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Is it a good idea to weigh yourself every day?
Replies
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rheddmobile wrote: »
To be fair I know people who do this. Just buy stuff and check their bank account online when they feel like it’s getting low. It’s not optimal.lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh myself everyday cause I don't count calories, I use the scale, the mirror and body measurements to track my progress. It works well.
Calorie counting isn't for tracking your progress. It's for measuring whether you're consuming an appropriate amount of food.
That's like saying
I balance my checkbook everyday cause I don't budget my money, I use balancing the checkbook and looking at the stuff I've bought to track my progress.
As someone who spent my twenties doing just this, I can confirm. It's certainly a POSSIBLE approach to controlling spending, but it's a very stressful and chaotic one.3 -
I agree. There are so many variables to daily fluctuations such as mineral intake, stress, rest, etc. that can cause water to be held or lost.lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh everyday because of the data. It's kinda like taxes. You KNOW you're going to pay them out of every paycheck. I'd like to know every time money is being taken out of my paycheck. When it pertains to the scale, the flucuations help me to figure out where I may have retained weight. Was it the pizza? Or lack of sleep? More data is good.
Now if one CANNOT mentally handle the weight fluctuation, then maybe once a week works for them. But IMO, if one can't deal with the fluctuations, what happens if in a week they weigh 2lbs more instead of a few ounces a day and readjust to it if the trend keeps going up?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Daily fluctuations aren't generally about calories. They're about water weight and food/waste weight. I would view someone who tried to make daily calorie adjustments based on daily weigh-ins showing 'a few ounces a day's as not handling fluctuations well.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition 2 -
The most important weight..........................is what your food scale is displaying.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition 5 -
Yes you should weigh yourself everyday and log it. After every week I find the median number and that gives you a better representation of your progress and maintenance. This avoids fluctuations which also include water weight and food that has not been digested.1
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Weighing daily helps you learn and understand and track your normal daily fluctuations. If you weigh once a week, you don’t know whether it’s an up, down, or average day on the scale. The reading books advise to weigh weekly is because some people tend to obsess over the fluctuations.3
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Yes you should weigh yourself everyday and log it. After every week I find the median number and that gives you a better representation of your progress and maintenance. This avoids fluctuations which also include water weight and food that has not been digested.
No issue with you or anyone doing this if they wish to.
or doing averages or spreadsheets or any of that.
But it isnt a "You should' do thing - as in everyone should do it that way.
If you want to do it - do
if you, like me, are happy with weekly - do that.
Whatever works for you.
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Weighing daily helps you learn and understand and track your normal daily fluctuations. If you weigh once a week, you don’t know whether it’s an up, down, or average day on the scale. The reading books advise to weigh weekly is because some people tend to obsess over the fluctuations.
Sure - it does if you want to understand minutiae of data.
But if you are happy just seeing the big picture and an overall downward trend - or a staying in maitenance range - then weekly is fine.
I'm not fussed about understanding or tracking my daily fluctuations and I dont stress over them and it doesnt worry me if my Sun evening weigh is sometimes an average, low or high day - as long as overall trend fits into big picture.
I feel I am flogging a dead horse a bit here - but I also think it is important for readers to know they do not have to do it one way - like daily - if they dont want to and they don't have to understand and follow every little variation if they don't want to.
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paperpudding wrote: »Weighing daily helps you learn and understand and track your normal daily fluctuations. If you weigh once a week, you don’t know whether it’s an up, down, or average day on the scale. The reading books advise to weigh weekly is because some people tend to obsess over the fluctuations.
Sure - it does if you want to understand minutiae of data.
But if you are happy just seeing the big picture and an overall downward trend - or a staying in maitenance range - then weekly is fine.
I'm not fussed about understanding or tracking my daily fluctuations and I dont stress over them and it doesnt worry me if my Sun evening weigh is sometimes an average, low or high day - as long as overall trend fits into big picture.
I feel I am flogging a dead horse a bit here - but I also think it is important for readers to know they do not have to do it one way - like daily - if they dont want to and they don't have to understand and follow every little variation if they don't want to.
I would argue that, at least as people are describing it, weighing daily doesn't help them understand minutiae of data. People seem to be operating under the erroneous belief that the daily fluctuations they see are about fat gain and loss rather than water retention levels and the amount of food/waste in their digestive system. Getting more data is great if that's what you want. Making adjustments in diet and exercise based on the belief that today's scale reading says something meaningful about yesterday's food intake or workout is not likely to be productive.5 -
Weighing daily is what taught me that I gain weight when I ovulate as well as premenstrually.8
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I'll put another check-mark in the "do what works for you" advice column. Also in the "don't adjust behavior based solely on the results of any two consecutive weigh-ins" and I'd say the latter about hourly, daily, weekly, and mayve even monthly weigh-ins. I could pick out data points for myself where any one of those schedules would've been seriously misleading, if comparing only 2 points at those intervals. Weight management is a long game.
Personally, I like data and everyday statistics, in a general sense, across multiple domains that interest me. I'm also one of the least emotional people I know. 😆
So, I weigh daily, and put it in Libra. (I don't even necessarily believe the Libra trend line, BTW. Sometimes, it's wrong.) Before Libra, for a decade or more, I was plotting daily weight on a graph paper chart taped inside my linen closet door. If I miss a day or more - traveling, forget, whatever - meh, no big.
Once in a while, I weigh during the day (for reasons like wondering if my hot-weather hydration is working well, for example, or just curiosity), but don't put those in Libra. I don't think that's obessive (because I'm not at all compulsive or stressed over it).
I think talking about this as "liking data minutia" is a little bit value-laden characterization.😆
Though it's counter-intuitive, I neither budget nor balance my checkbook, and haven't for decades. I'm incapable of intuitive eating, but I seem to be capable of intuitive spending. The results have been neither chaotic nor stressful, either. (Before retirement, I did track net worth monthly, FWIW, even though I'm far, far from wealthy. Personally, I think net worth is more analogous to body weight, budgeting to pre-logging or menu planning . . . checkbook-balancing to calorie counting, maybe - the last is a shakier analogy.)
People differ in their outlooks, interests, needs, and the outcomes that flow from those. I find that variation kind of fascinating, personally.
Back to weighing again: I will push back on people who are pushing one alternative or another to others, or feeling swayed by orthodoxies from blogs (like the "you should only weigh weekly" one), without factual basis. Saying - without some prior individual evidence - that "you will become a slave to the scale" or "you need to see the daily fluctuations" is inappropriate. "I become a slave to the scale" or "I need to see the daily fluctuations"? No problem.7 -
If you react emotionally to the scale, no.
If you don't react emotionally to the scale, it's not super important but you can learn things about how different factors affect your weight from carbs to water to sodium to alcohol, etc.4 -
IronIsMyTherapy wrote: »If you react emotionally to the scale, no.
If you don't react emotionally to the scale, it's not super important but you can learn things about how different factors affect your weight from carbs to water to sodium to alcohol, etc.
Yes you can - if you want to.
For those of us who are not bothered about learning how different factors like that temporarily affect our weight ( what I called before minutiae of data - wasn't meant to be a 'character laden term' just an objective phrase describing above) then no need or point in doing that.
I would argue that it is way less than super important , it isn't important at all unless you want to know it.
And nothing wrong either way ie learning such stuff or not.
Back to whatever works for you.
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I'm trying to lose weight and only witness weight loss every 10 days, so I'm not bothered to go on the scale when I know, nothing is about to going to change.0
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It's a bad idea to weigh yourself everyday if it's going to cause you stress. I weigh myself and log it every morning after my workouts. I use it purely to track my water and glycogen stores. Some days I'm up 3 pounds others I'm down by 2 but I always pay attention to downward trends1
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I can't speak for anyone else, but in my experience, the only times that I have successfully lost weight was when I didn't have a scale in my house to even check. I weighed in at doctor appointments and sometimes at grocery stores that had scales. But every time I bought my own scale, I immediately became obsessed, weighing multiple times a day, and felt hopeless about it, gave up and gained the weight back. So, I personally find more success and peace of mind when I dont have the scale and weigh about once a month.
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I weigh daily and look at the general trend. When weighing weekly, that weekly weigh-in could happen to be your highest weight of the week, or your lowest, or in between: you have no way of knowing unless you weigh daily.
The more often you weigh (no more than daily, and in similar circumstances), the easier it is to spot the trend. The key is to not be too attached to individual weigh-ins.
This is exactly my approach too. I like to have the daily data feeding into my trends. I plot a graph and keep a running monthly average. (I learned a bit about excel when setting this up which was an added bonus.) If I miss a day or two or even a week, I just fill in a value or values that give me a straight line between the two readings. In particular, I find it encouraging to be able to see that my monthly average is down even if my weight is up. In fact, as i approach maintenance the monthly average is becoming increasingly what I look at, rather than a daily weight.
This is what works for me; I know it might not work for others.
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I weigh everyday even if it fluctuates. It affects my diet choices. I also race so food=energy for me1
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I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.0 -
it depends, you can weigh yourself every day for a certain amount of time, after an injury when I'm trying to get back to regular weight I may weigh myself every day for a month of two
another thing I do is I weigh myself in the morning (ie morning weight) and right before i go to bed usually at the same time like 9 PM to see my end of day weight
I don't freak out about these numbers and I use a digital scale and always record the first number it shows, I don't step on and off and take the best number for example
also when I train I may weigh myself again before a swim and after a swim or before a bike ride and after a bike ride, it's usually to see how I am doing on water weight and if I am drinking enough water
you are your own boss so make your own decisions, sometimes it's fun to experiment and learn how your body reacts
and yes I will go for months without stepping on the scale also
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I weigh everyday.
It is a ritual part of my day that sets me up to pay attention. I wake up, use the bathroom and log my weight. I am paying attention to what I eat, to my activities, to my mood, my bank account balance, and to my weight. All of these things fluctuate, this is fine.
For me, I like to know what the normal range is. Because I've weighed myself before and after runs, meals, sleeping, and BMs, I know there can be huge fluctuations. It is more data, not less, that sets my mind at ease when my weight appears to spike.
Now when I want to really examine my progress, I export my daily weights to excel and graph it against a 6 or 10 day average trend-line.
I also completely agree that one should forego daily weigh-ins if it is stressful. You do you.4 -
I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.3 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
Ouch! Please do not 'speak' to me like that. Who do you think you are?
Instead, you should have asked me to clarify and had you I would have explained that by choosing to only record the drops it makes it easy for me to see when these drops happen against calories consumed and exercise taken. It is how I choose to manage my data to help me.
Now - wind you neck back in.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
Ouch! Please do not 'speak' to me like that. Who do you think you are?
I think I'm another human being just as able to make a simple declarative statement on a discussion forum as the next person. Sorry that the truth hurts.Instead, you should have asked me to clarify and had you I would have explained that by choosing to only record the drops it makes it easy for me to see when these drops happen against calories consumed and exercise taken. It is how I choose to manage my data to help me.
Yeah, I've had over-the-top reactions from people for asking them to clarify. There's no right way to try to point out that, as written, there's something wrong/questionable/misleading/open to misinterpretation about a post. Then there's all the folks who get their backs up over people clicking disagree.Now - wind you neck back in.
Yeah, that really bolsters your position on the high road.
Edited to fix the nesting.5 -
I weigh every day and it does fluctuate but if I dont it doesn't give me the opportunity to check myself ,I had a period when I didn't to try something different and during this period I put a stone on very easily
this. I get lazy or cocky and overeat when I don't stay on track with my daily weighing.1 -
I also find tracking only new lows to be a useful way of seeing trends. None of the smoothing programs out there have been of any use to me, since they still show “trends” which aren’t trends at all, but tracking new lows was very useful. If I didn’t see a new low once a week while I was in the earlier stages of my weight loss and every two weeks in the later stages I knew I needed to tweak something. Meanwhile the other days bounded around in a way which was completely misleading.lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
Ouch! Please do not 'speak' to me like that. Who do you think you are?
Instead, you should have asked me to clarify and had you I would have explained that by choosing to only record the drops it makes it easy for me to see when these drops happen against calories consumed and exercise taken. It is how I choose to manage my data to help me.
Now - wind you neck back in.
In maintenance obviously I don’t see new lows all the time, but tracking lows is still useful. I know if I haven’t seen the previous low number in a while that it’s a legit gain and I need to take action.
As for smoothing programs, is there one which keeps track of trends compared to previous days of the week? I know Wednesday is going to be almost two pounds heavier than Thursday due to my exercise and eating patterns. That means nothing. But if this Wednesday is two pounds heavier than last Wednesday that’s significant.2 -
I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
I do this too, except that I enter my daily weight into a spreadsheet which calculates a monthly average and a running-seven-day average. That gives me my trend. I only enter a weight on mfp when I have a loss to record. That's partly because I don't particularly want to share all my data with mfp. I agree taht a weekly weigh-in loses much information; I like hte complexity of the daily weigh-in data.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
It's not like any of us are submitting the data for peer review or using it to send a shuttle into space. If it works for that user, what's the problem with only recording the drops?11 -
I have a fancy scale with bluetooth that I got for free through my insurance. I weigh in every morning, but only check the information on my phone once a week.
I like the information over time, but it can be discouraging. The digital scale gives me the best of both worlds.3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
It's not like any of us are submitting the data for peer review or using it to send a shuttle into space. If it works for that user, what's the problem with only recording the drops?
It's fine for anyone to do anything that works for them (assuming it's not illegal or hurting other people). But don't call it something it isn't. Tracking just drops is not tracking the trend. It throws out all data that might reveal you're actually on a gaining trend.
I eat several meals and one or more snacks a day. It works for me. But I don't say I'm following OMAD.2 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »I weigh every day and record the reading manually on my kitchen calendar as I find it interesting. I however only record the drops on MFP as I find that better for tracking the trend.
Given how my weight fluctuates, weighing one a week would not work for me as you might hit a peak or you might hit a trough so daily is what works for me.
Cherry-picking data to plot a trend is not how trend-plotting works.
It's not like any of us are submitting the data for peer review or using it to send a shuttle into space. If it works for that user, what's the problem with only recording the drops?
It's fine for anyone to do anything that works for them (assuming it's not illegal or hurting other people). But don't call it something it isn't. Tracking just drops is not tracking the trend. It throws out all data that might reveal you're actually on a gaining trend.
I eat several meals and one or more snacks a day. It works for me. But I don't say I'm following OMAD.
They are tracking the trend of their weight loss. That's the literal trend that they're tracking.
They are not tracking the trend of their weight as it may fluctuate day-to-day, but anyone who is just tracking the trend of their weight loss and weighing each day is also perfectly capable of noticing "Hey, it's been a while since I've had a loss, this may not be working anymore" and then they can change. They're also recording all the data on the calendar so it's obviously there to look at and use if it becomes necessary.
They're tracking a trend. Not the same one that you might find useful to track, but you're not the one doing it.
This is not like you claiming to eat one meal a day when you're eating several. This is more like you getting annoyed that someone is eating at 3 PM and calling it lunch because you think that's actually dinner.
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