Weight differences??

aprilflower18232
aprilflower18232 Posts: 205 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ok, so yesterday I was all upset because i weighed myself and it showed no difference from last week....today I weighed myself again ( yeah I know I shouldn't do it everyday and I normally don't). Well today I was 3 pounds less...can this be acurate? I checked the accuracy of the scale by weighing my dumbells and it was spot on....I am just confused?

Replies

  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member
    Why shouldn't you weigh daily?
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
    Weight will fluctuate by several pounds a day. I weigh myself at least twice daily, and depending on sodium intake, food choices, time of day, rest day, heavy lifting day, or basketball day my weight is all over the place. It's normal, there are just too many factors to consider, it's basically a game of averages.

    Rigger
  • aprilflower18232
    aprilflower18232 Posts: 205 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol
  • madhatter2013
    madhatter2013 Posts: 1,547 Member
    Mine does that too. I weigh myself everyday and one day I'll be 198, the next I'll be 200 and the next I'll be 201. I'll start to wonder what I'm doing wrong when I know I'm at a 500 cal/day deficit and I work out every day. Then the next day I'll be down to 196 or something. I just assume it's water retention and kick myself for weighing daily.
  • jhellwig828
    jhellwig828 Posts: 109 Member
    I weigh everyday. Some days it goes down, some days it doesn't move, and some days it goes up. But as long as I see a downward trend on my progress graph, I ignore the few spikes. I also know that a week before my TOM it's going to go up a few pounds. I've come to expect it and it always goes back down! Good luck!
  • Holly_Roman_Empire
    Holly_Roman_Empire Posts: 4,440 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol

    It's only a bad idea if you're going to let the daily fluctuations affect you mentally and emotionally. A lot of people weigh daily because they like data, but they also understand that weight will fluctuate depending on workouts, water retention, alcohol consumption, bowel movements, etc.

    And to answer your original question, yes, those fluctuations are normal. My weight can change as much as 3 pounds between 24 hours. And again, if those kinds of weight fluctuations are going to bother you, I probably wouldn't weigh every day.
  • catwink1
    catwink1 Posts: 28 Member
    Sometimes water weight can be the difference. Are you weighing yourself at the same time each time? Weight can also be affected by your bowels if you haven't had a bowel movement that can be the difference.
  • ldula88
    ldula88 Posts: 169 Member
    It's only a bad idea if you don't take into consideration that weight can fluctuate by several pounds due to many factors. If you accept the +/- a few pounds factor and it doesn't mess you up, go ahead and weigh yourself frequently. I weigh myself almost every day because I can see trends better that way. If over the course of a week I am trending the same or at a decrease, I know I'm doing fine. If I start to trend up, that's bad. I'd rather catch actual weight gain as early as possible so I can look at my lifestyle to see where I'm starting to get lax. If I only weighed in once a week, two weeks or more could go by before I caught an upward trend.
  • aprilflower18232
    aprilflower18232 Posts: 205 Member
    I have to admit...I felt much better today seeing the scale go down.....but I wasn't sure if I should believe it....
  • Healthy_4_Life2
    Healthy_4_Life2 Posts: 595 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol

    It is a bad idea to weight yourself daily because of this exact reason you just wrote about. Weight can fluctuate DAILY and weighting yourself daily will only create frustration and confusion. This is due to water weight gain, sodium, bowel irregularity, etc. Even working out can make you temporarily gain weight as muscle tends to get inflamed and retain water while repairing muscle. Some people's weight can fluctuate between 3-5 pounds in any giving week. So weighing yourself daily may lead to frustration.
  • Avandel
    Avandel Posts: 283 Member
    Heck, I can get on & off the scales & immediately get back on & get a different weight. At first I thought it must be the scales but it does it no matter which ones I use. I think how you stand on them must be a factor too, are you looking down, looking up, more weight on one side than the other, etc, etc. All I know is it sucks that the scales fluctuate up, never down.:mad:
  • Kate
    Kate Posts: 35 Member
    If you prefer to weigh every day, my advice is to chart your weight daily , total the weights every seven days and divide by 7. Consider that your "true" weight for that week. As each week goes by you should see the downward trend, That way the daily fluctuations will not have the same impact.
  • healthygreek
    healthygreek Posts: 2,137 Member
    I have to admit...I felt much better today seeing the scale go down.....but I wasn't sure if I should believe it....
    You've lost almost 100 pounds! You know you can believe it!!!!
    You are doing fantastically!!!!
    Congratulations for doing so well!!!!
    I weigh everyday (except on a vacation) cause I like to see where I'm at. I gain pretty easily so I keep an eye on it and I feel better this way. You might call me a bit of a control freak, lol.
  • bcolpetzer
    bcolpetzer Posts: 6 Member
    I weigh daily and yes there is fluctuations, water retention or having a bigger workout can have an affect on the scales. I do it not to see if I lost that ounce or two but to keep track of which food seem to be a trigger. So I know to eat these only in very small portions when I do have them with a meal. I wont deny my family or myself flavorful meals but also try to balance the meal to keep it as healthy as possible, And as much as I would like, my family and I just wont eat certain foods no matter the health benefit. We all have to find that balance of what we will eat and what works in our bodies and the only way to do that for me anyhow is to monitor and learn.
  • mschicagocubs
    mschicagocubs Posts: 774 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol

    It is only a bad idea if you let it control your life. If you constantly get upset that the scale isnt moving each day or that your weight fluctuates.

    For me...weighing myself would make me mad and feel like nothing is working. Weighing myself once every two weeks...is good for me.

    You just have to be aware that you are going to not weigh the same everyday ... good or bad ... if you can live with that, then do it :)
  • mxmkenney
    mxmkenney Posts: 486 Member
    Water retention. Maybe you had a lot of sodium the day before you weighed yourself the first time... That, or did you go to the bathroom before the 2nd time you weighed yourself? At least for me, my weight can fluctuate by 2-3 pounds just by going to the bathroom. I don't go everyday (more like every 3 days), so I try to weigh myself AFTER I go. :) Sorry if that is TMI! :embarassed:
  • thyme4
    thyme4 Posts: 35 Member
    I think we all want the scale to reflect a nice, predictable straight line that we expect when we stay on program! But our body machinery is individual and complex, so it is rare for that to happen. As others have posted, all kinds of things cause fluctuations during the day and from day to day. I weigh every day or two, but I don't worry about a small gain if I know I am sticking to program.

    That being said, I have found that drinking more water and adding probiotics to my diet have made that line straighter for me.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol

    Because weight can fluctuate rather substantially throughout a given day and day to day due to water retention/release, food and beverage consumption (it has mass right?), waste in your system, etc. A lot of people don't understand this and freak out so they are better off weighing in less frequently.

    Personally, I advocate weighing in daily or at least 3-5 days per week to better understand those fluctuations and to have more data points for trend analysis...if you only weigh in once per week, it could be that you have more or less waste in your system than last week or your are retaining more or less water, etc and that can either mask fat loss (Oh noes, I didn't lose weight this week...but next week they lose 5 Lbs of scale weight) or it can inflate loss (yay, I lost 5 Lbs this week...and then the next week they see a gain because it wasn't really a 5 Lb fat loss).
  • junnipr
    junnipr Posts: 18 Member
    like most of the peopl mentioned above, it can be water retention, high sodium intake, etc etc. it will be ifne to see 3-+ difference, but i'll recomend you that if you are going to do that every day, you do it at the same time! For me, i think in the morning, before breakfast, and no corporal fuilds is the best time to weight in. when u do it in the afternoon, the weight wll fluctuate depending on what you ate during the day(no matter how may calorie were comsume). So if you do this during the afternoon, try to have a pattern for that wieght in day(if you weight weekly instead daily)
  • jasonmh630
    jasonmh630 Posts: 2,850 Member
    Why shouldn't you weigh daily?

    Because weight fluctuates during the week. Ideally, weighing yourself once a week is the best idea. Also, weigh yourself in the morning, naked and after you've used the batheroom.
  • liloldDee
    liloldDee Posts: 92 Member
    I weigh daily and it used to be the most frustrating thing ever and the cause of me giving up many times. However it's a habit I can't seem to break but after reading a lot on here about fluctuations I decided to track my weight daily, using the libra app on my phone. No longer do these fluctuations bother me, I can see a pattern and often know when to expect "gains". Even though I'm still weighing daily, I am more or less free of the frustration fluctuations used to give me.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    Everyone has said what a bad idea it is...not really sure why, lol

    Because weight can fluctuate rather substantially throughout a given day and day to day due to water retention/release, food and beverage consumption (it has mass right?), waste in your system, etc. A lot of people don't understand this and freak out so they are better off weighing in less frequently.

    Personally, I advocate weighing in daily or at least 3-5 days per week to better understand those fluctuations and to have more data points for trend analysis...if you only weigh in once per week, it could be that you have more or less waste in your system than last week or your are retaining more or less water, etc and that can either mask fat loss (Oh noes, I didn't lose weight this week...but next week they lose 5 Lbs of scale weight) or it can inflate loss (yay, I lost 5 Lbs this week...and then the next week they see a gain because it wasn't really a 5 Lb fat loss).

    Pretty much this. I weight most days then plot it in Excel and pay attention to the trend line. I think there are also apps that do this.

    Sept_line_zpsb04eab39.png
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    Why shouldn't you weigh daily?

    Because weight fluctuates during the week. Ideally, weighing yourself once a week is the best idea. Also, weigh yourself in the morning, naked and after you've used the batheroom.

    What if I weigh in and its a high day. If I had weighed daily I could have seen highs and lows, but with once a week I might not see the scale move for weeks simply because of fluctuations/water retention. Wouldn't that be just as frustrating, if not more so, than daily shifts?

    For example two Mondays ago I was 140. last Monday I was 140. This Monday I was 141. Damnit, I've gained weight. Except my other weighins last week were 139.2, 138.8, 138, 137.7, and 139. Because I weigh daily I know that Monday is just a high peak on the graph but without those other points I would think I was gaining

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