The scale is ruining my life
tinaalisa15
Posts: 8 Member
I am not sure what is wrong with my scale. 3 weeks ago I was 339 and then when I weighed in last friday I was 327. I had a rest day for 3 days where I watched my calories and weighed in this morning I was 330. Tell me why today my weight keeps bouncing from 336 to 337. I am getting discouraged
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Replies
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Scales - the domestic ones - are my bane. Some time ago I have decided to only weigh myself on the electronic scales at the gym. They get calibrated every 6 months and can take as much weight as a small cow. I also try to weigh myself there Monday mornings - keeps my weekend meal plan in check.0
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Food, water, poo, clothing...they all contribute to weight fluctuations.
It sounds like you are weighing multiple times a day. If that’s the case, stop. Once a day is plenty. And some people even find that to be too often for their peace of mind. As hard as it is to be patient, you really have to find a way to not allow the number on the scale to *kitten* with your mind. Remember that it is just a measuring tool, like a ruler. Don’t give it more power than it deserves.17 -
My weight can go up by 5 pounds daily. Its all water weight of course. Scales are not the best way to gage weight since water weight can change the number drastically from day to day. If it discourages you I would say only weigh yourself once a week first thing in the morning after you went to the bathroom.2
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Weight loss doesn't look like a diagonal line moving steadily downwards, it's more like a rollercoaster track of ups and downs as your body adjusts, as you digest foods throughout the day, as you gain temporary water weight.
If you are a person who has periods, this will affect your weight! I gained almost ten pounds of water weight my last period! How do I know it was water weight? Because I shot way up and then lost nine pounds in two days at the end!
Bodies are weird. I try ("try" being the word) not to weigh more than once a week, because obsessive weighing means you see all of those fluctuations in real time and focus less on your overall downward trajectory.4 -
I had this same problem! And like others have said there are so many factors that can fluctuate your weight through out the day, so weighing multiple times a day is going to be super confusing because you are going to get those random looking numbers. I would suggest try picking 1 day a week and weigh yourself at the same time same scale same cloths etc every week. For example I weigh my self every monday when I wake up in my pajamas on my scale. This allows me to keep everything as consistent as possible and eliminate a lot of the fluctuation you will see through out the week. Hopefully that helps a bit and good luck in your endeavor, keep up the good work!0
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You can’t watch the scale all the time it can be deceiving. And drive you crazy all at the same time. You can go up in water weight 5-6 lbs a day off and on. You can also build muscle and burn fat and go down in size all while staying even on the scale. I weigh inn once every 2 weeks on a scale that tells me my weight, fat loss, musical gain , water , BMI’s and more. My last weigh in, I lost 2 lbs of body fat, added a lbs of muscle and added a 1lbs in over all weigh on the scale. I feel great and I’m fitting better in my clothes even when the scale stays the same or go’s up a bit. Don’t get discouraged, just stay consistent with your goals, eating healthy and your workouts. Judge by how you feel overall.2
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I suggest an app like Happy Scale, which will smooth out the fluctuations.
Before I got a smart phone I charted in Excel.
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Scales can be frustrating. Here's my 90 day MFP chart leading up to this morning. I ate within +/- 50 calories of my target every day except for one day on this chart. Notice the absurd randomness of it all with daily fluctuations in the 2-3 lb range (each horizontal line is a 10 pound marker) and a few wild upswings that later turned into downswings, and yet ... during the 90 days I lost 2.03 lbs per week, using MFP's calorie target for 2 lbs/week. In other words, in the end the numbers add up to within 1.5 % of the MFP prediction. A little patience and faith is useful with scales.
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A 12 pound weight loss in 3 weeks is a lot, hopefully some of it was just water. Check your diary to see if you maintained a 14,000 calorie deficit for each of those three weeks. If you did, I hope you will consider slowing it down to a 7000 calorie weekly deficit from here on out. But assuming you didn't, the problem is less likely to be that you gained 3lbs of fat while eating at a deficit, and more likely to be that your 327lb weigh in involved some degree of dehydration.2
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Congratulations on your loss. 9 pounds in 3 weeks is a high rate of loss. At some point, you will need to slow your rate of loss. But for now it sounds like you are having success. Fluctuations happen. If they drive you crazy, you might like this product https://www.myshapa.com/how-it-works to track progress without numbers.
Personally, I'm a numbers geek but I can see how this works for people who freak over scale numbers.0 -
Fluctuations and plateaus are a normal part of the process.0
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Normal. I actually haven't weighed myself for ages...like 2 months ages. Trust in the process..0
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Keep weighing yourself and logging the data. Eventually you will have enough data to see your trends. I know my trends now and I don't freak if the scale is up 3lbs. Typically I know why and I know it will go back down if I stay focused and consistent.0
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tinaalisa15 wrote: »I am not sure what is wrong with my scale. 3 weeks ago I was 339 and then when I weighed in last friday I was 327. I had a rest day for 3 days where I watched my calories and weighed in this morning I was 330. Tell me why today my weight keeps bouncing from 336 to 337. I am getting discouraged
Body weight fluctuates...this is what weight loss looks like plotted on a graph...
The red line is the trend...that is the important one to watch, not the blue weigh in to weigh in numbers.
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AwesomeOpossum74 wrote: »
LOL. No, I guess I am just not that curious.1 -
Lots of good advice here, with nice graphs too. Our bodies are complex and constantly changing. All we can do is making small tweaks and observing the trends.
The way that works for me is standing on the scale every morning but I don’t always look at the numbers, as most of the time I’m still half asleep and sometimes I simply don’t want to know bad news first thing in the morning. That’s a smart scale though, so it does log the number and builds a nice graph automatically. This way my mfp goals are kept up to date and I can study the patterns and make informed decisions when I need to. I also think it’s just a good habit to have for when I go into maintenance.3 -
I can relate. Especially being a woman. I hate the scale and I’m losing weight so slowly. I just want my clothes to fit.1
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So skip the scale. I did for a long time. Focus on measurements instead -- you'll still see the number go down but it's far more reliable than a scale and will actually show you changes in your body (a 5 lb or whatever loss is great, but is far less satisfying than losing an inch off your waist!).0
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Your weight is going to fluctuate. That's normal. Keep going!0
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Three choices
1. stop weighing yourself (or cut back to once a week/month) if it drives you crazy, and trust the mirror, how your clothes fit, athletic and gym improvements as alternative metrics
2. use a weight tracking app that tracks trends
3. learn to live with fluctuations
I have definitely felt as you do and had success with alternatively all three choices listed1
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