Weighing In

Jreeves9210

every day as soon as i wake up. I got the idea from a post I saw on here to keep a daily track and graph it. Obviously there will be fluctuations, but it was very cool to see the long term progress made.

anapestic

I weigh in every morning. But if I had a lot of carbs or salt late in the previous evening and my weight is up a little, I don't get upset. My method of handling daily fluctuations is to only update my weight when it's lower than the last time I updated my weight. Denial is a powerful tool: master it.

A_Dabauer

I've done a 50lb weight loss and never weighing once...at the time I was trying to give up my obsession with being perfect, I naturally let it happen, trust me you can tell when you're loosing weight scale or no scale. It can work

However currently I weigh every day.... and this is why:

Your weight can fluctuate up to several pounds a day up down and around again, if you weigh say once a week, and your weigh in day is Monday, what if you are on a low day on Monday but a high day the following week. It may show you've put on weight despite doing everything right.

If you weight the same time EVERY day, yes you see increases but you still see the trend, adding in weekly measurements and I'm currently satisfied with what the scale tells me regardless of my daily fluctuations.

Here is a link to a great blog on why it's ok to weigh every day
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SingRunTing/view/why-i-weigh-daily-692421

staceymarie1971

Thank you so much forthe advice...greatly appreciated!!

staceymarie1971

Great words....thanks so much!!

staceymarie1971

lanniesue

After what I saw on the scale this morning, I am thinking of starting to weigh once a week. It shows that I am up several pounds from Friday. I have been walking a lot more, so I am not sure how this could be. Anyway, it frustrated me so bad this morning, that I have eaten all day.

spiff1971

I weigh myself at different points during the day so that i can better understand my body. I only count the first one of the day. I accept that the weight is going to fluctuate. If my goal is to drop 50 pounds, 2lbs is really nothing in the grand scheme. Also, it keeps me honest.

I look at the overall trend. That to me is the key.

Find what works for you.

Chris

nicsflyingcircus

I weigh daily because I like to see the fluctuations and realize they are perfectly normal, even look to see if I can figure them out. If I weighed weekly, and happened to have an "up" fluctuation on weigh in day and seemed to lose no weight, or even gain weight, after everything being on point all the prior week, I would think that would be far more discouraging than looking at daily weights, which are influenced by water weight, hormones, sodium, elimination(or not) etc.

Texnell

Once a week. Same time/day of week. After pottie/before coffee.

The scale plays head games with me if I weigh more often. If I were to weigh mid week & see a loss, I would tend to think hey, you're doing good, you deserve a treat. If I were to see a gain mid week, I would think to heck with this, it's not working, and probably binge on something.

Those weekly weighins can sometimes are not always negative, so as to not be discouraged, I look at monthly totals.

meridianova

i weigh daily because mentally it helps keep me on track. my body has developed a habit of dropping a couple of pounds and then spending the next 2-3 weeks bouncing back and forth between the old weight and the new weight. why it can't just take the energy from losing the same 2 pounds several times over and put that toward losing new pounds, i'll never understand :grumble:.

but because i fluctuate so much, and because i lose weight so ridiculously slowly (:mad: :explode: :mad:), i want to be able to catch those losses when they happen. i'm more likely to freak out over NOT weighing myself than weighing too often.

bwogilvie

I recommend daily weigh-ins, with a huge caveat: you need to do some math to find the difference between your actual weight loss and the daily fluctuations, which are much larger. The more often I see those fluctuations, the less they bother me.

Your weight fluctuates depending on water, salt, and fiber intake, and other factors having nothing to do with calories. Using an exponentially smoothed moving average can help you filter out the noise and focus on the trend, as John Walker explains in "The Hacker's Diet" (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/). The chapter on "The Rubber Bag" explains, briefly, the source of these fluctuations. The chapter on "Signal and Noise" explains how some simple math can filter them out. Walker explains how to do the math, but you can also set up a free account on his server to do it for you, or use a service like Beeminder or TrendWeight.com.

As long as most of your daily weights are below the average, you're losing weight. If most of them are above, you're gaining. If they are half above and half below, and the average stays flat, you're maintaining.

corinic91

Maybe the new people on here do not see this thread every single day and aren't we here to reach out and support one another not be negative...

Then actually trying to help here, not trying to be negative but did you know there's a "search" function in the forums? You can type in what you're looking for to see if your question's already been asked/answered.

blankiefinder

Personally, I weigh in every day but I try to only concern myself with my weekly average weight. I have a spreadsheet (Google Docs) on my phone that I just plug my weight into every morning and it calculates and graphs my weekly average weight.

I started doing it this way at the suggestion of my cycling coach and I have come to like it. Looking at the downward trend on my weekly average is motivating for me.

That is a great idea, would you mind sharing the doc?

MystifiedFluff

I weigh in every Monday. It helps me track how the previous week's calorie intake, exercise, steps, etc. effects my weight. A weekly weigh in seems to work for me since the results seem more consistent than the daily up down fluctuation I experience (sometimes 4 pounds either way).

dania201

I weigh in very sporadically, maybe every few months or so. I generally find it discouraging, so I do avoid it if I can.

I went a long time for a while without doing it in part because the scale I had at home only went up to 550. A while back I got a newer one that goes up to 1000--in part to help get things rolling with the motivation. It hasn't worked yet, as I've just gotten heavier since then, and now am having a much harder time getting around. But still, every few months I get brave lol....

harshada10

I weigh myself once a month.

JVClubs

i do it once a month, if i did it once a week id become obsessed very fast

ntnunk

Personally, I weigh in every day but I try to only concern myself with my weekly average weight. I have a spreadsheet (Google Docs) on my phone that I just plug my weight into every morning and it calculates and graphs my weekly average weight.

I started doing it this way at the suggestion of my cycling coach and I have come to like it. Looking at the downward trend on my weekly average is motivating for me.

That is a great idea, would you mind sharing the doc?

Sure. Here's a cleaned up, view-only version of my spreadsheet. You'll have to open it and go to File->Make A Copy to be able to edit it. The first tab, Daily weight, is where I enter weight every day (3rd column). The 4th column will generate a weekly average in the Sunday row (my weeks run Mon-Sun to sync with all my other training software) as values are entered for the daily weights.

The 2nd tab is the weekly weight trend and will begin to populate as weights are entered and averages are calculated.

The 3rd tab is just a graph of daily weights, just like MFP does.

Let me know if there are any problems.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgNo1cNLNZ6FfgrmsDcLQLSFEt46faAOTh0oqpGm7wo/edit?usp=sharing

JustSomeEm

ntnunk - I'm coming back after work to download that spreadsheet - it sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing it!