Weighing yourself after a workout?
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TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »once a week weigh ins are more accurate
Why is that? Weighing every day gives you accurate data so you can monitor trends and pinpoint things that may influence your weight. I choose to weigh daily in the morning right after I wake up. Weighing daily is just another tool in my weight loss tool box that has helped me reach my goal. If you stress about minor fluctuations weekly or even monthly may work better. It's just personal preference.
For most of us our activities on each day of the week doesn't change much from week to week, but there are significant changes from day to day. By weighing once a week on the same day at the same time there is a higher likelihood that the events leading up to the weigh-in are consistent.
I guess I'm not following your logic. If I weigh myself every day, but just choose to record that weight once a week I'll still have the same numbers. Or if I record it every day, (which I don't unless I show a loss), at the end of the week the results are still the same. I understand what you're saying about events being consistent. I just don't see how that is pertinent.
You're right that if you only record numbers once a week you have the same numbers. But presumably you aren't going to step on the scale six more times for no reason. So the question becomes, "What do we do with those numbers?" Are we trying to figure out on which day we are heaviest? Why do we care? It seems to me that that only thing we really should be concerned with is our change in weight. The actual number on the scale is just a number, but the amount it has changed tells us something. If we are trying to lose weight, we want to see it drop by a pound or two each week. If we are maintaining weight we want to make sure it hasn't dropped or gone up much. When you weigh daily you see big changes in a short period of time, but those changes are usually water weight, so they don't really tell us anything.
My argument against infrequent weighing is aliasing. If you weigh yourself weekly, then the best frequency information you have is bi-weekly. That means you can go for several weeks and have trends that are counter to what your average weight is actually doing.
I showed some data here (which of course I can't find now), from a period where I was consistently losing weight over a one month period. But I was able to find 4 days, each a week apart, that showed a progressive weight gain. That would have meant that, had I weighed in weekly on those days, I would have seen a gain. But my daily weighings showed a clear downward trend, where those individual days were a result of noise.
I really don't care how often people weigh themselves, and for some people infrequent weighings probably do make sense. But I can imagine someone weighing infrequently and becoming frustrated with an apparent loss of progress (over several weeks!) that more measurements would have illuminated. Personally I like as much data as I can get.4 -
Nope! Weight fluctuates a lot. Losing a few pounds because you are dehydrated after a run does not mean you lost fat. Drink a bottle of water and weigh yourself again and you'll see what I mean.0
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If you don't weigh yourself in the morning, fasted, naked, after visiting the bathroom, it is extremely hard to be consistent.
Weighing daily is an excellent method if you are going to track your weight trend and/or moving average and don't get demotivated by fluctuations.3 -
TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »once a week weigh ins are more accurate
Why is that? Weighing every day gives you accurate data so you can monitor trends and pinpoint things that may influence your weight. I choose to weigh daily in the morning right after I wake up. Weighing daily is just another tool in my weight loss tool box that has helped me reach my goal. If you stress about minor fluctuations weekly or even monthly may work better. It's just personal preference.
For most of us our activities on each day of the week doesn't change much from week to week, but there are significant changes from day to day. By weighing once a week on the same day at the same time there is a higher likelihood that the events leading up to the weigh-in are consistent.
I guess I'm not following your logic. If I weigh myself every day, but just choose to record that weight once a week I'll still have the same numbers. Or if I record it every day, (which I don't unless I show a loss), at the end of the week the results are still the same. I understand what you're saying about events being consistent. I just don't see how that is pertinent.
You're right that if you only record numbers once a week you have the same numbers. But presumably you aren't going to step on the scale six more times for no reason. So the question becomes, "What do we do with those numbers?" Are we trying to figure out on which day we are heaviest? Why do we care? It seems to me that that only thing we really should be concerned with is our change in weight. The actual number on the scale is just a number, but the amount it has changed tells us something. If we are trying to lose weight, we want to see it drop by a pound or two each week. If we are maintaining weight we want to make sure it hasn't dropped or gone up much. When you weigh daily you see big changes in a short period of time, but those changes are usually water weight, so they don't really tell us anything.
exactly0 -
I weigh myself 5 days a week and track it 5 days a week - to me the numbers don't matter, the only thing that I am looking at is the general trend - is my weight going up, down or staying the same. As long as the TREND is going in the direction that I want it to go, then I know what I am doing is working. If the TREND is not going the way that I want it, I know it's time to make changes and then see where the trend goes after those changes.0
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I always weight first thing in the morning before I've done anything else. If I weighed after my workout, I'd be a few pounds up because I drink a ton of water throughout, lol.1
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I weigh daily and track in a spreadsheet. I show my 7 day loss and a bunch of other things. It's part of my daily routine. I can see what happens after a big meal, see how sodium affects me, but mostly I see it trending down. Do what is comfortable for you, daily, weekly, monthly. I just know I like the daily feedback, plus or minus.
Running for 30-35 minutes doesn't affect my weight much, so I weigh before I use the treadmill. I guess I drink about as much as I sweat.2 -
I found that weighing yourself at different times leads to confusing data so now I only weigh myself first thing in the morning and just go by that one0
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Another consideration against infrequent weigh-ins: "making weight." This is not a phenomenon to which I'm susceptible, but I understand others might be.
If you know you have a scheduled weigh-in, you may be tempted to take steps to reduce your weight for that event using artificial means: diuretics, short fasts, etc. This is often observed in sports where there are weight classes such as wrestling. one hears stories of young athletes spending long times in saunas, cutting out carbohydrates, or other means to temporarily reduce their weight.
But this isn't meaningful either. Frequent weigh-ins eliminate this practice.0 -
andrea4736 wrote: »I always weight first thing in the morning before I've done anything else. If I weighed after my workout, I'd be a few pounds up because I drink a ton of water throughout, lol.
Same here0 -
It's probably accurate. The question is whether it's meaningful.
Exactly.
If it's a sweaty cardio workout, like when I get on the bike and ride hard, for an hour, naturally I am going to weigh more afterwards. That's common sense. One needs to realize that water weight loss is not at all meaningful, at least in the context of weight-loss. Weighing once a day, in the morning, IS a meaningful method of weighing.2
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