Why you should Weight In Daily (at least regularly)

Scotty2HotPie

I know many people seem to stress about the scale... which is understandable. But it's just a number and honestly, not a very good number for tracking progress on a DAILY or WEEKLY basis.

Why?

There's far too many variables that go into daily and even weekly weight fluctuations.. mainly water weight and how much food you may be processing at any time. Therefore, when you weigh yourself day to day, even in the within the same day, you're possibly going to see wild swings in your weight. For me? Not uncommon to see a change of 3-5 lbs from one day to the next. Sometimes more...

So why in the heck would you want to weight yourself everyday then (or close to it)? Seems counter productive right?

Because, if you're looking to lose (or even gain weight in a bulk), you're very interested in the Trend Line. And in order to establish a trend, you need regular measurements over time

So with these caveats, I recommend weighing yourself daily, especially if progress has slowed down. Which inevitably happens and the newbie losses have been exhausted. (I miss those days when I seemed to be losing 2-3 lbs per week... lol)

It'll help give you a big picture view instead of a snapshot day to day view.

1) Record your weight at the same time each day. For me, it's in the morning, post workout (Gym or Run). Typically my lightest weight of the day.
2) Ignore any day to day weight losses - Go up 3.4 lbs? Meh... forget it. Same for big losses.
3) Try to find a tracking program that will generate a trend line. I really wish MyFitnessPal would generate a trend line.. I use the Healthmate App that comes with my Withings scale.
4) Wait at least a few weeks (or more), before really looking at your trend line and deciding if your program/diet plan needs updating. If you freak out after a week because your weight appeared to increase... you might try to cut calories too much and it could be counter-productive. Stick to your plan!! Give it time to see if you're making progress.

Here's my weight trend for the last 18 months or so.



You can see I let things slip during the holidays in 2018...lol, but I bore down in early 2019. Then I gave myself a break during the holidays again, but not so crazy this time. Currently, I've been slowly losing weight again. Not as aggressive as 2019.

If you look closely, you can see light blue line is every erratic. Those are my actual weight recordings. Seriously, I don't care too much about daily weigh ins. Even if you eat terrible for a day... You're only going to gain minimal fat on a day to day basis (if any), even if you weigh 5 lbs heavier from the day before. That 5 lbs is meaningless in the long term. Especially if you're following your MFP plan and making your calorie budget CONSISTENTLY. <-- The most important word in Fitness and Weight Management... Consistence.

Final Thought - I'll say this, if you don't plan to track a trend or if the scale is causing you anxiety on a daily basis, then you should probably do the exact opposite and maybe weigh in once a week or even once every two weeks.

Why? It's another way to eliminate daily fluctuations because your time between recordings is so far apart that maybe they will be negated. However, there's always a risk that you hit a very low weight day one week, then hit a bad high day the following week (maybe you have extra water weight). You could show a weight gain during that period when there actually isn't one. This can be frustrating and also it's misleading.

Anyway, I see these posts from new users from time to time. And I wanted to share what has worked very well for me over the years. Before I had the Withings Scale, I used an excel sheet to track and calculated a trend line... (yes, I'm a nerd).

Please share any comments or questions. I'd love to hear feedback from y'all as well. One thing I've learned is that I really know nothing in this fitness quest and I seem to learn new stuff on a daily basis.