Analog Scale gives me so many different numbers

thesawyerbunch

I don't know what happened; it seemed to be working before because I was losing every week (I weighed every Sunday). All of a sudden, it's now giving me different numbers; it's showing I've gained weight, which would be physically impossible. It showed I gained a couple, then a few, and now 10 lbs all in the same day. I've been eating the same things, CICO,  staying under my limit for the day.

Seeing so many different numbers is tearing me up. I honestly feel like either weighing monthly or never weighing; I could just go by pictures and the way my clothes feel on me. 

Are my scales accurate? I thought you had to eat over 3,000 calories to even gain a true pound. MFP says I should eat 1700ish; I eat that sometimes, but I've mostly been eating in the 1600s a day. I log everything.

For instance, I eat a footlong veggie sub with mayo, and I bring my own tuna with a small bag of chips. Then later, I'll eat a cup of applesauce, either a pack of four peanut butter or sour cream and chives crackers, or yogurt. That's it. When I do eat something else, it's still within my limit. I was eating that and losing, so why the change? I heard that moving scales can mess them up, and I do have to move them to weigh myself.

csplatt

you are weighing yourself too much. throughout the day you are adding food to your stomach and intestines that has weight. lots of things add “weight” to our body without adding fat. only weigh first thing in morning after a bowel movement and know that our bodies have lots of variables that make the # on scale move a little every day. a long term downward trend is what you are looking for. i put on 4 lb the week of my period. but it’s not fat. i actually only weigh myself every 2 weeks

kshama2001

When you say, "10 lbs all in the same day," do you mean literally the same day? For example, one weight at 8 AM and another at 8 PM? If so, just weigh yourself first thing in the AM.

If these weights were in the mornings 24 hours apart, yes, there could be something wrong with your scale, unless you are constipated and retaining water from exercise and premenstrual.

Do you have a 5# bag of flour or a dumbbell you can put on your scale? Analog - does that mean no batteries? If there are batteries, change them.

cwolfman13

Step away from the scale. If you're weighing yourself multiple times per day you're also weighing everything you've ingested.

AnnPT77

thesawyerbunch wrote: »

I don't know what happened; it seemed to be working before because I was losing every week (I weighed every Sunday). All of a sudden, it's now giving me different numbers; it's showing I've gained weight, which would be physically impossible. It showed I gained a couple, then a few, and now 10 lbs all in the same day. I've been eating the same things, CICO,  staying under my limit for the day.

Body weight = Water, lean mass (muscles, skeleton, organs, etc.), body fat, stuff we ate/drank recently that isn't fully digested/metabolized yet, several pounds of gut microbes that aren't even genetically "us", clothes we're wearing (including shoes, glasses, watch, etc.), and probably some stuff I'm forgetting.

Worth remembering, because you're presumably trying to lose from the body fat (not the other stuff), and the fat is a fairly small to moderate fraction of the total, for most people.

I'm unclear about what you mean by the bolded, too. If you weighed several times during the same day, but not one time right after another, I'd expect multiple pounds of variation.

If it's weighing several times in sequence only seconds apart, your scale is unreliable. (But that wouldn't have involved the "moving the scale" issue.)

Seeing so many different numbers is tearing me up. I honestly feel like either weighing monthly or never weighing; I could just go by pictures and the way my clothes feel on me. 

You could do that.

Or, if you decide to get a new scale you could get one that automatically sends the weight to a database in the cloud, and lets you see the weight trend when you want to see it, so you needn't look every time you weigh.

But sure, you can go by photos (won't show changes super quickly), tape measurements (need to measure at same body landmarks every time, harder than it sounds), or clothes fit.

I'd personally recommend weighing daily, first thing in the morning, after bathroom and before eating/drinking, in the same state of (un-)dress every time, then putting the number into a weight trending app**. But that advice is biased by my being one of those people who are curious about their weight fluctuations and wanting to understand them, versus being someone who feels anxiety about weight numbers. (That's not a criticism of you. People's different ways of looking at the world are part of what makes life interesting, I think.)

** Some weight trending apps are Happy Scale for Apple/iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight with a free Fitbit account (don't need a Fitbit device), Weightgrapher on the web, and there are probably others. They use statistics to try to guess at fat loss, loosely trying to "see through" fluctuations in other stuff. They're not perfect at it, just better than our intuition is at it.

If you haven't read this, I strongly suggest it, especially the article linked in the first post:

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

I'm concerned that you're thinking your body weight one day is a direct result of your calorie intake/expenditure the previous day or few. Reality isn't quite that tidy, but most of the weirdness comes from water fluctuations and undigested food/drink, not from body fat. It's not worth worrying about, IMO, it's just noise in the system that prevents clearly perceiving the body fat changes. The fat changes show up in trends over multiple weeks, mostly.

Are my scales accurate? I thought you had to eat over 3,000 calories to even gain a true pound.

Roughly 3500 calories above the number of calories it takes to maintain your current weight to gain a pound of fat, not just above your MFP goal; but it's any combination of eating that much more or moving that much less cumulatively over a period of time.

If you know for sure that calories in/out don't explain what you see on the scale, then the reason for it isn't at all likely to be fat gain/loss.

MFP says I should eat 1700ish; I eat that sometimes, but I've mostly been eating in the 1600s a day. I log everything.

For instance, I eat a footlong veggie sub with mayo, and I bring my own tuna with a small bag of chips. Then later, I'll eat a cup of applesauce, either a pack of four peanut butter or sour cream and chives crackers, or yogurt. That's it.

If that's all you eat, I wonder whether you're getting adequate nutrition, especially protein, in absolute grams/ounces terms . . . but that won't hinder weight loss in the short term. Can monkey wrench long term progress a little, maybe.

When I do eat something else, it's still within my limit. I was eating that and losing, so why the change? I heard that moving scales can mess them up, and I do have to move them to weigh myself.

If you're taking the right steps, your body fat will be responding accordingly. The scale can be a lying liar that lies sometimes, because of weirdness in the stuff that isn't body fat. If you're on track, the results will come eventually, over the multiple weeks I mentioned.

If you're an adult woman who's not in menopause yet, comparing bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different monthly cycles would be about the best available scale-weight benchmark, though it can still be distorted. This is not the most common pattern, but some women report only seeing a new low weight once a month because of especially unusual hormonal water weight patterns.

The more tracking history you accumulate, the more you'll begin to understand your personal typical patterns, but occasionally even those are disrupted for unknown reasons.

Take a deep breath, everything's probably fine . . . possibly including your scale.

Best wishes!