The Weird and Highly Annoying World of Scale Fluctuations
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Posts: 1,919 MFP Staff
Great read for anybody who wants to understand why your scale weight bounces up and down, courtesy of Aadam at Physiqonomics:
http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
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Replies
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I have had my biggest couple of bounces in a long time on my last 3 weigh ins. About 4.5 pounds down and then backup. Both the ups and the down are spikes. A couple of crazy salt laden meals. I weigh every other day so I had time to hydrate and flush it out for the middle weigh in. I expect to come back down maybe 3 pounds at my next weigh in on Monday.11
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Yep, my scale isn't being nice this week. I should be under 203, getting awfully close to 200, but the scale keeps hovering and bouncing between 204-206. I was 202.8 a couple of weeks ago. Part of it is a little constipation, where I'm just not clearing out as much as I probably should be. I'm retaining water too and I just went from two days if strength training a week to three days.
But my measurements are still going down. My waist had a big jump this week, hips are down, just not as much. I can feel slight differences with my clothes as usual. I see changes in my body. So the scale can just shove it. Pretty sure I'll finally see the scale catch up to where it should be in a week or so.22 -
I'll just leave this here.
The fluctuations were so bad this week that Trendweight now thinks I'm gaining over half a pound per week.23 -
It can be very frustrating. I ate one week at maintenance (1700-1900 calories) because I went on vacation but I was also very active getting sometimes 20,000 steps a day and still came back 5 pounds heavier. One week later, the scale still shows me 3 lbs heavier. I thought if it was just water weight that it would have dropped by now. We'll see next week.14
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What a brilliant article it just puts it all into perspective . Much happier now8
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Could use a bump.6
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Maxematics wrote: »I'll just leave this here.
The fluctuations were so bad this week that Trendweight now thinks I'm gaining over half a pound per week.
That's amazing, where can I go to build this chart?2 -
I remember weighting myself for 3 months and no change but losing inches then one day there it was 15lbs. less. I couldn't believe it.15
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Nearly 6 lbs for me the other day... damn pizza and icecream. Back to normal, at least for today.2
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Yep, I can be in a serious calorie deficit after a weekend of riding my bicycle, and weigh more on Monday morning.
Gained some water due to repairing muscle after riding.
I did that this weekend. I rode a total of 45 miles, consumed 5200 calories Saturday and Sunday, but allegedly burned 9075. Even if half my recorded cycling calories didn't really happen, I'd still have burnt about 7000 calories over that same time.
Yet I weighed 3 pounds more than I did Friday when I weighed this AM.
I didn't eat enough calories, over 10k OVER what I burnt to gain fat.
So something else is in play.
I'll probably weigh 2-4 pounds less tomorrow as things get sorted out.
I did eat more carbs, but not an insane amount.
My diabetes coach and dietitian has me on 225g carbs/day and I had 227g on Saturday and 252g on Sunday. I ate some fruit and a muffin with my breakfast.
Yet my fasting BG this AM was in the normal range, so I couldn't have done too poorly. I didn't eat so many carbs that I threw my blood glucose out of the normal range.
Of course, as I approach dinner today, I've consumed on 96g of carbs, so balance in my universe
But weight and fat are not the same which is what this article is saying.
I have been at the same weight within 5 pounds for the past month, but my pants are getting looser.
I'll probably start losing weight again as things get sorted out. The body is doing its thing and the fat is coming off, as evidenced by the looser clothes. But weight remains in the same pretty narrow range, for now.
It cannot stay here, and fat will have to be consumed as I maintain a 500-800 calorie/day deficit on average.7 -
Maxematics wrote: »I'll just leave this here.
The fluctuations were so bad this week that Trendweight now thinks I'm gaining over half a pound per week.
That's amazing, where can I go to build this chart?
Looks like trendweight. There is also happyscale and libra.5 -
Trendweight.comMaxematics wrote: »I'll just leave this here.
The fluctuations were so bad this week that Trendweight now thinks I'm gaining over half a pound per week.
That's amazing, where can I go to build this chart?
You need a (free) Fitbit account, but you don't need a Fitbit. Just enter your weight manually into the account, and Trendweight will pull the data from there. It generates a weighted 10-day moving average graph of your weight, which allows you to see that you're still losing every day, even those days when the scale jumps a pound and a half. It's been a godsend for me.
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Maxematics wrote: »I'll just leave this here.
The fluctuations were so bad this week that Trendweight now thinks I'm gaining over half a pound per week.
That's amazing, where can I go to build this chart?
As others have said, it's Trendweight.com. I see that Trendweight has updated the link I posted since that day and it's now showing the huge downward slope since the half pound per week "gain". This is exactly why tracking weight is so important, especially for women. If I would have caught myself on a high weight day, I would have cut calories and my weight would drop quickly.3 -
I just downloaded and set up an app, Libra I think.1
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Thanks for this. I think it will help a lot of people. It took me a while to get used to the fluctuations. It is still frustating seeing the scale jump up but I've found that weighing daily gets you used to those jumps. Taking measurements and how your clothes fit is a better indication of fat loss.
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Here's a good example of weight fluctuations,this was from my last cut. Nothing is linear in my chart lol
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i weighed myself yesterday and put it in Libra. after the scale staying the same or going up for the last 6ish weeks, it told me i would hit my goal weight on 13th August 2024!!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:18
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As another example of how scale weight fluctuates, this is my Trendweight graph for a 6 month period of maintenance earlier this year. The gray line is daily scale weights, red line is weight trend:
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Yeah it’s important to remember these things! My weight jumped up this week but I’m also injured and mildly constipated.4
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tbright1965 wrote: »Yep, I can be in a serious calorie deficit after a weekend of riding my bicycle, and weigh more on Monday morning.
Gained some water due to repairing muscle after riding.
I did that this weekend. I rode a total of 45 miles, consumed 5200 calories Saturday and Sunday, but allegedly burned 9075. Even if half my recorded cycling calories didn't really happen, I'd still have burnt about 7000 calories over that same time.
Yet I weighed 3 pounds more than I did Friday when I weighed this AM.
I didn't eat enough calories, over 10k OVER what I burnt to gain fat.
So something else is in play.
I'll probably weigh 2-4 pounds less tomorrow as things get sorted out.
I did eat more carbs, but not an insane amount.
My diabetes coach and dietitian has me on 225g carbs/day and I had 227g on Saturday and 252g on Sunday. I ate some fruit and a muffin with my breakfast.
Yet my fasting BG this AM was in the normal range, so I couldn't have done too poorly. I didn't eat so many carbs that I threw my blood glucose out of the normal range.
Of course, as I approach dinner today, I've consumed on 96g of carbs, so balance in my universe
But weight and fat are not the same which is what this article is saying.
I have been at the same weight within 5 pounds for the past month, but my pants are getting looser.
I'll probably start losing weight again as things get sorted out. The body is doing its thing and the fat is coming off, as evidenced by the looser clothes. But weight remains in the same pretty narrow range, for now.
It cannot stay here, and fat will have to be consumed as I maintain a 500-800 calorie/day deficit on average.
And of course, today I’m 2.5 pounds lighter than yesterday. I didn’t burn 9000 calories, let alone 9000 more than I ate.
As others have noted, the trend is more meaningful than the daily or periodic weight values.
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I'm glad my food scale weighs the same amount of stuff the same every time. When I weigh 200g worth of stuff it's 200g. That's what gives me less annoyance about the body scale numbers. If I'm accurate there, the body scale numbers will follow my deficit over time (or maintain - like Anvil's case above).14
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I missed this while on vacation. Pure gold.3
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This is extremely helpful with the visuals. Thanks!1
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Yeah, I literally got 2.5 hours of sleep one night and magically lost 1.5lbs, I thought getting more sleep helped you lose weight but I guess I burned more energy while I was up (tending to popcorn children).2
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Great article, very interesting. I'm getting to grips with understanding my fluctuations and they are very frustrating indeed!0
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I'm well acquainted with scale fluctuations, but I'd go bat *kitten* crazy if my graph looked like the one in that article
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As another example of how scale weight fluctuates, this is my Trendweight graph for a 6 month period of maintenance earlier this year. The gray line is daily scale weights, red line is weight trend:
That's a thing of beauty- you should have it framed!
I love how you clearly have a maintenance range of 3-4 lbs, but can experience fluctuations within a range of about 10 lbs. That would so freak some people out
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Bump2
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Monthly bump. Useful post. Needs to be seen by more people.13
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Yup, those fluctuations can be pretty crazy!
I’ve noticed that my weight is often higher after the weekend (more exercise, meals higher in salt? Who knows? I generally eat less on the weekend, strangely enough!) and at its lowest around the middle of the week. I used to find it quite interesting watching the scale fluctuations, and would try and figure out the reason for them.
I’ve only just started using a trending app- began because the scales weren’t moving for a few weeks- and it’s definitely a helpful tool in understanding the fluctuations!
I love how the trend line is going down, even if the scale weight has gone up for a day or two!!!
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