Disheartening!

Micah_Johnson
Micah_Johnson Posts: 22 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I could use a bit of encouragement. I'm a big guy; 6'1 and 280ish, to be exact. I've gotten back into working out and eating well recently, and I've had a good two weeks. I started out two weeks ago at 286. I've worked out regularly since then, alternating weight training and C25K. I own a nice food scale, and I weigh and log my food religiously. I weigh in every morning on my Fitbit Aria. Yesterday morning, I weighed in at 281. I lifted yesterday, and took in just under 1900 calories. I just weighed in this morning, and I jumped up to 284. I recognize that it has to be water retention - there's no way I gained three pounds of fat in a single day - but it's a pretty substantial hike. I was hoping to break 280 this morning. Encouraging thoughts, anyone?

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    I went for a cycle ride yesterday and came back 2lb lighter - like your fluctuation it is water weight.
    Muscle and fat changes are slow to show up, water and amount of food in your GI tract show up quickly but are irrelevant.

    Accept it with a shrug and move on. It won't be the last time the scales are seemingly contrary, don't give them power over you.
  • Muscleflex79
    Muscleflex79 Posts: 1,917 Member
    as tavistocktoad said, don't weigh yourself daily if normal daily fluctuations are going to bother you.
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
    edited June 2017
    Micah_Johnson wrote: »
    I could use a bit of encouragement. I'm a big guy; 6'1 and 280ish, to be exact. I've gotten back into working out and eating well recently, and I've had a good two weeks. I started out two weeks ago at 286. I've worked out regularly since then, alternating weight training and C25K. I own a nice food scale, and I weigh and log my food religiously. I weigh in every morning on my Fitbit Aria. Yesterday morning, I weighed in at 281. I lifted yesterday, and took in just under 1900 calories. I just weighed in this morning, and I jumped up to 284. I recognize that it has to be water retention - there's no way I gained three pounds of fat in a single day - but it's a pretty substantial hike. I was hoping to break 280 this morning. Encouraging thoughts, anyone?

    On this weigh-in fluid retention seemed to mask your weight loss. On the last one, it may have exaggerated it. I'm 5'11", now at about 200-203 (I don't actually know because of fluctuations) and down almost 40, and I can see a change of as much as 5 pounds in either direction in the same day. Further, it can be 5 pounds less even in the afternoon after eating 75% of my calorie budget for the day. Guess what. Your body has likely always done this!

    If you are eating in a deficit, your weight will go down.

    The only thing that matters is the 4-6 week (or longer) trend. Stay the course. You've had a great start. The process works. You have to trust it more than you trust the scale. Then, you'll have to trust the pictures - take pictures - more than the scale.
  • cocolove444
    cocolove444 Posts: 4 Member
    Keep going, Micah_Johnson. You're doing great! :)
  • rsclause
    rsclause Posts: 3,103 Member
    It happens. For me I ate not so good and topped it of with a Mexican restaurant meal with beer. I gained three pounds that night and I suspect that salt had a lot to do with it. I lost about two pounds the night after so the good news is what goes on fast can come off fast too.
  • Poisonedpawn78
    Poisonedpawn78 Posts: 1,145 Member
    When the amount of weight you can lose in a WEEK is less than the amount of weight you can fluxuate on a DAILY basis, you have to look at a trend. Especially when doing new exercise regimes.

    You already know its water weight and will go away at some point. So there isnt anything to be upset about. If anything be upset that you are expecting your weight to only go down at all times.

    Lets look at it this way, IF you somehow managed to eat 2lbs of carrots and then weighed yourself. Did you gain 2lbs or the 1/10th of a lbs the 372 calories would be?? The scale says 2lbs higher...
  • everher
    everher Posts: 909 Member
    Honestly, it's just a thing that happens. I know how you feel though. Nothing more annoying than thinking you are going to break under a certain number and then your weight is up through no fault of your own.

    I weigh daily and after a while the fluctuations become less annoying.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    edited June 2017
    sijomial wrote: »
    I went for a cycle ride yesterday and came back 2lb lighter - like your fluctuation it is water weight.
    Muscle and fat changes are slow to show up, water and amount of food in your GI tract show up quickly but are irrelevant.

    Accept it with a shrug and move on. It won't be the last time the scales are seemingly contrary, don't give them power over you.

    ^ What sijomial said. It doesn't happen in a neat, orderly, predictable manner, and there are a lot of things beyond calories that affect your daily scale readings.

    Here's my chart from Trendweight over the last 3 months. The black dots are actual daily scale weights, the red line is the overall trend. You can see that there are constant fluctuations up and down:

    0gsgs1z5scpx.png
  • juanwilly
    juanwilly Posts: 100 Member
    Wow Heather4448! Very impressive work!
  • WayTooHonest
    WayTooHonest Posts: 144 Member
    Normal daily fluctuations. I have gained or lost as much as 7 pounds in a day. I would suggest weighing less often: weekly or monthly, and at the same time of day when you do so. Keep up the good work!
  • leona0715
    leona0715 Posts: 14 Member
    Keep doing what your doing, your doing great! True weight loss is probably best measured weekly or monthly, days to day won't be the best way to measure your weight.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,236 Member
    trendweight.com or weightgrapher.com (tell it you want to maintain weight to avoid suggestions on what to do)
    libra for android
    happy scale for iphone
    Look at 4-6 weeks.
  • Heather4448
    Heather4448 Posts: 908 Member
    @juanwilly Thank you!
  • SeikoMonster
    SeikoMonster Posts: 105 Member
    Man I am right there with you. It just kills motivation to not see that number change!!!
    I'm 289. Burning 3600-3900 calories per day. Last 4 days in a row I've not seen the scale move. Just kills me man, normally I can shrug it off and keep on with it. But yesterday was the day I should have hit my 288 mini goal.

    On the dog walk this morning all I could think of was giving up and grabbing a pizza hah! Then you come around and look at trends like others have said.

    Not hitting your next benchmark or goal sucks, realize it is just gonna take another day or two. Try not to get too down on it. Keep it up!
  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,447 Member
    Trend apps help. Watch data over time no one data point matters the trend does.
  • jenniferinfl
    jenniferinfl Posts: 456 Member
    Someone else mentioned trendweight. I definitely love that site.
    Sometimes the best choices for you temporarily cause an increase on the scale.
    I recently started a goal of eating at least 10 servings a day (28 ounces) of fruit and vegetables. The result being that in the last 7 days I'm at 0 lbs of weight loss. I've lost weight the last 9 weeks in a row, but, here in week 10 I lost nothing. First of all, I'm eating more carbs than I was eating and each gram of carbs holds onto 3-4 grams of water while it digests. I'm also eating a lot more volume than I would usually eat, probably a lb or so more food than I would usually eat for the same calories. I know that eventually, hopefully next week, the scale will more down again. I know that eating more fruit and vegetables is a good choice for my health and worth more then the momentary uptick on the scale.
    Similarly, exercise is good for you even if it makes you retain water and gives you a false high now and then.

    I will agree that it is infuriating. I should have lost 1.7 lbs this week based on my logging and previous weeks' numbers, instead I lost 0 trying to be healthier. It will even out eventually.

Categories