How often do YOU weigh in personally?

CassieJones104
CassieJones104 Posts: 76 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am supposed to be weighing in once a week but have been weighing daily. The fluctuations are definitely discouraging! I will be going back to only weighing once per week!
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Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,418 Member
    See, I find daily fluctuations interesting. Potato potahto, I guess.

    When I first started losing weight they bothered me a lot more, but I'm 13 years into this maintenance thing so the ups and downs don't really get to t me any more.


    I had to lose close to a hundred pounds. After I lost about 30, my scale broke. I lost probably the next 40 with no scale. I only bought a new scale to lose that last 15-20.
  • drmwc
    drmwc Posts: 1,041 Member
    Like kshama and saredsia, I weigh daily and use Libra (the Android equivalent of HappyScale).
  • briscogun
    briscogun Posts: 1,138 Member
    sardelsa wrote: »
    Daily and use a trend weight app. I am used to the fluctuations.

    How often you weigh is personal preference.

    Bingo! Ditto for me. Can't manage what you don't measure!
  • ZoneFive
    ZoneFive Posts: 570 Member
    edited October 2020
    Once a week, and track it on Happy Scale. No matter how much I'd like to feel differently, too many measurements make me anxious.

    edited for clarity
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 5,165 Member
    I weigh daily and use a trending app to even out the fluctuations. I look at the average and don't worry about the day to day weights. Your weight will go up and down, but as long as the trend is going down then you know you are losing. I personally don't like weekly weighing because if your weekly weigh in is high you may feel like you either gained, or didn't lose as expected and for me that is discouraging. The high weight could just be a normal fluctuation, maybe you are at a certain point in your menstrual cycle or had a sodium high meal the day before or you are constipated and have more food in your system. There are lots of reasons that you might be retaining water. If you are weighing daily then you will see that even if your actual weight that day is up, your overall average weight is not up. More data gives you a better average. But it is really just a personal preference.
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
    I also become anxious and a little obsessive if I weigh daily, so I (generally) weigh weekly. Every once in awhile, I find myself popping on the scale midweek and having a minor freak out, but so far, every Saturday I’ve dropped a little bit, if not the full lb I want with the exception of a couple times. However, since I religiously track my food, I know exactly why I didn’t lose those weeks (eating out, birthday celebrations, etc)
  • ThatCookieGurl
    ThatCookieGurl Posts: 42 Member
    I am a tad bit obsessive with the scale and tend to weigh everyday, multiple times just because it helps keep me in track. I know I shouldn’t, but I like seeing the number go down and I can get a good feel for how much I can expect to gain per food choice. Sometimes it is a detriment, like today, where I made poor choices last night and now I’ve gained three pounds from yesterday morning.
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
    Daily. First thing in the a.m.
    Been doing this since 03/12/12
  • ALZ14
    ALZ14 Posts: 202 Member
    I weigh daily so I can see exactly what is going on. It helps me identify trends on how my hormone changes affect weight.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    Weekly. Fluctuations don't bother me, but to me fluctuations in daily data points (and even in weekly to some extent) are just noise that says more about hydration levels and the amount of food and waste in my digestive tract than about fat loss, which is my goal. I don't need another app cluttering up my life and my phone to eliminate the noise and tell me what I already know.

    But nothing wrong with weighing daily if that's what floats your boats and if it doesn't make you anxious or prompt you to try to manipulate diet and exercise in response to the noise. Ultimately, I think your understanding of what is noise and what is meaningful data and your emotional reaction to that is FAR more important than how often you weigh.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Daily and I just track my trend casually.

    Fluctuations are normal, understood, accepted as part of being alive and don't faze me. Each weigh in has very little significance on its own.

    If you weigh weekly and that happens on a day you happened to fluctuate the wrong way wouldn't that be more discouraging? ("Oh noes! I've been good all week and got nothing to show for it!")
    Wouldn't it also make it harder to understand why that fluctuation happened?
  • scarlett_k
    scarlett_k Posts: 812 Member
    Every few days normally. Whenever I remember to weigh after going to the loo but before drinking anything in the morning.
  • charmmeth
    charmmeth Posts: 936 Member
    I weigh daily, in the morning, and often in the evening too for the same reason as ninerbuff. I only record my morning weigh-in though, and I do that on a spreadsheet that calculates my average over the calendar month. That helps me to see where the underlying trend is instead of getting fixated on the one value. Because of where our scales are, my morning weigh-in is generally after exercise but before breakfast, which tells me where I am going. The days when I don't exercise tell me where my upper morning weight is. I am finding this quite a good way of reminding myself that I am aiming to reach a weight range rather than a weight.
  • eatyogarun
    eatyogarun Posts: 59 Member
    kgirlhart wrote: »
    I personally don't like weekly weighing because if your weekly weigh in is high you may feel like you either gained, or didn't lose as expected and for me that is discouraging.

    Same. My weight was down earlier this week but then right before my monthly cycle it popped up. Today it is the same as it was a week ago. Had I not weighed every day I would think I had made no progress this week.
  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 989 Member
    Every Monday, as I have done for years. Sometimes a few days later too, but not always.

    It took a while (and reading lots of posts on these forums) to stop being disheartened by a blip on the scales.
  • JessBbody
    JessBbody Posts: 523 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    Weekly. Fluctuations don't bother me, but to me fluctuations in daily data points (and even in weekly to some extent) are just noise that says more about hydration levels and the amount of food and waste in my digestive tract than about fat loss, which is my goal. I don't need another app cluttering up my life and my phone to eliminate the noise and tell me what I already know.

    But nothing wrong with weighing daily if that's what floats your boats and if it doesn't make you anxious or prompt you to try to manipulate diet and exercise in response to the noise. Ultimately, I think your understanding of what is noise and what is meaningful data and your emotional reaction to that is FAR more important than how often you weigh.

    I agree with this.

    I weigh weekly. I've seen threads that argue in favor of weighing in daily to track trends but I still don't see the point for me, personally. I know that seeing daily weight fluctuations would bother me and discourage me, even knowing that it all has to do with salt, carbs, and water. I'm not going to change what I eat that day to show a different number on the scale the next morning.

    I'm fortunate in that I've been seeing consistent losses weighing in weekly so at this point I don't need to be nervous that my weigh in won't show any progress for the week, although I realize this can happen.

    I just know that weighing in daily for me would get obsessive. I'm already fairly meticulous about measuring my calories and exercising 6 days a week, and if I went any further it could quickly become an issue of thinking about my weight/body taking over my life.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    edited October 2020
    Twice a day (first thing in the AM, right before bed) keeps me actively engaged with my weight loss project in just the way I need it. As soon as I stop weighing, I start gaining. Many, many, many is the time I forewent some unnecessary snack because I didn't want to get a bad weight reading.

    Just have to learn to dismiss scale fluctuations. They can play with your head, for sure.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,098 Member
    I will give more than one answer.

    For me personally, if find that my connection with the scale is directly correlated with the attention I am giving to my diet and health. The more I avoid the scale, the more I am avoiding healthy decisions. So, technically lack of scale is my first red flag. BTW I noticed during the first 6 months of COVID lockdown, that over time I was weighing less and less, now every day. As for the fluctuations, there actually is some value to seeing them on a regular/daily basis. You get the opportunity to see the cause and effect of the previous days foods - and I am mostly not talking about calories. I am talking about macros distribution, sodium, or foods that might inflame and cause fluid retention. As a female, you start learning about the numbers on the scale and how they are impacted by your cycle. Understanding these correlations help you to get through them if you can understand the short term causes and how they are transient.

    Now, what is the advice I give to others (like from my 12 years working as a WW receptionist)? First you need to understand youself and how you respond to the act of stepping on a scale. If stepping on a scale is going to send you in a tailspin because of a number, then maybe at this point in time daily weighing is not best. At the other extreme, I even had members that came and weighed weekly, but asked me to record the weight in their record, but to not share that information with them. They would check out their weight history at a later time when they were ready (there were times that it was a month or more).

    You have lots of great input that hopefully will help you to assess what is right for you. Give it some thought and do what is most supportive of you taking care of you.
  • gcminton
    gcminton Posts: 170 Member
    I weigh daily. I like having additional data points to plot a trend line, and I've gotten used to the fluctuations. It also helps keep me engaged with what I'm trying to do. For me, it's really easy to kind of check out and slowly slide back into old habits, so stepping on the scale first thing puts it back in my mind.
  • globalc00
    globalc00 Posts: 103 Member
    I weigh my self daily. My take on how often you should weigh your self is what you plan on doing with the data. If you plan on making adjustments daily, then you need daily data points. If you see what the scale says and just say "meh, just fluctuation", then no real point in weighing daily if you are sticking to your diet.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    Daily
  • spyro88
    spyro88 Posts: 472 Member
    edited October 2020
    Similar to others I weigh most days. It just keeps me focussed on it and I know to expect fluctuations, so I'm OK with that. I only record it on here if it's gone down though :D

    Sometimes if I know I have not stayed within calories I avoid the scale... but that's a red flag!
  • ChristopherLimoges
    ChristopherLimoges Posts: 298 Member
    Only when I plan to weigh myself on a specific and set day. Got to release as much temporary weight as possible.
  • bubus05
    bubus05 Posts: 121 Member
    edited October 2020
    In the morning after waking up in the evening before going to sleep every day. Also before and after exercises, not because I am particularly worried but want to see the difference aerobic vs anaerobic effect on the body. Maybe it's a bit too much weighing but I found I if you dont make a big deal out of it dont stress yourself over your weight just do it to gather info how your body reacts to certain conditions it is actually very useful.

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