Daily weighing (I'm a rebel) :)

ANewLucia

My weight loss is weird as my weight can fluctuate daily by alot. The way I know if I am on track is by looking at the last month as a whole. I am logging my calorie intake and loss on an excel document as the reports on MFP are pretty useless. (I do love MFP though)

So I am seeing a pattern of about 10 days where my weight goes up and down and looks very random them BAM! I will go down to a new lowest weight of about 3 - 3.3 pounds less than my last lowest weight.
That weight will stay for a couple of days then my weight increases overnight again to take back most of these pounds and will spend another ten days watching it go up and down between the new lowest weight and the old baseline.

Being able to plot my weight on a spreadsheet really shows up long term patterns much clearer. So glad I did it because now I don't stress over what I think is me stalling. Its just the way my body likes to lose weight.
If I didn't know that I need at least ten days between my loss showing then every 7 days I would be stressing over "no progress". If I didnt know that my body seems at this stage to like to gain most of the fat lost back as water weight and hold on for another week I would be stressed about that too. So for me weighing everyday has chilled me out alot.

I have felt frustrated until I looked at the spreadsheet numbers which show that speadout over time my weight loss has averaged 0.94 a week (2.07 pounds) for Feb and 0.75 kilo a week (1.65 pounds) for March.

For me its more about having enough information about how my body responds to what I am doing. I am my own science experiment and I am enjoying the process!
I am hoping to be able to use the info to encourage others later that go through the first uncertain couple of months when they up their calories.

Excel : )

This is my story exactly (well almost exactly). I'm not really seeing any measurable weight loss, but still looking for the sweet spot for calories. I'll get there.

Interestingly, my weight is it's lowest during TOM and the highest during ovulation. Maybe that a pre-menopause thing - who knows.

I'm not techy enough to create a spreadsheet and can barely use one....:noway: I just chart my daily weight on my calendar and average them on Saturdays.

I be most interested in a spreadsheet if anyone wants to share!

https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/HackDiet/

jamk1446

Ok, it sounds to me that it is good for you to track your calories closely and eat maintenance for the six/eight weeks the book suggests. This will allow you to stabilize. You sure aren't gaining, the weight fluctuations I bet coincides with your lifts, but I think with you were eating so low before you were storing the fat which is why the measurements didn't go down...fat takes up more space. You may be gaining a little muscle too now that you are lifting as well so a bit more bulk.

So, I would say, keep at TDEE, keep doing the workout routine and track your weight...once you hit that 8wk mark your metabolism should be all revved up then you can start with a 10% cut to see if the weight loss starts again...then go to 15%...

Trust me on one thing...get in your protein...at least 1gr per lb of body weight...and keep at it...you will hit a corner and lean out...you are doing the right things...it just takes time. I believe stressing is a hinderance during the process because the body releases cortisol which is linked to belly fat as well.

So, please relax in the process and know that things will move in the direction you are looking for.

I completely agree about the cortisol, I think that's what I was seeing when I decided to take a rest week. I overloaded my adrenals in the past and I had low adrenal function I had to heal for several years. I don't want a relapse. I'd been doing okay on my protein but still probably 20-30grams short per day so I will continue to work on upping that number. I've always felt that everything else usually fell into place in the past when I got this number right and as a result eating and weight loss and then maintenance were easy. I just need to build up to the right level for what I'm doing now.

Thank you for the encouragement. I really appreciate it.

lillebanon

Interestingly, my weight is it's lowest during TOM and the highest during ovulation. Maybe that a pre-menopause thing - who knows.

Same here (except I am hopefully not pre-menopausal at age 31). My peak lows almost always hit on the first day of my TOM, with my highs about two weeks later.

JadeRabbit08

I have to say, I truly love the charting thing....I am noting the weight in the morning along with what happened the day before if there was a lift, high sodium...I am seeing the fluctuations based on what happened the day before...so neat to see it graphed...

Yeah really I just like the playing with numbers geekery of it
Other stuff on my table that feeds into charts - Net calories, exercise calories, TOM, just putting sodium in now. I have colour coding as well showing the downward or upward trend day by day on the actual chart as well as colour code on the calories showing if there was a day that I had to roughly estimate calories (if I eat out usually).

I am thinking about doing more measurements and starting to chart that. That line should be more linear as less fluctuations would occur.

rmk20togo

Trust me on one thing...get in your protein...at least 1gr per lb of body weight...and keep at it...you will hit a corner and lean out...you are doing the right things...it just takes time. I believe stressing is a hinderance during the process because the body releases cortisol which is linked to belly fat as well.

So, please relax in the process and know that things will move in the direction you are looking for.

Try as I might, I have NEVER hit 1gr of protein per lb (164). I don't see any way without going way over on daily calories or giving up a substantial amount of food to supplement with whey protein.....and I eat nuts, cheese, meat and eggs almost every day and add greek yogurt when calories permit.

Off to do more protein research (a/k/a stalking your diary)!

KeriA

Set up an excel spreadsheet ot track today. Let's see how I do at it. I won't get off maintenance calories for a few weeks but this will help me see if I am getting enough net calories. So far I haven't most days come up to my calorie goal but getting better. Then when I lower down by 15% it will be interesting to see how it goes. One thing I have found is that my fluctualtions have lessened since I have upped my calories. Thanks for the thread.

mickeyluvchocolat

thank you for posting that!!!

I usually take 10 pounds around TOM!!!!

I also weight everyday just to figure out how my body work and react.... Keep in mind that it's my friday weight that counts!

Good luck everybody!

juicemoogan

https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/HackDiet/

USE THIS SITE!! Its fantastic!! Plot your average/trend of weightloss, and you will see that the small ups and downs are really NOT something to worry about as much as we do.. Its the overall trend thats important.

jamk1446

I think (hope) my weight may be leveling off. I was at 160 Thursday and Friday mornings, then I spent Friday-Monday at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. I'm not much of a drinker and I ate at least at maintenance but surely more (but not ridiculously so). My weight this morning was also 160. I start back to my lifting tomorrow, so I'll see what happens.

fmbomzo

This post is food for my soul. I have been dealing with the crazy ups and downs of my weight as well. I lost 10 lbs back in January and maintained that but no additional loss through March when I started MFP.Beyond the 10 lbs, I've managed to lose and gain the same 3 lbs since March but never more. I think my body's getting adjusted to the new low. It hovers between 167.2 and 169.8. The fluctuation can vary from .4 lbs up to 2 lbs daily. I will definitely start charting daily.

lambertj

I think this may be one of my favorite posts on MFP. Its so comforting to know i'm not alone. I find that weighing in daily keeps me from going too crazy and shows me just how much body weight fluctuates daily. Sadly, no matter how many times I tell myself that I will not let TOM weight bother me, it's still so annoying! LOL

SweatpantsRebellion

Thanks for the link. The Hacker's Diet charting seems like it will be great. I like tracking things. I've not been very honest in my MFP tracking. I only post when I have a loss. I too have noticed that I lose, gain it back, bounce around, and then drop to a new low. So I had no idea prior to this post that this is what other people experience. I'm looking forward to using the charting on Hacker's Diet to see if I notice any correlations.

I'm new to this group, so I'll post an intro. somewhere when I get a chance!

indrani1947

If anyone is interested in an online tool that automatically graphs a trend line of your daily weights make an account at

https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/HackDiet/

Mostly for those who don't want to set up their own spreadsheet. it also looks very nice and has a lot of handy tools you can use.

Thanks for the link it's so nice to see a downward trend even if it is slow..but shows how I can stall and then lose to play catchup at about .4lb per week which is what mfp predicts

Sabine_Stroehm

Yep. How I consider it: I get a preview of my new low, then wait a few days and actually get to keep it. Happens every time. And, it happened the other time I dieted (when I originally lost weight). I actually used to log it as my preview weight.

witrixie2011

Been charting since January 1st and every 4 weeks I drop a huge amount. That's this week..... I'm very anxious to see if it actually happens again! :laugh:

Sabine_Stroehm

True to form my "preview weight" disappeared. Because I weigh daily, I know it will reappear and then finally stay.

fmbomzo

I have to say that charting daily is really helping me. I see a pattern now much like previous posters have described. I lose a few lbs "dramatically", then it goes back up to my previous low for a while and bounces. Then I go back down to the new low and hang around for a while. So now that I know it is bouncing downward, I'm less anxious about the ride.

Sabine_Stroehm

I have to say that charting daily is really helping me. I see a pattern now much like previous posters have described. I lose a few lbs "dramatically", then it goes back up to my previous low for a while and bounces. Then I go back down to the new low and hang around for a while. So now that I know it is bouncing downward, I'm less anxious about the ride.

Exactly. I've only ever REALLY dieted once before (I lost 20LBS about 15 years ago, and kept it off). I weighed daily. I believe if I hadn't I would have quit. If I was weighing weekly and my weigh ins happened to correspond to ovulation, or pms, or eating indian food I would have quit. It was only through seeing my body's rhythms that I was able to feel okay about small increases and keep going.