Why did the number on the scale go up this week? Here's why.
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1. Hydration
2. Sodium
3. Sleep
4. TOM
5. The weight of food processing through your system
6. Exercise (new/increased exercise can cause water retention, which can show up as a gain or stall on the scale)
7. Time of day of your weigh-in
Agree 100% with your assessment. I mostly included #5 because I refuse, on principle, to ask an internet stranger "when's the last time you pooped?"
Hey fiber is important - especially if you're on a high protein diet.2 -
1. Hydration
2. Sodium
3. Sleep
4. TOM
5. The weight of food processing through your system
6. Exercise (new/increased exercise can cause water retention, which can show up as a gain or stall on the scale)
7. Time of day of your weigh-in
Agree 100% with your assessment. I mostly included #5 because I refuse, on principle, to ask an internet stranger "when's the last time you pooped?"
Hey fiber is important - especially if you're on a high protein diet.
True. So is fat. I feel like this comes up more often with women, especially women who still have some of that "fat makes you fat" 1980s dogma in their brains. Occasionally I'll see newbies who are female, maybe a little older, who are "gaining weight" on a high-protein/low-fat diet and I'll think "is there a way to ask this question delicately?"
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1. Hydration
2. Sodium
3. Sleep
4. TOM
5. The weight of food processing through your system
6. Exercise (new/increased exercise can cause water retention, which can show up as a gain or stall on the scale)
7. Time of day of your weigh-in
Agree 100% with your assessment. I mostly included #5 because I refuse, on principle, to ask an internet stranger "when's the last time you pooped?"
Hey fiber is important - especially if you're on a high protein diet.
True. So is fat. I feel like this comes up more often with women, especially women who still have some of that "fat makes you fat" 1980s dogma in their brains. Occasionally I'll see newbies who are female, maybe a little older, who are "gaining weight" on a high-protein/low-fat diet and I'll think "is there a way to ask this question delicately?"
I'll defer to @AnnPT77 for this.
I'm more of the blunt instrument and would keep it simple "So how's your poop?"2 -
1. Hydration
2. Sodium
3. Sleep
4. TOM
5. The weight of food processing through your system
6. Exercise (new/increased exercise can cause water retention, which can show up as a gain or stall on the scale)
7. Time of day of your weigh-in
Agree 100% with your assessment. I mostly included #5 because I refuse, on principle, to ask an internet stranger "when's the last time you pooped?"
Hey fiber is important - especially if you're on a high protein diet.
True. So is fat. I feel like this comes up more often with women, especially women who still have some of that "fat makes you fat" 1980s dogma in their brains. Occasionally I'll see newbies who are female, maybe a little older, who are "gaining weight" on a high-protein/low-fat diet and I'll think "is there a way to ask this question delicately?"
I'll defer to @AnnPT77 for this.
I'm more of the blunt instrument and would keep it simple "So how's your poop?"
Heh. As a "little older" woman myself, I'd prolly just blurt that out, too - y'know that rep us li'l ol' ladies have for blurting out "inappropriate" but (we hope) painfully true stuff?
If diplomacy is desired, some options are to:
* use your Serious Medical Words instead of the vernacular ("Are you having regular, comfortable bowel movements?"),
* tell a personal story ("when I/my friend ate that little fat, I/she found that I/she got really bloated, and eating more fat helped my (/her) digestive system work more smoothly to lose that bloat") or
* resort to carefully placed passive constructs ("I'd suggest eating at least 0.35-0.45g fat daily per pound of goal weight. Many people find that getting enough fat helps with vitamin absorption, improves digestive system transit, and facilitates weight loss.")
In general, "bloat" is a useful euphemism in this context.
Yer makin' me wonder what my reputation is around here, gotta say. But we all need a little mystery in our lives . . . .
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Bumping.2
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OP, this is a good thread, much appreciated!
Tacklewasher, that's cool to see. And good to hear about the happy scale app for the IOS. Downloaded!
As for the other stuff, I always look at my eliminations b4 hitting Johns buttons. Looking at eliminations is the BEST way to tell what's going on in your system, and that includes urine. PooPaw the established (western med), way of thinking urine should be lemon yellow, and clear. The clear part is true, but the lemon yellow indication is bogus. If you aren't getting enough vitamin b's, the urine will be lemon yellow. If you are, your urine should be a light green to very dark yellow, this indicates that you have an excess and your kidneys are working just fine.
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Good post as my weight changed 3lbs today most rubbish had a packet of crisps.1
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This needs a bump.0
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This is super helpful and keeping me motivated!
Thank you 0 -
Copy of my weight loss over the past 3 months. Look at the over all trend....not the specific day.6 -
orangegato wrote: »
I’m up 1.2 pounds since yesterday morning because yesterday I ran a 5k and then took the dog for a long walk (running always and forever causes a little bump on the scale for me), then had Thai food for dinner (a higher-sodium meal). I still hit my calorie goal for the day, and I knew that 1.2 pound bump was coming. Actually, I thought it would be more than that. It’ll be gone by Tuesday morning.JeromeBarry1 wrote: »And if it goes up tomorrow it's totally worth it because I crumbled a serving of Do-Si-Dos on 1.625 servings of Blue Bell No Sugar Added Homemade Vanilla and STILL have a calorie deficit.
I’m wondering why running causes a bump up on the scale?
Bump in the scale could also be due to tissue inflammation from an excessively intense workout.1 -
If you’re doing daily weigh-ins, realize that you will almost never see the same number on the scale, so you need to be okay seeing that variability on a daily basis. If you’re doing weekly weigh-ins, you may just have caught yourself on a high day, so don’t freak out there either. As long as the overall trend line is going down, you’re losing weight. Just trust yourself and keep going.
Great post, and this is pretty key right here for folks who are new.
Chasing those losses feels great when the numbers consistently move down, but inevitably you're going to stall according to the scale. That doesn't mean you're not putting in good work or doing the right thing though. Weighing every day has been helpful for me, because it shows me exactly what a salty meal or a hard workout does in terms of weight, then you get less sensitive to the fluctuations. If you weigh frequently, try averaging out your results at the end of each week, that'll give you a good idea of your overall trend versus day-to-day variations.
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Thank you so much for this. I have been mostly bedbound for the last 5 years. I am just getting my health to a place where I can exercise and focus on diet to lose some of excess weight due to extreme inactivity. I am slowly, slowly building low impact activity while intaking healthy calories. It's only been a couple weeks but the number on the scale has gone up and I felt distraught until I read this. Thank you again7
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dns_hartley wrote: »Thank you so much for this. I have been mostly bedbound for the last 5 years. I am just getting my health to a place where I can exercise and focus on diet to lose some of excess weight due to extreme inactivity. I am slowly, slowly building low impact activity while intaking healthy calories. It's only been a couple weeks but the number on the scale has gone up and I felt distraught until I read this. Thank you again
I am sorry you have been unwell. The good news is, as many of us can attest to, that to lose weight, you only need to eat fewer calories than you burn. Activity and a balanced diet are important for health, but calories are most important for weight loss. So even if you are extremely limited right now, you can still make good progress. 4 -
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Great post. Bump.
I just started working out again last week. I keep telling myself the one pound increase is me building muscle. The important thing is how your clothes feel, not the pounds on the scale.2 -
Great post. Bump.
I just started working out again last week. I keep telling myself the one pound increase is me building muscle. The important thing is how your clothes feel, not the pounds on the scale.
Actually, that increase is due to water retention as your muscles repair from the increased activity. It takes a *long* time to build a lb of muscle, especially a woman eating in a deficit.4 -
Great post. Bump.
I just started working out again last week. I keep telling myself the one pound increase is me building muscle. The important thing is how your clothes feel, not the pounds on the scale.
Actually, that increase is due to water retention as your muscles repair from the increased activity. It takes a *long* time to build a lb of muscle, especially a woman eating in a deficit.
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.0 -
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diannethegeek wrote: »
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Lol, I totally needed to be reminded of these things this week! I'm trying to gain at a controlled rate, and the scale fluctuations are making me slightly insane. Knowing this stuff and REALLY trusting this stuff are two different things
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Lol, I totally needed to be reminded of these things this week! I'm trying to gain at a controlled rate, and the scale fluctuations are making me slightly insane. Knowing this stuff and REALLY trusting this stuff are two different things
Same here. My pre-race weight was 214.6 lbs. Two Spartan Races later, some great pub burgers and high salt meals afterwards my after weight was 226.2 lbs. Note my calorie never went above maintenance so that's over 10 lbs of water & glycogen.4 -
justinkimcentral wrote: »At some point early when you start trying to lose weight, it’s highly likely that you’ll step on the scale one day and see that your weight is up. When this happens, people panic, get angry, get frustrated, or sometimes, give up. (It's heading toward late January, so a lot of people are hitting this point now or will be soon). The thing is, it’s absolutely normal to see your weight go down one day and up the next.
Nobody has a definite weight; we all have a weight range. We don’t always know this until we start trying to lose weight, but your weight will always fluctuate up and down across some range. Your starting weight was really only your starting weight at the moment when you weighed in; an hour later, you would’ve probably seen a different number on the scale.
Some of the most common factors that influence your weight range include:
1. Hydration
2. Sodium
3. Sleep
4. TOM
5. The weight of food processing through your system
6. Exercise (new/increased exercise can cause water retention, which can show up as a gain or stall on the scale)
7. Time of day of your weigh-in
If you’re seeing a bump up on the scale, the first thing to do is to be patient. If you’ve been trying to lose weight for less than 4 weeks or so, just ride it out and give your body time to adjust. (It might also be a good time to double-check your logging accuracy and see if something needs to be tightened up, but that’s not always necessary if what you’re seeing really is just a blip on the graph). If anything on the above list is different from your last weigh-in, just ride it out and give your body time to adjust.
If you’re doing daily weigh-ins, realize that you will almost never see the same number on the scale, so you need to be okay seeing that variability on a daily basis. If you’re doing weekly weigh-ins, you may just have caught yourself on a high day, so don’t freak out there either. As long as the overall trend line is going down, you’re losing weight. Just trust yourself and keep going.
Whats TOM
Time of the month.2 -
Thanks for the great thread!!! The scale "lies" especially when I know I've had a good week. The number on the scale does not reflect your hard work!!! Keep going!!!2
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Yesssss, just another reason for me to hate this awful heat! I never knew that could affect your weight.2
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Needs a bump 3
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