Thoughts on Daily Weigh Ins

GeeBee08505

Hi everyone! I have made some big changes in January (super cliché!), so I decided I wanted to weigh in daily to see how these changes impacted my weight. I was thinking it would give me insight to what foods/macros impacted the scale immediately.

However, the up .2, down .4, up 1lb, down a 1lb is really not a motivating factor as of yet.

Wondering how all that weigh in daily feel about the daily result and how to keep from fixating on a number. This is a marathon and not a sprint... but I think daily weigh in might make crazy!

herblovinmom

I weigh in every few days, when I first started my journey I weighed in daily for the same reason you do as a tool to watch for inflammation or water retention due to food choices or cycle changes. Helped me learn my body a bit better. I don't weigh everyday now as I've come to know what to expect from my body. I do still weight often and I keep striving for that new lowest number. I know the scale will move in the right direction. Eventually. So it doesn't bother me much anymore to see the ups and downs. Just apart of the journey at this point.

quiksylver296

I weigh in daily and log it in a weight tracker app - that smooths out the fluctuations and shows the trend. But I like the daily feedback. I know that the morning after spaghetti or pizza, I'll be up 2-3 pounds, but it will taper back off. I know I jump about 2 pounds during ovulation and menstruation and those pounds flush off again afterwards.

If I didn't weigh daily, and happened to get on the scale during one of those events, I'd likely be dissatisfied with my progress even though the number on the scale had absolutely nothing to do with actual weight loss.


Read the article in the first post of this thread. It's gold.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

cupcakesandproteinshakes

It’s really up to you how often you weigh. But know that fluctuations are normal and it’s a downward trend over time that is what matters. Some people prefer daily weights as you can get to know fluctuations. I go through phases of weighing daily if I am trying to lose and just weekly if I’m maintaining.
Some people get stressed about scale weight and don’t want to weigh daily.

AnnPT77

Even when losing weight fast (like 2 pounds a week), actual daily fat loss is a tiny amount (around a quarter pound). In contrast, it's completely normal for our body's water retention to shift by several pounds from one day to the next, and even the amount of food in our digestive tract on the way to becoming waste will vary daily by a bigger amount than that gradual daily fat loss.

When most of us want to lose weight, we really want to lose fat, right?

Well, the implication of my first paragraph is that one day's scale weight isn't going to give an accurate picture of the impact of the previous day's activities on fat loss. Fat loss can play peek-a-boo on the scale with water and waste fluctuations for a surprisingly long time . . . up to a month, perhaps even more, especially in a scenario where a person's aiming for slower loss.

Personally, I like to weigh daily, first thing in the AM, under conditions as consistent as I can make them (after using the bathroom, before eating/drinking, same state of (un)dress). Then I put that in a weight trending app**, and don't otherwise worry about that one-day result. (P.S. Even the weight trending app misses the mark sometimes during very slow loss!)

** Libra for Android is what I use. Other common ones are Happy Scale for Apple/iOS, Trendweight (requires a free Fitbit account but you don't need a device), Weightgrapher, and probably others. It's not a magic crystal ball: They just use statistical methods to make informed guesses (estimates) about trends.

For me, weighing daily isn't remotely stressful or emotional, and I've enjoyed understanding what causes water weight shifts and such in my personal body. I find that knowledge to be calming. People who are stressed by daily weighing shouldn't do it, probably.

Only you can decide what works best for you . . . but please don't think that Wednesday's scale weight is a report card on Tuesday's fat loss efforts. That's objectively untrue, incorrect, misleading.

If you haven't, I'd suggest reading this article:

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

and other MFP-ers discussions about that here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Also, don't try to game or defeat your body's normal daily water retention fluctuations: Shifts in water retention are part of how a healthy body stays healthy. Our bodies need extra water sometimes to balance electrolytes, repair muscles, metabolize certain nutrients, fight infections or heal minor injuries, and more (as you'll learn from that linked article). They know what they're doing - let yours do it. If you ever feel like you're retaining an unnatural amount of water (limbs get/stay puffy or something like that), see your doctor.

Best wishes!

chris_in_cal

I like weighing daily. For me, I think exposure every day allows me to practice being non-reactive. I don't see any value for me to have a big reaction to a number on one day.

Also, and most importantly seeing a nice smooth trendline on a chart over a month, or a year is gold.

Wi-Fi scale is the way to go for me. I step on it, and that's it. I don't have to do anything else. The number is added, it's sync'd to MFP and that is it.

My Withing Body+ was about $30 USD on sale, and has worked flawlessly for several years.

Actually a few years ago I gave away my old one to a friend, and she is still using it. It is probably ten years old and still working.

So, you get a Withings Wi-Fi scale, weigh every morning, put a little piece of tape over the display, and once a month log in and see the month long trend. Just because you weigh doesn't have to mean you look at the number. 😀