calories on this app, and this morning woke up weighing 175. WTF! :(

    How did I gain 3 lbs in one day when I've stayed within my calories and exercised?

    . . .

    Any recos? Or suggestions?

    FWIW, 1 gallon of water weighs 8.36 lbs.

    If you drank 10 glasses of water (8 oz each), you would have consumed 8.36 x (10/16) or 5.225 lbs of water and you will weigh that much more minus any evaporation from sweat or respiration, urination, excretion and any other biological processes.

    So, it's entirely possible that you retained 3 out of the 5 225 lbs of water that you consumed the day before.

    If you drink this amount of water consistently (as I do) and weigh yourself daily at the same time and under the same conditions (as I and others do), you will probably not get such varied weight measurements fron day to day.

  • OcalaFL
    OcalaFL Posts: 173 Member
    Where you over 2,300 MG of sodium?

    If so you body tries to keep a balance of sodium and water much like that of sea water. So for every 400MG you over you can retain 2 lb of water. While this weight gain is not permanent just water retention.
  • Bearbo27
    Bearbo27 Posts: 339 Member
    edited August 2016
    OP your weight will fluctuate and will not just go down in one straight line. For example, I was stalled for two weeks bouncing up and down the same three pounds. I knew I was still at my deficit and doing everything right, so I just kept plugging along and this week I dropped almost 5 lbs. My goal is 2 lbs per week and it's like I dropped all the weight from the past few weeks in this one week. My guess is my hormones were off, which caused me to retain water. You HAVE to be patient though!! I also have PCOS and tend to see better results with low carb. Many other with PCOS see the same. Look for the PCOS group here on mfp and that might help. Water weigh can easily make you go up a few pounds in a day. It is not fat though, so it will come off in no time.

    I really think your main issue though is you are just wanting to see the results like now and that is now how it works. I also recommend the happy scale app. It helps to better show the trend of weight loss. My weight might go up and down a lot during certain weeks, but overall I see a downward trend.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    No one's scale reflects their health or fitness. Scales just tell you how much you weigh which is not a direct readout of how much fat you have gained or lost which is what I assume you actually care about. Over time ales of months scales will give you some indication as your weight trends downwards but even if you are losing fat normal bodyweight fluctuations due to other factors will mask it on the scale of weeks let alone days.

    What you describe tells you nothing since it's over such a short time scale. Just don't worry about it and continue your plan. If your weight isn't on average lower after 2 months then you can question your diet.
  • Mom2ATM
    Mom2ATM Posts: 147 Member
    Arapacana1 wrote: »
    Many women gain up to five pounds during ovulation or during their time of month. It's water weight and will come back off.

    This happens to me during ovulation. It's frustrating but stop weighing every day. It's hard I know but weight does fluctuate for the tiniest things
  • hjlourenshj
    hjlourenshj Posts: 66 Member
    edited August 2016
    Seriously i can not understand why people cant figure this out for themself!! Do you really think you gain 3 lb of fat over night?!? Do you think its something else then water?!? MFP should have a sticky on this. Much respect to long term MFP'rs in this forum who can still reply to this question in a normal way day in and day out.
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,647 Member
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Seriously i can not understand why people cant figure this out for themself!! Do you really think you gain 3 lb of fat over night?!? Do you think its something else then water?!? MFP should have a sticky on this. Much respect to long term MFP'rs in this forum who can reply to this question day in day out.

    You must be new here.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,029 Member
    What's your deficit?

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • ACSL3
    ACSL3 Posts: 623 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Carriehelene wrote: »
    That's not what she meant! Good grief. She was talking about her healthy weight, not what she should weigh after following the program for a couple of days. So easy on the sarcasm already. Sheesh.

    OP, it's totally water weight, so don't stress it. In a day or so it will just disappear. Then you'll be like, holy crap, I lost 3 lbs in two days lol.

    I'm not seeing the sarcastic responses you're referring to?

    OP posted a common topic for a newcomer. Makes big changes in diet and exercise and has tremendous motivation toward progressing to her ultimate goal (presumably less than 130 lbs if I read that correctly). She's frustrated that the scale hasn't reflected the same progress, which is again very common source of frustration.

    OP sadly weight loss is not linear (there's even a great thread here about it which I can't link from my phone), and women especially can have pretty significant fluctuations due to water retention, hormones, etc. Common causes can also include, in addition to sodium intake, increased carb intake or increased exercise. As others have mentioned, these are usually temporary spikes and will be gone in a day or so. Many people use an app like Happy Scale or Trendweight which logs a weight every day so that over time, you can clearly see the downward progress and learn to ignore the temporary spikes as miscellaneous "noise" on the graph.

    I love trendweight.com! I weigh just about every day but look at the website and use the weight on the scale as a data point only. I think you have to have a fitbit account if you're going to use trendweight - accounts are free and I don't think you have to have a tracker. You just have to put your weight into the fitbit website and trendweight will pull from there.

    Happy scale is also great and is an iOS app. If you have an android then you'll want the Libra app.

    Or you can choose to not weigh every day if you find it too stressful. Lots of people don't like weighing every day - Everyone is different :)
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,463 Member
    I weigh daily so I can understand my body's fluctuations and patterns. It's just data, not a moral judgement. Track in an app like happy scale or libra and watch the trend line. That's what matters.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Seriously i can not understand why people cant figure this out for themself!! Do you really think you gain 3 lb of fat over night?!? Do you think its something else then water?!? MFP should have a sticky on this. Much respect to long term MFP'rs in this forum who can still reply to this question in a normal way day in and day out.

    Oh, goodness! Hangry, or . . . ? ;)

    To me, it's harder to understand why someone might take their own very limited & precious time, and devote it to expostulating about new folks who don't know the basics yet.

    But as we often say here on MFP, we're all different . . . .

    P.S. It's covered in the stickies. There are a lot of stickies. It takes a long time to read & digest them.
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,647 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    hjlourenshj wrote: »
    Seriously i can not understand why people cant figure this out for themself!! Do you really think you gain 3 lb of fat over night?!? Do you think its something else then water?!? MFP should have a sticky on this. Much respect to long term MFP'rs in this forum who can still reply to this question in a normal way day in and day out.

    Oh, goodness! Hangry, or . . . ? ;)

    To me, it's harder to understand why someone might take their own very limited & precious time, and devote it to expostulating about new folks who don't know the basics yet.

    But as we often say here on MFP, we're all different . . . .

    P.S. It's covered in the stickies. There are a lot of stickies. It takes a long time to read & digest them.

    Yeah, usually when I feel like hjlourensh feels, I just back away and leave it for someone else. I guess I just don't feel the need to tear down newbies for not knowing everything there is to know about weight loss.
  • rosiesshire
    rosiesshire Posts: 13 Member
    I weigh myself daily but in my mind I only count the weight from the week after my cycle from month to month and write it on a calendar....the rest of the time is like a weight gain & loss hormonal water park ride. :P
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