Fluctuating Scale

sloiacon

I'm new and already really frustrated
When I started two weeks ago I weighed 290.9, and in my first week I lost 3.4 pounds. 287, I was so elated.
But today I weigh myself a week later and I'm 289. What the heck!
I weigh myself every morning at the same time but only log what I weigh on Thursdays and it's really disappointing seeing my weight bounce back up after such a great week in my opinion. Everyday I get on the scale since my loss it's been between 288-290 again, and I should be going DOWN.
My diet is spot on, I workout 6 days a week.
Can someone help explain this to me?

ndj1979

more than likely water retention .

Are you working out a lot or just eating in deficit?

Drink lots of water, like peeing like a race horse a lot and that should help relieve the bloat/water retention.

I typically weight myself three times a week (mon, wens, friday) at about 6am and then take a weekly average ...as long as weekly average goes down from previous weeks average I am happy...

Losingthedamnweight

Fluctuations can happen for a myriad of reasons. It doesn't mean you didn't lose weight. You probably did! The scale is just a little *kitten*. Too much carbs, too much sodium, not enough water, poop in the bowels, stress. It's...nauseating how many things can affect the scale. But try not to worry. It's too soon to get frustrated. Focus on how you feel! Take measurements and be patient. Next week you might have a whoosh. I've been having these like crazy lately. I'll not lose a pound for a week and the weeks after I lose 4 lbs in a single week. Be patient. You're doing good things for your life and should be proud!

sloiacon

I workout constantly, and I usually eat my calorie goal but I don't eat my exercise calories. I drink like 5-7 glasses of water a day right now. Something to definitely improve upon

czechwolf52

It's probably water retention. I'm in the same situation right now. I've been working out and logging everything. Last week I was 138.8, I went down to 137.6 and now I'm at 139.4. I know that I have been at a deficient everyday (even excluding exercise) and ate nowhere near enough to gain 2 pounds. If you're not drinking enough water your body will try to hold on to as much of it as possible. I've been lazy with my water lately so that could be one reason why I've gained. Another possibility could be TOM, if it's your time your body could be retaining extra water.

I_Will_End_You

Either way yourself less often (like once every two weeks, once a month) or way yourself so often that you recognize what's happening in your body & don't freak out over fluctuations.

Damaddie0304

Be sure you do not use salt and only eat very low sodium foods. Also, water water WATER! That flushes any sodium and water weight out. I have more than once had a 3 pound up fluctuation overnight after eating too much sodium.

Nanu_3d

Mine fluctuates too. The lows keep getting lower though. Also, some times I'll go a week without losing anything, and then, bam, my weight will drop a couple of pounds. Keep at it, and the scale will catch up!

cwolfman13

google natural body weight fluctuations...they are natural and there is little to nothing you can do about them unless somehow you're magically able to not produce any waste or retain water. natural body weight fluctuations are....well, they're completely natural...on average about 2-5 Lbs day to day. Nobody weighs exactly XXX Lbs. I'm maintaining and my weight fluctuates between 178 and 183 throughout any given week for the past 5 months....you better wrap your head around it or maintenance is going to be a real head **** for you.

MommaSpunk

My weight can go up and down 5lbs in a day and sometimes more...to be honest I never have been sure why, but its depressing

bridgie101

I'm new and already really frustrated
When I started two weeks ago I weighed 290.9, and in my first week I lost 3.4 pounds. 287, I was so elated.
But today I weigh myself a week later and I'm 289. What the heck!
I weigh myself every morning at the same time but only log what I weigh on Thursdays and it's really disappointing seeing my weight bounce back up after such a great week in my opinion. Everyday I get on the scale since my loss it's been between 288-290 again, and I should be going DOWN.
My diet is spot on, I workout 6 days a week.
Can someone help explain this to me?

You are losing fat. If you are recording correctly and have entered your details correctly, then you ARE losing fat. That's just the laws of physics.

However.

Maybe your bathroom scales are dying. I noticed the other day, that my scales weighed me one time at 95.5, which would be fantastic if it were true... and then I weighed again and it fluffed around a bit, and eventually came back at me with 96.5.

I wonder about bits of fluff stuck to the bottom of it, I wonder about it getting old and its spring dying.

But don't give up and don't lose heart, because the laws of physics require that no matter what water you have on your body or what food you have in your gut, or what spring problems you have on your bathroom scales, if you consume less than you use, your body will take it out of the piggy bank and spend it.

shrinkingWITS

Many already covered what I was going to say but just ti reiterate...weigh once a week or less and fluctuations happen often for so many reasons. Weight loss is not linear. Just keep working hard and you will get results.

snowsquall

My wife is having the same issue she is in her 3rd week and the 1st she lost 3.5lb and the second week she gain 2lbs, she measured though and she is down several inches going into her 3rd week of Zumba, but i did look at what she was eating and she was only eating between 800 and 1100 calories, and she should be eating 1700 according to what we put in. So we have increased her calories to 1500 and told her to weigh in once a month and keep measuring and got great advise from some ladies out there to pass on to her, hope this helps.

RoosMommy02

You sound just like me! I used to weigh myself every single morning and it would drive me INSANE to see that number go up instead of down. My advice to you is 1st take measurements. 2nd try your hardest not to step on the scale on a daily basis or if you do, make sure it's at the same time every single day and if it goes up or down a lb or 2 don't worry. My scale will usually go up 5lbs during the day but every morning I'm either at the same number as the morning before or it will slightly go down.

I'm currently at 271. Two weeks ago I was at 268 and in the matter of 2 days, it shot back up to 272 and I didn't do anything different but my clothes were fitting better.

thatbelinda

My weight can go up and down 5lbs in a day and sometimes more...to be honest I never have been sure why, but its depressing

The reason why is because of what you put IN your body during the day

I was 1.9kgs heavier last night than I was this morning. It's normal to be heavier at the end of the day

thesophierose

Don't weigh everyday because water/food will make you fluctuate.

pkoll

I agree with what everyone above has said.. When I first started, I weighed myself everyday. it took a lot of willpower to stop weighing so frequently! You will notice the difference better if you don't weigh yourself so often. Trust yourself and the process. It will work if you are honest with yourself. Lots of luck!

sloiacon

Thanks everyone I'm literally posting a sign on my scale that says, Don't step on me until Thursday

OsricTheKnight

I guess I disagree with everyone else here - no matter how infrequently you weigh yourself, the 2-4 lb swings due to water mass can be really frustrating. Say on your plan you should be losing 1.5lb per week, and you have popcorn the night before your weigh-in - all that salt will show up on the scale because it will retain whatever you drank to go with it, and show a gain even if you had a perfect week.

What I like to do instead is use a moving average and treat that as the real weight. For example trendweight.com on my computer or Libra on my android devices. The trend just goes down consistently all the time, no matter how the weights jump around - and you know you've been bad if you get a data point above the line, you can always look back at the prior day and know what you ate that made it get that high. See my own chart for the last four weeks - it looks like I've had two plateaus - one that lasted until Sept 9 and another that lasted until Sept 20 - but because I've been focusing on bringing the red line down I know that I was never really stuck, every one of those weights counted to get me where I want to go.

http://trendweight.com/u/78fac1a24a5440/

Osric

pienthesky32

Just keep on doing what you're doing, you're doing nothing wrong enough to cause a 2 pound "fat" gain. My scale moves once every 4 to 8 weeks but I just keep on doing things right as much as I can, it'll show up eventually. Please don't stop no matter how frustrating!

nelinelineli

Here's my weight over almost 3 months:



Despite going exactly according to plan, I have "plateaus", often around TOM that last about 10 days. Then, overnight, that weight drops and keeps on going down, so there's no actual stall in weight loss. There's nothing you can do about that. I am working on gathering more data to see exactly what this weight retention correlates to, but so far my best guess is that it's pre-ovulation.
I have even tried to force it down with a laxative (on Aug 29th) and as you can see it was a one-day effect. The next day I went back up - which tells me my body is retaining whatever it needs to for a reason - no need to mess with it.

I personally am a strong believer in daily weigh-ins IF you decide to use this data to understand the way your body works. It gives a feeling of control that I can predict now when my weight is going to go up or down. If that's too much for you though, rare weigh-ins are probably a good idea.

ColetteM6

Fluctuations can happen for a myriad of reasons. It doesn't mean you didn't lose weight. You probably did! The scale is just a little *kitten*. Too much carbs, too much sodium, not enough water, poop in the bowels, stress. It's...nauseating how many things can affect the scale. But try not to worry. It's too soon to get frustrated. Focus on how you feel! Take measurements and be patient. Next week you might have a whoosh. I've been having these like crazy lately. I'll not lose a pound for a week and the weeks after I lose 4 lbs in a single week. Be patient. You're doing good things for your life and should be proud!

This

rlotze

Thanks everyone I'm literally posting a sign on my scale that says, Don't step on me until Thursday

There needs to be a 'like' button. lol

rlotze

Here's my weight over almost 3 months:

This chart is fantastic!
I want to do this. This really helps understand weight loss better than anything I've yet seen.

lass22

Great graph

SLLRunner

It could be water retention, but here's some other observations and advice.

Your logging for both food and exercise is very good, but I noticed your exercise calories are pretty darned high. Where are you getting the estimations from? If from MFP, then those estimates are usually pretty high from what a person really burns. If from a HRM, I've heard those can be off as well.

I have learned to use the numbers from the machines that ask for weight and age for the elliptical and stationary bike. Since the treadmill I run on has no age and weight input, I use the number from my Footsteps pedometer. All of these numbers are always way lower than MFP.

That said, I echo the advice about not stepping on the scale every day (love your post about putting the sign on the scale. :bigsmile:). I also advise looking to make sure your food and exercise sessions are logged in accurately.

Oh, do you weight solid food and measure liquids? I have discovered that 1/4 cup of cashews that is supposed to be 28 grams (approx. 1 ounce) is often more than one ounce.

Keep up all the good work and everything is always forward movement. Someone else on here once said that weight loss is not linear either.

janatarnhem

This happens to me too! I weigh myself once a week! Finding that my weight is generally on the weigh down, but I can stay around the same for a few weeks and then lose a couple ....and so on! I have found with regular, increasingly challenging and varied exercise, my clothes fit better...have gone down a whole size!...but more importantly, I feel less sluggish, have more energy than I have had for a long time! So healthier less calorific food, more exercise should = weight loss at a slow sustainable pace....hopefully!

naughtyfushsia_wechnaged

same as above (hiya bud lol!)

dont forget when you are due mama nature, us girls store more water than usual a few days before starting and during this bloddy time pmsl!

squishybarb

Fluctuations can happen for a myriad of reasons. It doesn't mean you didn't lose weight. You probably did! The scale is just a little *kitten*. Too much carbs, too much sodium, not enough water, poop in the bowels, stress. It's...nauseating how many things can affect the scale. But try not to worry. It's too soon to get frustrated. Focus on how you feel! Take measurements and be patient. Next week you might have a whoosh. I've been having these like crazy lately. I'll not lose a pound for a week and the weeks after I lose 4 lbs in a single week. Be patient. You're doing good things for your life and should be proud!

This!!!! I have a friend who is very into health and fitness, is going to college for .. exercise science? I think. Something of the sort. He's the go-to man for any fitness/weightloss issue I really have. I tried not to be obnoxious when I kept hitting plateaus.. but there were a few days when I was yelling at him via text asking "WHY AM I NOT LOSING WEIGHT?? I AM DOING EVERYTHING PERFECTLY!":mad: And he basically said the above in a nutshell.

Just. keep. doing. it. Sometimes I want to take the scale and do very very disturbing things to it.:devil: Some days it makes me angry and other days it makes me want to dance out of joy. I always give myself 2 or 3 pounds worth of wiggle room, especially during THE TIME. If my weight doesn't go back down or dramatically drop, I know I'm not doing something right and I adjust.

But seriously - stick with it!!! Sometimes it takes me over 10 days to lose a pound. It's taken me nearly a year to lose almost 40 - but hey! I got there. You can too!

You can do it! Be persistent! :bigsmile: :flowerforyou:

HexyleneGlycol

Thanks this makes me feel a lot better

HexyleneGlycol

Me and you seem to be in the exact same boat. (Weight, weight loss issues etc) I hope we can be friends so we can work through this together.