Either losing or gaining, why?

sandymram

It seems to me that my body is either doing one or the other. Or maybe I just shouldn’t weigh every day? Ideally I’d like to lose some more fat. I’m at a healthy weight technically, and I wouldn’t mind knowing I could just maintain here for a bit. 5’7” 140. However, it seems like
If I’m not in a deficit, the scale keeps inching up. Anyone else struggle with this?

exhilen

If you opt to weigh every day and truly are in a deficit, you have to accept that weight loss is not linear. The body is a constant state of fluctuation.

I recommend using a trend weight app. It helps see the bigger picture over time.

sandymram

Yes, I do use happyscale but when it starts increasing for a while I start cutting calories again. I am going to check out the maintenance board too.

PAV8888

Have you figured out approximately when and how your monthly cycle affects your weight?

You should be able to exclude that as it is an expected fluctuation. Same goes for eating meals at a restaurant or gains after extra workouts or losses after a particularly sedentary day or two.

The usual reaction level would be after seeing an almost two lb change to the weight trend, not daily weight.

If you're logging relatively speaking accurately it should be pretty obvious from your food logging whether a couple of pound change tout your weight trend comes from overeating or under-eating or some other reason.

Johnd2000

I’m in my 3rd year of maintenance. I’m never at the same weight 2 days, or 2 weeks running.

For me, maintenance means eating at a small surplus until I hit the top of my maintenance range (83-88kg), then switching to a small deficit, until I hit the bottom of my range. I’ve been doing that with MFP for the last 16 months. In the process, with regular strength training, I’ve dropped my BF from 18% to a shade under 14%.

liz0269

I weigh daily but I calculate a weekly average. That's the number I count. The scale will fluctuate so it can be hard to see a trend until you lose significant weight.

Dandylines

It will change depending on any number of factors including your monthly period. As long as you are in an acceptable range do not worry. Just keep track and adjust when you get too high or low.

sandymram

Thanks for the responses! What is an acceptable” range? 2 lbs? For fluctuation

PAV8888

Most people seem to gravitate to 5lbs scale or 2 lbs weight trend change.

It depends on your personal usual fluctuation levels (some ladies fluctuate 8+lbs during their monthly cycle).

Since I personally do not have hormonal water retention I would prefer to see me reacting at about 1.5lbs instead of 2lbs TREND change like last time (I ignore spot weight changes)

If your food logging is on point changes due to fat should be easy to spot since you will have been finding yourself over eating consistently for that to happen. Anything else is not a fat level change!!!!