Can you gain weight without ingesting anything or is my scale busted? lol

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Replies

  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Step away from the scale. Do not weigh yourself repeatedly.

    Seriously.

    Once a day, morning, after your potty chores, naked or in the same pajamas each day, will give you the most consistent reading possible. When them it can vary by several pounds based on digestive rate and water retention. This is why experienced folks look at the trend over time and ignore the small jumps up and down every day.

    Weighing once a week wont tell me if its broken though. I was purposely testing it because it seems really off lately and seems to vary a lot more than before. Not sure if my body is acting weird or if the scale is.

    It doesn't actually matter if it is broken, what matters is your weight overtime. If the scale is off by 2 pounds randomly but you continue to weigh yourself consistently over time that error will average out over time and it won't matter.

    You don't need a super accurate scale to accurately track your weight loss.

    Picture it this way. You actually weigh 140 pounds exactly every day but your scale can be off as much as 2 pounds.

    Day 1: 141
    Day 2: 139
    Day 3: 142
    Day 4: 141
    Day 5: 138
    Day 6: 140

    etc etc. The more days you track the closer the average will be to your actual weight, 140 pounds. If you are losing weight then that moving average will trend downward. The +/- 2 pound error of the scale will just cancel out within the average.

    You are paying attention to something that does not matter.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited November 2017
    Your weight is always in flux regardless of whether you ate something or not...body weight isn't static. I've gotten on the scale before my shower and after my shower and there's been differences
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Muscles. Expand. And. Swell. When. Moving.

    If you were a non-living object without biologically responsive tissue, 1) you literally wouldn’t see a change on the scale, because 2) you wouldn’t be cognizant of gravity or life.

    That's pretty awesome.... Ok so I didn't know that muscles swell for any reason other than injury lol

    This is irrelevant to your situation. Muscles which expand or contract while moving weigh the same in both states. Swelling is fluid entering your muscles and the fluid has to come from somewhere - you're correct about that. You didn't ingest water between times of weighing yourself. Water weight doesn't absorb through your skin because you are not an amphibian. You have to actually drink water. If your muscles swell without you drinking anything, that water is taken from elsewhere in your body, and you will weigh the exact same amount.

    Does any of this matter to your weight loss effort? No.

    Aaron is right, it's the trend over time which matters. ALL HOME SCALES ARE INACCURATE, and even if you were using a doctor's calibrated scale, you will gain or lose several pounds per day depending on what you eat and drink.

    Go ahead and mess around with your scale until you figure out its little peculiarities if it makes you happy. Mine reads one whole pound less if I set it in a particular spot on the bathroom floor. Do I set it in that spot every morning? You bet I do. But don't imagine that the number on the scale exactly corresponds to your real world weight loss. You can lose fat without losing on the scale at all, due to water weight or food in your digestive tract, and you can lose scale weight without losing fat due to dehydration. And your scale is probably not more broken than usual - even a very inaccurate scale will show some loss over time, if you are really losing.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Muscles. Expand. And. Swell. When. Moving.

    If you were a non-living object without biologically responsive tissue, 1) you literally wouldn’t see a change on the scale, because 2) you wouldn’t be cognizant of gravity or life.

    That's pretty awesome.... Ok so I didn't know that muscles swell for any reason other than injury lol

    This is irrelevant to your situation. Muscles which expand or contract while moving weigh the same in both states. Swelling is fluid entering your muscles and the fluid has to come from somewhere - you're correct about that. You didn't ingest water between times of weighing yourself. Water weight doesn't absorb through your skin because you are not an amphibian. You have to actually drink water. If your muscles swell without you drinking anything, that water is taken from elsewhere in your body, and you will weigh the exact same amount.

    Does any of this matter to your weight loss effort? No.

    Aaron is right, it's the trend over time which matters. ALL HOME SCALES ARE INACCURATE, and even if you were using a doctor's calibrated scale, you will gain or lose several pounds per day depending on what you eat and drink.

    Go ahead and mess around with your scale until you figure out its little peculiarities if it makes you happy. Mine reads one whole pound less if I set it in a particular spot on the bathroom floor. Do I set it in that spot every morning? You bet I do. But don't imagine that the number on the scale exactly corresponds to your real world weight loss. You can lose fat without losing on the scale at all, due to water weight or food in your digestive tract, and you can lose scale weight without losing fat due to dehydration. And your scale is probably not more broken than usual - even a very inaccurate scale will show some loss over time, if you are really losing.

    Yeah exactly. I mean I'll take it even further and say someone who has a $500 scale that is super accurate and someone that has a $6 scale from target that is off by like +/- 4 pounds randomly will end up measuring the exact same amount of weight lost over a 6 month period if they lose like 20 pounds providing they are using the scale correctly and looking at the trend of the moving average over time. Getting a super accurate scale isn't actually a useful thing to do, buy a cheap scale, use a scale that is "broken" in that it is inaccurate...it won't matter.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Muscles. Expand. And. Swell. When. Moving.

    If you were a non-living object without biologically responsive tissue, 1) you literally wouldn’t see a change on the scale, because 2) you wouldn’t be cognizant of gravity or life.

    That's pretty awesome.... Ok so I didn't know that muscles swell for any reason other than injury lol

    This is irrelevant to your situation. Muscles which expand or contract while moving weigh the same in both states. Swelling is fluid entering your muscles and the fluid has to come from somewhere - you're correct about that. You didn't ingest water between times of weighing yourself. Water weight doesn't absorb through your skin because you are not an amphibian. You have to actually drink water. If your muscles swell without you drinking anything, that water is taken from elsewhere in your body, and you will weigh the exact same amount.

    Does any of this matter to your weight loss effort? No.

    Aaron is right, it's the trend over time which matters. ALL HOME SCALES ARE INACCURATE, and even if you were using a doctor's calibrated scale, you will gain or lose several pounds per day depending on what you eat and drink.

    Go ahead and mess around with your scale until you figure out its little peculiarities if it makes you happy. Mine reads one whole pound less if I set it in a particular spot on the bathroom floor. Do I set it in that spot every morning? You bet I do. But don't imagine that the number on the scale exactly corresponds to your real world weight loss. You can lose fat without losing on the scale at all, due to water weight or food in your digestive tract, and you can lose scale weight without losing fat due to dehydration. And your scale is probably not more broken than usual - even a very inaccurate scale will show some loss over time, if you are really losing.

    You ever lift heavy without drinking anything then weigh yourself after? I haven't stayed the same weight after performing hypertrophy sets. I could be an amphibian though. I've been called a greasy stain of life ¯\(°_o)/¯
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Step away from the scale. Do not weigh yourself repeatedly.

    Seriously.

    Once a day, morning, after your potty chores, naked or in the same pajamas each day, will give you the most consistent reading possible. When them it can vary by several pounds based on digestive rate and water retention. This is why experienced folks look at the trend over time and ignore the small jumps up and down every day.

    Weighing once a week wont tell me if its broken though. I was purposely testing it because it seems really off lately and seems to vary a lot more than before. Not sure if my body is acting weird or if the scale is.

    It doesn't actually matter if it is broken, what matters is your weight overtime. If the scale is off by 2 pounds randomly but you continue to weigh yourself consistently over time that error will average out over time and it won't matter.

    You don't need a super accurate scale to accurately track your weight loss.

    Picture it this way. You actually weigh 140 pounds exactly every day but your scale can be off as much as 2 pounds.

    Day 1: 141
    Day 2: 139
    Day 3: 142
    Day 4: 141
    Day 5: 138
    Day 6: 140

    etc etc. The more days you track the closer the average will be to your actual weight, 140 pounds. If you are losing weight then that moving average will trend downward. The +/- 2 pound error of the scale will just cancel out within the average.

    You are paying attention to something that does not matter.

    I guess. I never really thought about it that way.
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    edited November 2017
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Your weight is always in flux regardless of whether you ate something or not...body weight isn't static. I've gotten on the scale before my shower and after my shower and there's been differences...stop with the OCD...

    That's kind of offensive (almost) considering I cant, considering I have OCD. Lol
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Muscles. Expand. And. Swell. When. Moving.

    If you were a non-living object without biologically responsive tissue, 1) you literally wouldn’t see a change on the scale, because 2) you wouldn’t be cognizant of gravity or life.

    That's pretty awesome.... Ok so I didn't know that muscles swell for any reason other than injury lol

    This is irrelevant to your situation. Muscles which expand or contract while moving weigh the same in both states. Swelling is fluid entering your muscles and the fluid has to come from somewhere - you're correct about that. You didn't ingest water between times of weighing yourself. Water weight doesn't absorb through your skin because you are not an amphibian. You have to actually drink water. If your muscles swell without you drinking anything, that water is taken from elsewhere in your body, and you will weigh the exact same amount.

    Does any of this matter to your weight loss effort? No.

    Aaron is right, it's the trend over time which matters. ALL HOME SCALES ARE INACCURATE, and even if you were using a doctor's calibrated scale, you will gain or lose several pounds per day depending on what you eat and drink.

    Go ahead and mess around with your scale until you figure out its little peculiarities if it makes you happy. Mine reads one whole pound less if I set it in a particular spot on the bathroom floor. Do I set it in that spot every morning? You bet I do. But don't imagine that the number on the scale exactly corresponds to your real world weight loss. You can lose fat without losing on the scale at all, due to water weight or food in your digestive tract, and you can lose scale weight without losing fat due to dehydration. And your scale is probably not more broken than usual - even a very inaccurate scale will show some loss over time, if you are really losing.

    You ever lift heavy without drinking anything then weigh yourself after? I haven't stayed the same weight after performing hypertrophy sets. I could be an amphibian though. I've been called a greasy stain of life ¯\(°_o)/¯

    I might like to be an amphibian - just for a day.
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    edited November 2017
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Muscles. Expand. And. Swell. When. Moving.

    If you were a non-living object without biologically responsive tissue, 1) you literally wouldn’t see a change on the scale, because 2) you wouldn’t be cognizant of gravity or life.

    That's pretty awesome.... Ok so I didn't know that muscles swell for any reason other than injury lol

    This is irrelevant to your situation. Muscles which expand or contract while moving weigh the same in both states. Swelling is fluid entering your muscles and the fluid has to come from somewhere - you're correct about that. You didn't ingest water between times of weighing yourself. Water weight doesn't absorb through your skin because you are not an amphibian. You have to actually drink water. If your muscles swell without you drinking anything, that water is taken from elsewhere in your body, and you will weigh the exact same amount.

    Does any of this matter to your weight loss effort? No.

    Aaron is right, it's the trend over time which matters. ALL HOME SCALES ARE INACCURATE, and even if you were using a doctor's calibrated scale, you will gain or lose several pounds per day depending on what you eat and drink.

    Go ahead and mess around with your scale until you figure out its little peculiarities if it makes you happy. Mine reads one whole pound less if I set it in a particular spot on the bathroom floor. Do I set it in that spot every morning? You bet I do. But don't imagine that the number on the scale exactly corresponds to your real world weight loss. You can lose fat without losing on the scale at all, due to water weight or food in your digestive tract, and you can lose scale weight without losing fat due to dehydration. And your scale is probably not more broken than usual - even a very inaccurate scale will show some loss over time, if you are really losing.

    You ever lift heavy without drinking anything then weigh yourself after? I haven't stayed the same weight after performing hypertrophy sets. I could be an amphibian though. I've been called a greasy stain of life ¯\(°_o)/¯

    You can lose weight from exhaling carbon dioxide plus water vapour and from perspiring fluid but you shouldn't be gaining any weight. If you do gain weight according to a scale then the scale is just being inaccurate. I mean mass has to come from somewhere and the poster here is correct, you don't just absorb water from your enviornment and if you didn't drink or eat anything then no mass was added to you. Things can redistribute, mass can be lost through the mechanisms I mentioned...but no mass can be added.

    Okay I was hoping someone would say this because that was my understanding and someone was arguing against that thought process. Thats why I made this thread lol
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    edited November 2017
    Aaron has pretty much cleared things up.

    I thought perhaps the sip of water might have tipped the scale from say, 140.49 lbs to 140.5 lbs which might have rounded up as going from 140 lbs to 141 lbs.

    But I could be wrong because I'm Australian and use kgs and don't know how Imperial scales display.
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    Orphia wrote: »
    Aaron has pretty much cleared things up.

    I thought perhaps the sip of water might have tipped the scale from say, 140.49 lbs to 140.5 lbs which might have rounded up as going from 140 lbs to 141 lbs.

    But I could be wrong because I'm Australian and use kgs and don't know how Imperial scales display.

    It would but mine goes by the .2 lb lol and it went up a whole lb or close (like 14oz) instead of like .2 or .4 so it was weird Lol. But yes Aaron did clear up what I was trying to ask. Things were steering a bit off topic lol
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    So Ive been wondering about my scale for a while but I tested out of curiosity today. Took my weight twice before I left twice when I came back from somewhere. All I ingested was a sip from a water fountain and one chip between leaving and coming home. Same clothes, same spot on the floor where I weighed - I gained 1 lb. lol. Also, any scale recommendations? I was considering just rebuying the one I have but maybe not. I have a Bowflex Caloric and BMI Scale. Someone said water retention and not my scale...that's why I asked in the title. But retention within a few hrs without drinking much of anything? o_o

    Technically, it would be possible to gain weight without eating, but practically it's impossible.
  • SCoil123
    SCoil123 Posts: 2,111 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    pogiguy05 wrote: »
    I dont take the small amounts that seriously. I can fluctuate 5lbs in a day if I dont drink enough fluids. If you are like me and have the habit of stepping on the scale every time you pass it, you might want to slow down. I keep telling myself I will stop it, but so far NOPE. I just dont take it seriously.

    Pick a time of day to weigh and stick with that. I swear I am going to not weigh myself the whole month of December.

    The point was to see if it's working right due to weird readings though. You can gain weight without eating or drinking anything???
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    My weight normally fluctuates 1-4lb depending on the time of day and it is completely normal for me regardless of what I’ve eaten or done on that specific day

    Literally without drinking even water?? It seems impossible o_o I cant recheck now to see how its working tho I drank a giant diet coke but still Lol at the time I had nothing but 1-2oz water which obviously weighs 1-2oz and then 1 chip (like 5grams lol) so I dont get how I could go up 16ounces.

    Yes. I can fluctuate up or down during the day without eating or drinking anything. Weight fluctuates during the day and that is normal.
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    pogiguy05 wrote: »
    I dont take the small amounts that seriously. I can fluctuate 5lbs in a day if I dont drink enough fluids. If you are like me and have the habit of stepping on the scale every time you pass it, you might want to slow down. I keep telling myself I will stop it, but so far NOPE. I just dont take it seriously.

    Pick a time of day to weigh and stick with that. I swear I am going to not weigh myself the whole month of December.

    The point was to see if it's working right due to weird readings though. You can gain weight without eating or drinking anything???
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    My weight normally fluctuates 1-4lb depending on the time of day and it is completely normal for me regardless of what I’ve eaten or done on that specific day

    Literally without drinking even water?? It seems impossible o_o I cant recheck now to see how its working tho I drank a giant diet coke but still Lol at the time I had nothing but 1-2oz water which obviously weighs 1-2oz and then 1 chip (like 5grams lol) so I dont get how I could go up 16ounces.

    Yes. I can fluctuate up or down during the day without eating or drinking anything. Weight fluctuates during the day and that is normal.

    So odd. Thanks for sharing.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    A word of warning. Dumbbells don’t really weigh what they say. There is some milling involved. I had an instructor who calibrated his medical scale with weights and he was WAAAY off. I convinced him to double check.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Weight lost or gained is tracked over the months, not hours.
  • Verity1111
    Verity1111 Posts: 3,309 Member
    edited November 2017
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Weight lost or gained is tracked over the months, not hours.

    Truth. But I was trying to see if my scale was messed up. or if my body is lol I keep gaining large amounts then losing it overnight which sure water retention but then I gain when I dont get time to eat yet etc its odd so I tried it on a day when I was very busy picking up my kids and had nothing at all yet and my weight went up. Just found it odd.
  • Jigglypuff00
    Jigglypuff00 Posts: 267 Member
    I'm not sure how our bodies work, but when I've had gains like that, I was told it's just water weight. And yes, apparently we can gain water weight even if we don't eat or drink anything. Did you pee between the time you first weighed and the next time? Our cells supposedly start filling with water to hold their shape I guess? When nothing is consumed to take place of the water, then they finally collapse and there's a whoosh. So all that is not very technical, but it's how it was explained to me.

    So yeah, try testing your scale with you holding weights and see if the difference is correct. If it is, then it's just one of those mysterious bodily functions only physicists can understand. Or it could be your battery.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    Verity1111 wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Weight lost or gained is tracked over the months, not hours.

    Truth. But I was trying to see if my scale was messed up. or if my body is lol I keep gaining large amounts then losing it overnight which sure water retention but then I gain when I dont get time to eat yet etc its odd so I tried it on a day when I was very busy picking up my kids and had nothing at all yet and my weight went up. Just found it odd.

    Have you tried swapping the batteries yet? I suspect that's your issue.

  • Purplebunnysarah
    Purplebunnysarah Posts: 3,252 Member
    Home scales are not terribly accurate. Electronic balances can be impacted by temperature, humidity and static charge, but I'm not sure the inaccuracies on a home scale would be in the range of pounds.

    This is why I weigh myself daily and not hourly.
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