can the scale lie?

sabrekism

hello,

this is prolly the main reason i always fail / stop the diet....and it happened to me today also and im pissed off.

a week ago i have decided to start my new and prolly 1000th diet try and wanted to wright down every single thing happens to me including calories in and calories out by calculating exercises calories and foods calories.

and after a week long of exercises and diet my note book says im supposed to lose like 2 pounds atleast.

but the shocking and disturbing thing after i got on the scale it says 0.5 pounds !

anyone know what the hell is goin on?

NOTE : i have calculated everything BMR - activity level - age - height etc..etc.

plz need help

NewTeena

Losing weight isn't an exact science. All you can do is continue eating healthy and doing exercise. Sometimes the scale will show small losses, and sometimes it will show bigger losses even with similar workouts, no 2 people can expect to get the same results.

Try looking at long term successes (even small ones) instead of short term failures (what YOU consider to be failures). Your long term goal is to be healthier, and getting to that point isn't going to be easy.

Stick with it, it'll happen!

LorinaLynn

Scales are lying pieces of crap. :laugh:

After a week of a new exercise program, you're probably retaining fluid. Exercising creates tiny tears in our muscles which hold onto fluid as they repair. Any stiffness you feel is that inflammation. That's normal and temporary.

Make sure you're tracking your progress in other ways - measurements, how clothes fit, photos, your fitness - because those will keep you motivated when you want to throw the scale off an 18th floor balcony.

dvisser1

I'm sure scales can lie. I swear mine laughed at me for a while!

Seriously though, 1 week is not enough of a time frame to see significant changes. Force yourself to stick to logging everything, food and exercise, and eating a healthy diet for a month and see how you're doing. This is not an exact science. If you eat to much you gain weight. IF you eat way to little, your body freaks out and you retain every last calorie. When you make sudden and significant changes to your diet and exercise patterns, your body needs time to adapt.

sabrekism

what i really need to know is wich is the right weight im on it now is it the scale or the calculations on my paper that says in theory im 2 pounds down?

should i cut down 2 pounds and make it official loss ? or the scale's 0.5 pound loss?

im asking this because i want to update my progress plan for my second week

Rays_Wife

This is something I have found helpful in the past. I did not write this Hope it helps.


"Why the Scale Lies"

By Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings.

From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it. Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue. Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale

Rays_Wife

IMO just put down the .5 pound loss. If you really have lost more then eventually it will show on the scale. Trust me I know it's hard but you just have to be patient. You just started, give it time. Some weeks I lose nothing or only a tiny amount even though calculations say I should lose more. Our bodies are not machines. They lose at their own rate. Just stick to it and don't give up. Persistence is key

dvisser1

what i really need to know is wich is the right weight im on it now is it the scale or the calculations on my paper that says in theory im 2 pounds down?

should i cut down 2 pounds and make it official loss ? or the scale's 0.5 pound loss?

im asking this because i want to update my progress plan for my second week

The scale. Your math on paper doesn't account for water retention, however temporary it is, or for building muscle. I've done the math too, for myself. BMR to get TDEE with an honest activity level minus X lbs per week times 3500 calories to burn 1 lbs of fat, etc.etc... Unless you think the scale is physically broken, go with that number. The human body is a reactive organism, it doesn't play by the rigid rules of mathematics.

Step two: Relax! You're on the right path, just don't over think the whole deal and cause yourself unnecessary stress.

sabrekism

u guys sure that the number on paper will show in future on the scale?

gaiareeves

A few weeks ago I had a really good week and then the scale said I'd gained 2lbs. I just shrugged and moved on, and what d'ya know, the next week those 2lbs were gone. You just have to stick to your guns. If you know you're eating healthy and exercising enough, then if the scale doesn't move straight away, it's not a massive deal. Sometimes it's gonna say you've lost a few lbs, sometimes no lbs, sometimes it'll say you've gained. As long as you know you're being healthy and aren't lying to yourself, then just stick to what you're doing and don't put too much importance on the scale.

In the end, an arbitrary number is not going to tell you how well you're doing; your body is.

SusanFinck

Very informative. I needed to hear this but not as much as my daughter who continues to believe that if she starves herself
she will lose the weight.

MB_Positif

The scale stinks! That said, I try to ignore it lately. I have only lost 2 pounds since January but I have gone down 2 sizes.

ruby_red_rose

I have disassociated the number on the scale from success. And as soon as I was able to do that, I stopped giving up every time there was a temporary gain on my scale.

I consider things that are under my control my success criteria. For example, I consider myself succesful if I eat within my calorie goal, drink enough water, do my cardio and strength, and get enough sleep.

It took me a few months to change my mindset, but once I was able to change it, I realized how much easier it became for me to just stick with being healthy. And it shows! I have lost more than 60 lbs in 10 months, and am approaching goal weight soon.

Hope this helps!
~Rose

nicoleeliza4

Definitely! Take before and after pictures, that's a much better way to see progress. I had bought one of those fancy scales that gives weight, bmi, fat %, bone mass, everything. I've been doing the 30 day shred, seeing huge results yet hadn't losed an ounce since I moved and got this new scale a month ago. Put it towards muscle gain but then when I looked at fat % it had gone up! So exchanged it today for a simple scale and feel so much better! I can clearly see a difference in my latest before and after pics and that's the thing that kept me going when the scale wasn't helping that at all.

sheri02r

Scales are lying pieces of crap. :laugh:

After a week of a new exercise program, you're probably retaining fluid. Exercising creates tiny tears in our muscles which hold onto fluid as they repair. Any stiffness you feel is that inflammation. That's normal and temporary.

Make sure you're tracking your progress in other ways - measurements, how clothes fit, photos, your fitness - because those will keep you motivated when you want to throw the scale off an 18th floor balcony.

Great advice.

Kebby83

The scale doesn't lie - it says how much you weigh. If you gained water - it will show. If you didn't, it will show. If you lost weight it will show. If you just made a rather large bowel movement....it will show. You lost 0.5lb and it told you so so log it. Don't log that you lost 2lb because that's what it said - you lost a 1/4 of that. It will happen if you need to lose weight and are being honest and keeping yourself in reality with progress.

Susabelle64

Stick to what your scale says...........I have been doing this for 2 months now......I have only lost 4lbs according to the scale.......however I have lost 21 inches overall and dropped 1 size. Personally I would put away the scale if you are having such a negative reaction to it and stick to body measurements. I would love to see my scale move more too.....but I have improved my health, quadrupled the number of exercises I can do and dropped inches. The scale will eventually catch up to me, no worries. If you quit, you will not even drop .5 lb a week, and .5lb is still getting you closer to your goal. Honestly when I first started working out I GAINED 2-3lbs but lost inches at the same time!

Try to take it slower, make changes you can live with easily and replace some regular bad foods you eat with some good ones. Develop some new habits that you can stick with and you will make progress.

Jacole18

What a great post! Thank you!

This is something I have found helpful in the past. I did not write this Hope it helps.


"Why the Scale Lies"

By Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings.

From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it. Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue. Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale

yarwell

What if your BMR was 10% less than the estimate ? This is entirely possible, re-run your calcs with a 10% discount off the BMR and see where you get to.

Kimik0123

NO! Chances are it is water weight due to not drinking enough. Sounds wierd, but if you don't drink enough water, your body clings on to what it does have.

kaned_ferret

I'm a bit confused, why are you using paper when MFP has it here and preprogrammed to help you out? Or is that what you meant by "on paper"? I've never paid attention to the "you should weigh x in x weeks if you follow this", because weight loss is often intermittent, especially in the beginning stages of a new regime, as someone has already mentioned. The fact is, worst case scenario you have lost half a pound, in one week. That's great! So keep it up, and keep measuring with the scale - even if not 100% "correct" it will still give you an idea of what percentage you're losing after all

hazelovesfood

I love some of these responses, they make me laugh, i think my scales lie to me all the time, i can get on then and im down, 3 mins later in up, how the hell can that be lol.

sabrekism

really appreciate the replys here

Merrychrissmith

Lying scales! just like mirrors...I KNOW I look like Sean Connery but the dang lying mirror shows an old fat (but getting skinnier) guy. Arrgh