Why is my weight fluctuating

lisavick96

I’ve been with MFP since August 2021. It’s such a blessing. At my best I lost over 61 pounds. It seems the past 6 weeks or so my weight has went up a pound and some days rises by 2-3, then come back to within 1 pound of normal. I hadn’t had this happen until the past few weeks. Is that normal? The only thing I really notice that’s changed is my daily calories may be 50-80 calories less. Very rarely I may come in 150 less but not often. Other than that I can’t figure out what’s going on. Is this normal?

Melwillbehealthy

It is for me! I can’t explain it. Even recalibrated my scale and put in new batteries. It’s just the way my body is. The scale has to be taken with a grain of salt. Especially if you stand on it every day.

Mischante

My weight fluctuates daily which is completely normal. Honestly your weight can go up or down several pounds just over the course of a day. These are changes in water retention, waste, the amount of food you ate earlier, ect. That is why a lot of people give themselves a weight range at goal to maintain.

AnnPT77

It's normal.

I suggest reading this thread, especially reading the article linked in the first post.

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

Speaking as someone who's now been in maintenance for 7+ years (after several previous decades of overweight/obesity), strict maintenance is not being exactly one precise weight day after day after day. Strict maintenance is cycling up and down repeatedly through a small range of weights, averaging around the same weight over a period of weeks. (How big the "small range" is varies individually. I'd guess 3-5 pounds plus or minus is pretty common.)

For some of us, maintenance (the not-so-strict subtype) is cycling up and down through a slightly larger small range of weights, such as a slightly higher range of weights in Winter, and a slightly lower range of weights in Summer, or some other cyclical variation on that theme. It's still fine, if you ask me.

Bodies are weird, and cyclical variability in life routines happens. Stressing over that adds completely optional (probably unpleasant) anxiety.

Real regain usually looks like slow-ish steady upcreep in scale weight, maybe up and down but with an overall up trend. That's the thing we want to avoid, to stay in a healthy weight range, IMO.

ToadstoolBetty

If it's not food then it's anything from fluids building up or even the bowels holding on to movements.
Can be muscle gain even.
Measuring yourself is sometimes the way people have to change from weighing as weight doesn't always show everything that happening.

cwolfman13

I'm surprised you've never noticed this before. This is completely normal. Bodyweight isn't static and fluctuates naturally. The human body is comprised of roughly 55-65% water with the average being around 60%, but that composition easily fluctuates for numerous reasons. You also have varying degrees of waste in your digestive track at any one time, etc, etc, etc.