People who weigh themselves daily

TiffanyDawn79

I am one of them. I know it may not be for everyone, but it seems to keep me inline more then if I weigh monthly or even weekly. My question is how do you handle your weight fluctuation!? This is driving me crazy. I work hard all week on my calories and workouts staying within my calorie limits (sometimes not eating enough, bad I know) but it seems like every Monday morning I am up 5+ pounds! I know this is my sodium intake I allow myself a cheat meal and normally have a few beers. But really? 5+ pounds!? It takes me all week to lose that extra weight that I have put on...then it's the weekend again. It is so frustrating!:explode: Do I really have to give up my one cheat meal a week? Anyway I am hoping maybe someone can relate and give me some advise on what has worked for them. Thank you in advance!

Meaganandcheese

if you weigh in everyday, compare the number to the last week's, not the day before. In my experience, the daily weigh ins don't give you the right perspective, but looking over the week shows a bigger picture.

ElizabethRoad

If you're gaining 5 pounds a week and losing 5 pounds a week, you aren't actually losing anything. I would log the cheat meal and see exactly how much you're consuming over the weekend.

bhall33

I am one of them. I know it may not be for everyone, but it seems to keep me inline more then if I weigh monthly or even weekly. My question is how do you handle your weight fluctuation!? This is driving me crazy. I work hard all week on my calories and workouts staying within my calorie limits (sometimes not eating enough, bad I know) but it seems like every Monday morning I am up 5+ pounds! I know this is my sodium intake I allow myself a cheat meal and normally have a few beers. But really? 5+ pounds!? It takes me all week to lose that extra weight that I have put on...then it's the weekend again. It is so frustrating!:explode: Do I really have to give up my one cheat meal a week? Anyway I am hoping maybe someone can relate and give me some advise on what has worked for them. Thank you in advance!

I weigh myself every morning as soon as I wake up, I only enter my weight loss when it drops below my last mark. If I don't weigh myself at the same time every day you will see a big fluctuation in weight. I have weighed myself at night and woke up and was 5lbs lighter.

If you are working the plan exercising and eating less calories than you burn, you will be loosing weight. Even if Monday I'm 180 Tuesday I'm 182 I know that there is no way I gained two pounds in a day so its probably water weight. As long as I stick to the plan as the week goes on it will drop below 180 at some point and I log it.

summergirl73

If you're gaining 5 pounds a week and losing 5 pounds a week, you aren't actually losing anything. I would log the cheat meal and see exactly how much you're consuming over the weekend.

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0lightasair

Instead of skipping your cheat meal, you could increase your exercise for that day. It'll give you a sense of earning your cheat meal and do some damage control on the calorie frontier.

TheWinman

Just to give an idea how weight fluctuates. I did the following to prove a point to my daughter who was obsessed with weighing herself and then would get discouraged when she was eating right, working out and seeing erratic results. I weighed myself on the same scale about 8 times one day. I weighed in when I woke up, before and after meals and before and after the health club. My weight fluctuated within a 5.3 pound range that day.

lambertj

I log it daily as a food note and although it used to drive me crazy, it not longer has that affect on me because I have a month's worth of fluctuations recorded, now I just literally laugh at the scale

valorieflowers

I can at least relate! I am the same way, seems like I lose a pound or two and just gain it back with my cheat food on saturday and just keep going back and forth with that. It sucks, seems like being good all week should afford one cheat day, but apparently not. My cheat days can be pretty epic though. :ohwell:

CherylAnne1988

is it a cheat meal, or a cheat weekend?

yoovie

i track it everyday so that I can run my chart at the end of the month and compare it to my period and eating habits and understand myself better - how long it takes for big eating days to show themselves, fasting to show itself, what my sleep and weight is like on weeksn when I workout more than normal, etc

knittygirl52

I weighed myself every day for my first 2 years on here. In fact, I was working through the Beck Diet Solution book, which encouraged this so you would learn what weight fluctuations look like. And I DID find it helpful. Yes, sometimes discouraging, but it did keep me on track.

However, all that being said, I am no longer doing it. Over the last two years I have been learning more and more about myself, and I no longer feel the NEED to be on the scale every day. Now I am measuring a day's success by what I have accomplished during that day. Rather than getting on the scale each morning, I suggest journaling each night. And its not all diet and exercise either. What have your NSV (non-scale victories) been for the day? Did you pass up the coffeecake? Did you manage to go to the next notch on your belt? Did you give yourself permission to do something FUN other than eating? Did you feel good about yourself in some way? That is what we need to do to get our heads "right" so that our sense of self-worth doesn't depend on the number on the scale!

NewChristina

I also weigh myself daily- I can't help it. I feel like I can immediately make corrections if necessary. For example, I weighed 1 lb more on Thursday and I was really upset. I think it was sodium also and not enough water throughout the day. But at least I can guess at what happened and hope it keeps me in line. I agree with bhall 100%. It has to be the same time every day. And if you were sticking to the program, all is well. If you are allowing yourself beer and a cheat meal, maybe you should only weigh in on Fridays.

dianefisher47

change the day that you weigh yourself in order to enter it...when you weigh on Mondays and if you cheated a bit, wait till wednesday to weigh in...cause like what someone else said..you are entering +5 and -5 all the time must be discouraging...I weigh myself every day but only enter when I loose the weight,,,not the little gains cause I know its water retention:flowerforyou:

rita27ny

i weight myself daily and mutiple times a day. I'm guilty.

dlwyatt82

I weigh and record every day, but I don't let the fluctuations get to me; they just happen. I do a little happy dance when I see a new low every once in a while.

ElizabethRoad

Fluctuations are normal and they're nothing to worry about IF the general trend is down. But if I'm understanding the OP, that's not the case. Changing her weigh-in day would result in a steady loss of zero. Maybe I misunderstood? But it looks like she's saying she gains 5 pounds over the weekend, and that's all she loses during the week.

valorieflowers

I also don't really trust scales. I have owned several where I can weigh myself once pick it up and set it down and then get on again in a few seconds and it will change my reading by 2 or 3 pounds! Even digital scales. They just aren't that acurate I guess...

msudaisy28

Is your overall trend a loss? I weigh daily and I know and expect that there will be fluctuations. The fluctuations don't always follow what I think they will based on my diary (i.e. sometimes the morning after a "bad" day I will actually have lost a bit and sometimes after 2-3 days of working out and staying within my calories (including eating back excercise calories) I will actually have gained a bit) but as long as my 3 month graph shows a downward slope I don't get too caught up in it.

Also, when counting my mini-goals, I don't count it as having met my goal until I have 3 consecutive days where I'm at or below my goal. Getting to 190 lbs was my last mini-goal. I had one day last week where I weighed in at 189.8, but I jumped back up to 190.4 the next day. So I didn't count it as being met until this week when I had 3 days in a row under 190! Now on to 180....

scottb59

Why not compare your Friday morning weights giving you a few days to compensate for the weekend. That may be a better indicator than the Monday weight. I also weigh myself several times a week, but only record Friday morning's weight. I also use Friday as my cheat day giving me 6 days to lose anything I may have gained. By doing this, I've lost 38 pounds since 12/29/11 and 3 pounds this past week!

nikkirec

I weigh every morning and log it, I don't like to see the scale go up but know it's normal so don't let it get to me.

krystina_letitia9

I weigh myself 2x weekly - I feel this makes me more accountable than just 1x week, but I don't obsess as much as if I was doing it daily.

TheWinman

I also don't really trust scales. I have owned several where I can weigh myself once pick it up and set it down and then get on again in a few seconds and it will change my reading by 2 or 3 pounds! Even digital scales. They just aren't that acurate I guess...

You need a different scale then. If I step on and off it a few times it will read the exact weight including the tenth after the decimal point every time. When was the last time you purchased a digital scale?

krystina_letitia9

Just to give an idea how weight fluctuates. I did the following to prove a point to my daughter who was obsessed with weighing herself and then would get discouraged when she was eating right, working out and seeing erratic results. I weighed myself on the same scale about 8 times one day. I weighed in when I woke up, before and after meals and before and after the health club. My weight fluctuated within a 5.3 pound range that day.

I've done this before too, just out of curiosity! So crazy :laugh:

prism6

I am one of them. I know it may not be for everyone, but it seems to keep me inline more then if I weigh monthly or even weekly. My question is how do you handle your weight fluctuation!? This is driving me crazy. I work hard all week on my calories and workouts staying within my calorie limits (sometimes not eating enough, bad I know) but it seems like every Monday morning I am up 5+ pounds! I know this is my sodium intake I allow myself a cheat meal and normally have a few beers. But really? 5+ pounds!? It takes me all week to lose that extra weight that I have put on...then it's the weekend again. It is so frustrating!:explode: Do I really have to give up my one cheat meal a week? Anyway I am hoping maybe someone can relate and give me some advise on what has worked for them. Thank you in advance!

I weigh myself every morning as soon as I wake up, I only enter my weight loss when it drops below my last mark. If I don't weigh myself at the same time every day you will see a big fluctuation in weight. I have weighed myself at night and woke up and was 5lbs lighter.

If you are working the plan exercising and eating less calories than you burn, you will be loosing weight. Even if Monday I'm 180 Tuesday I'm 182 I know that there is no way I gained two pounds in a day so its probably water weight. As long as I stick to the plan as the week goes on it will drop below 180 at some point and I log it.

TheWinman

Is your overall trend a loss? I weigh daily and I know and expect that there will be fluctuations. The fluctuations don't always follow what I think they will based on my diary (i.e. sometimes the morning after a "bad" day I will actually have lost a bit and sometimes after 2-3 days of working out and staying within my calories (including eating back excercise calories) I will actually have gained a bit) but as long as my 3 month graph shows a downward slope I don't get too caught up in it.

Also, when counting my mini-goals, I don't count it as having met my goal until I have 3 consecutive days where I'm at or below my goal. Getting to 190 lbs was my last mini-goal. I had one day last week where I weighed in at 189.8, but I jumped back up to 190.4 the next day. So I didn't count it as being met until this week when I had 3 days in a row under 190! Now on to 180....

I do the same as you. I don't officially record a new weight until I go 3-4 days without ever reaching that weight.

lizard053

You have to get it into your head that fluctuations are perfectly normal. Water weight, food intake, exercise, post-exercise water retention, TOM and others all play a role in your weight. And they all fluctuate daily. If you are up 5+ pounds after the weekend, there can only be two reasons in my eyes. 1. You're doing too big of a cheat. 2. You're allergic to something you only have on the weekends. The only time my weight would jump that high is if I had something with yeast in it, seeing as I'm allergic to it. Otherwise I'm always within 2 pounds or so of the previous day (give or take a little extra around TOM!). Once you understand the little fluctuations you see every day, you can weigh every day and not drive yourself nuts! It used to drive me crazy, but it doesn't any more. I've learned a lot about my weight variations, and my own health with the daily weighing.

McLifterPants

I weigh in every other day because I feel like it keeps me more aware of what's going on with my body. I always weigh myself first thing in the morning, after I've used the bathroom but before breakfast, to provide the least possible variance. I've never noticed more than a 1 lb fluctuation with this method unless I've *actually* gained. So my question to you is, when you cheat, how much do you cheat? My goal calories are 1200 in a day, so on a cheat day I rarely go over 1800, usually closer to 1600. If your cheats are really bad, you could be undoing all your work from the week! Try to still log what you eat even when you cheat so that you don't get too far off track. Remember, a pound is approximately 3500 calories. Also, if you feel the need to really binge, try to only do so every other weekend instead of every weekend, and you may see longer lasting results.

krystina_letitia9

I also don't really trust scales. I have owned several where I can weigh myself once pick it up and set it down and then get on again in a few seconds and it will change my reading by 2 or 3 pounds! Even digital scales. They just aren't that acurate I guess...

You need a different scale then. If I step on and off it a few times it will read the exact every time. When was the last time you purchased a digital scale?

Agreed -- my old scale did this too. I bought a new one, and I have absolutely no problems with it.

drewbird911

Instead of skipping your cheat meal, you could increase your exercise for that day. It'll give you a sense of earning your cheat meal and do some damage control on the calorie frontier.

I like this approach, I've been trying this. I don't always log on the weekend but should.

jennifer52484

I also don't really trust scales. I have owned several where I can weigh myself once pick it up and set it down and then get on again in a few seconds and it will change my reading by 2 or 3 pounds! Even digital scales. They just aren't that acurate I guess...

A flat surface will get rid of the inaccuracy. My scale, no matter how many different ways I step on it. It reads the same if i step on 5 times. Tiled floor can cause a fluctuation in the stability of the scale. Or maybe you need a new scale.