Have I REALLY lost weight?

misssmarita

I assumed you've all had weeks where you're down 0.1 - 0.9 lbs. My question is: is that really weight loss? Well, of course it IS, because I know it's less weight, and that a loss is a loss, but that happened to me this week, and in the back of my mind I went "well that could just be natural fluctuation of my weight, could just as easy been a gain". Assuming that a person always weighs in at the same time of the day, and in the same "state" (for me that's after I wake up and pee, before I have breakfast, completely naked); how do you know whether or not to chalk up a small difference in weight to natural fluctuation? How big does the difference from your last weigh in have to be to count it as a "real" loss?

lsmsrbls

It's not the magnitude of the short term difference that matters, it's the long term trend.

weird_me2

Honestly, I say any loss is a loss. In truth, if I see a smaller loss, I'm more likely to believe that it's "real" than if I see that I've lost 5 lbs or something. I track my weight every single day, though, so I do understand that a small loss today might be a small gain tomorrow, etc, but if my over all trend is down week by week or even month by month, I'm happy. A loss is a loss. My average loss rate for the past 50 weeks is .8 lbs. I'd say that it's real!

auddii

I record accurately once a week whether up or down. There's an overall trend of down, even if I see a 4lb gain one week (thank you salt and TOM).

runningwiththepups

I go on my scale at random all week, and in different stages of dress (including with shoes!). Only one weigh-in counts (Tuesday AM). I end up seeing progress myself when the scale starts hitting what used to be my "official/low" weight of weeks prior when I'm wearing shoes/just eaten. My last real victory (slightly NSV) was when I was wearing jeans, sneakers, t-shirt and a sweatshirt, and was still weighing in under 170