How often do you weigh in when starting out?

mjc8080

I've been about 9 days into counting on MFP, feel great, and definitely see my stomach has gone down and my clothes fit a little better. With that being said, I have an idea of what I weight, but don't want to weigh myself just yet. Reason is I don't want to eat something salty the night before, swell up with fluid and have a bad weigh in the next morning only to discourage me. I'd rather go on it several weeks and then weigh in, maybe once a month. Not sure why anybody would weight themselves so frequently, since we fluctuate so much each day and hour. Any thoughts? Thanks.

BattyKnitter

Fluctuations are why I weigh myself every day. I use a trend weight app like Libra or Happy Scale to see the overall trend of my weight instead of focusing on the fluctuations.

livingleanlivingclean

I weigh every day in as similar circumstances as possible (after waking, going to the bathroom, weighing in little to nothing)

I find it beneficial as I can track my weight trend in an app - it evens out the daily fluctuations, just showing the general trend. I'd rather know if my weight was heading in the right direction with greater accuracy than a once a month weigh in.

If you weigh once a month, how do you not know that month one weight was a low day, and month two weigh in was a high day?

shaf238

I do it weekly on Sunday evenings.

alatham7891

I weigh every morning after i do my number 1 and 2 hehe

malibu927

Every Wednesday for the first three months. Then on a Monday I randomly got on the scale and started weighing daily.

Deviette

I used to prefer to weigh weekly so to avoid seeing those fluctuations, but honestly, I've found that weighing myself daily has helped me mentally deal with the fluctuations more. I don't worry about sudden spikes because I assume it's a fluctuation. In the same way I don't celebrate a massive drop because I also assume it's a fluctuation.

I find that it helps me detach my "feelings" from the number on the scale. My week to week averages are a lot more important to me than my daily number.

NovusDies

mjc8080 wrote: »

I've been about 9 days into counting on MFP, feel great, and definitely see my stomach has gone down and my clothes fit a little better. With that being said, I have an idea of what I weight, but don't want to weigh myself just yet. Reason is I don't want to eat something salty the night before, swell up with fluid and have a bad weigh in the next morning only to discourage me. I'd rather go on it several weeks and then weigh in, maybe once a month. Not sure why anybody would weight themselves so frequently, since we fluctuate so much each day and hour. Any thoughts? Thanks.

It is a matter of personal preference mostly. The most important thing is to make sure you are in a calorie deficit. If you are then you will lose weight whether you watch come off of you in smaller increments or not. Weight fluctuations will happen as you said and, again, they will happen with or without you knowing all the daily details.

I have no interest in the fluctuations and I have no interest in small weight losses. To me weighing more often is like being on a really long road trip and watching for each mile marker to see how far you have come but it is also a continuous reminder of how far you have left to go. The trip seems to go faster if you can just kind of zone out until you get to the next town or city.

I don't have a regular schedule. I have waited 6 weeks and 2 months in between weigh-ins. Each time I wait for over a month it is like opening a present.

The popular consensus here is to weigh daily so that will be most of the replies you get. Some like to see the data and others say that it helps them to stay on track and if they use an app the fluctuations are less likely to bother them. This is why I said it is a matter of personal preference.

cmriverside

When I am (was) losing, I weighed daily. It kept me focused.

Now (in Maintenance) I weigh weekly on Mondays. If I am at the high end of my five pound range, I'll weigh daily for a while.

fitoverfortymom

In my very active weight loss early on, I weighed once a week and ONLY once a week. Once I inched closer to maintenance and was looser with my diet, I began weighing daily to help be mindful of daily fluctuations.

prettyshambolic

I weigh every morning after going to the bathroom.

Panini911

I am enjoying tracking. so honestly, i weight myself like 2x a day (at specific times). I know to many this causes issues but I haven't freaked out over the numbers yet (even though it is NOT a straight line down! the fluctuations can be fascinating).

Mrsbell8well

I am dealing with this myself. I formally weigh on Wednesday mornings and notate that number in MFP. I am on day 23 of my program and religious about weighing food and measuring. The scale is currently going down. I admit to doing sneak peaks out of fear that "it is not really working". I feel like the more confident I am in the program I can rely on actions and behaviors and less on scale numbers. I know at the end of the month it will give me a good reading of what has transpired. Hoping to stop the sneak peaks soon just so I don't focus on the scale numbers.

WholeFoods4Lyfe

I weigh myself every day with the understanding that weight fluctuates every day depending on many factors. I like to track to see the overall trend.

I also take a lot of progress pictures which are just as motivating, if not more, than the scale moving down.

ejg1010

When I first started out I weighed myself once a week, on a Friday morning. I found it useful and encouraging to see a loss each week and I don't think I knew enough about daily fluctuations to trust the process so early on.

I'm mostly maintaining now (loosely trying to lose a few vanity pounds), still tracking on MFP for now, and am confident enough to weigh myself every day, just to track my daily ups and downs and learn how my body is reacting to a heavy weekend, salty foods, heavier workouts etc.
I really do think it's a personal preference and as long as it suits you and you're seeing results, then that is the best for you!
Good luck

kettiecat

Every time I’m in the bathroom.

jillstreett

I was weighing everyday to start, but only logging MWF. I don't know why, just less note taking I guess..but then I started to like to look at the daily trends. Like you said, if I ate salty on Tuesday night and Wednesday's weigh in was crappy, but then Thursday was good, I felt cheated, like darn I'm not tracking Thursdays and that was a good number! It holds me accountable, shows trends over time and makes looking at the whole picture easier. Prime example is the past month I haven't really been able to get out of the 152-156 range. But when I looked at my trend over time, I was right on track to meeting a goal (tomorrow) that I set two months ago for 10 pounds down from June 1 to Aug 1. I personally enjoy looking at those numbers to recap on how I'm doing.

Consistency is key.

hesn92

I think it's just personal preference. When I was losing weight, I just weighed once a week. But now we have these trending apps so I don't see an issue with weighing every day. in fact I think it makes the daily fluctuations less of a shock.

Maxematics

Definitely every day for me. I have crazy fluctuations sometimes and if I didn't know to expect them by now, I could accidentally choose my weigh-in day on a high weight day and it would lead me to cut calories that I didn't need to. Here's an example of one of those crazy fluctuation periods:

mholl15

I would say weigh yourself after every poop to get an idea on how you weight fluctuates. if you're concerned with being disappointed, then weigh yourself once a week.

HoneyBadger302

I weigh daily with a weight trending app (Libra in my case) which gives a much better overall view than random weigh ins do IMO.