Time of exercise directly affect the scale?

Deena_Bean

It really seems like a trend for me that if I weigh myself in the morning and I weigh 'X', workout that night (between 7-9pm), and weigh myself the following morning my weight is up (usually between 1-2 lbs). Then it goes back down the day after a non-workout. Normal?

ASKyle

Yes, normal. Especially if you were lifting.

cwolfman13

exercise breaks down muscle tissue. fluids are required to repair damaged tissue...thus your body retains more fluids and you can weigh slightly more. this is one of the numerous reasons why the scale should only be views as ONE tool of many tools to mark your progress. the scale only tells a small fraction of the overall story. this is why it is further important to perform trend analysis rather than getting wrapped up i the minutia of day to day numbers.

Deena_Bean

Bueno. Thanks for the info - noted. The scale is working it's way down my list of tools - I used to worship the scale and goad it into giving me better numbers (obviously that failed). Then the measuring tape came into play and inches were gone and the scale got the one-finger-salute and down-graded to low class. I just wanted to make sure these trends are expected. :drinker:

williams969

Yep, exercise the night before weigh in can show retained water in your muscles. I weigh daily, but use a phone app for those weights, to show the ups and downs (Libra is the Android app I use for that). For "official" weigh-ins, I choose to do those after a full rest day, usually Monday mornings (Sat. is my active rest day where I just do a little run in the park with the kids, etc, and Sunday is put my feet up day, lol). The scale likes Monday mornings, lol!

BarbieFromHellx

I noticed this too! I used to weigh myself daily and would get frustrated over really silly things like water retention. I now only weigh myself once every 1-2 weeks or so in the morning before a work out so I can actually get a good idea of how much my weight is going down.