HOW is this POSSIBLE?!?!?

sarabear

How can I weigh myself @ night and then in the morning and be like 5 lbs lighter in the morning??? Does this happen to you and why does it happen???

Jenny18

at night is always the worst time to weigh yourself. You'll always weigh more than in the morning. i don't know the exact reasons but I know it's true!

christinacherrelle

I just posted an article on my blog that talks about this EXACT thing. It will totally clear up why you weigh more or less at different times. My settings are on 'friends only' but just add me and go check it out! Made me feel soo much better after reading it haha

hnlymark

Unfortunatley, I can't say why, but, yes, this happens to me as well. That's why its important to always weigh yourself at the same time and under the same conditions, on the same scale. While this weight may not be 100% "accurate", it becomes your reference, so you CAN accurately assess how much you have lost or gained.

ractayjon

A few years back, after my third child, I need to lose my "baby" weight. I started a diet, started exercising and was going full out - even used a trainer. I was obsessed with the scale and became an "everyday weigher" but didnt tell my trainer. but, everyday I would wake up, go to the bathroom, get naked and weigh myself and write it down. Then every night before bed Id strip naked and weigh myself again. After a month we took my measurements (they were down) and checked all my food diarys (to tweek where needed) and I came out and told my trainer about my weigh ins.
She laughed at me (in a kind way)
But, I learned this about my body. I weigh anywhere from 2- 6 pounds more at night then I do in the morning. Depends on what I eat, how much water, what time I eat and how much sodium I took in. What sort of exercise I did also factors in - a hard cardio workout makes me heavier while a strength workout doesnt effect me as much.
SO - every body is different, this is my story. Im still an obesessive weigher but I realize that I flucuate and why. I take a weekly weigh in as weight lost and the other weigh ins are to keep me tuned into my body.
You should always weigh on the same scale, at the same time of day, under the same circumstances to get the reliabel weigh ins for you -
ever notice when you go to the dr their scale always has you heavier then at home? and they weigh you with clothes and shoes (how is that fair)...but they do it to get a trend - are you around the same as last visit, more, less....
Sorry so wordy - hope this helps.

WISHFULTHINKING

YOU ALWAYS WEIGGH THEW MOST AT NIGHT
SIMPLY CAUSE YOU EAT THROUGH OUT THE DAY.
AND DO WHATEVER.
BUT THE NEXT DAY YOU WAKE UP AND BE 3-5 POUNDS LIGHTER..LOL
I DONT EXACTLY KNOW WHY THIS IS.

Nelski

Undigested food and water

Nelski

oops sorry double post

sarabear

Why The Scale Lies
Thought I'd share one of my favorite articles, aimed at clearing up the long running at-home scale confusion.

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.


Christina found this, Thank you Christina!

bvanam

The answer is quite simple...you still burn calories (albeit at a slower rate than awake) when you sleep and you lose them in the form of heat and moisture (aka sweat, but not necessarily to the extent where your skin feels damp). I am also assuming you go to the bathroom before you weigh in. Basically, you are dehydrated when you wake up, which is why it is healthy to start your morning with a glass of water. This has two benefits...you begin to rehydrate and you might eat a little less at breakfast.

PrincessDesiray

Oh my gosh don't ever weigh yourself at night unless of course you want a boost in how you feel.....like last night I weighed 2 pounds more than in morning and I feel almost good about the 2 pounds lost.