Why do people weigh themselves so much?

tbullucks06

I don't get it. I don't want to see the flucuations. They drive me crazy. Also, I would never weigh myself immediately after a bad day of eating. Why would you want to see a gain????? Your body has to have time to adjust. Maybe it's motivation for others but it seems insane to me.

nikkohli

I weigh every morning and I like seeing the fluctuations. It lets me know how my body reacts to certain eating patterns and TOM. It doesn't matter if I had a bad day of eating or a good day---any time you weigh yourself after eating, you will see a gain from the volume of food.

Also, I mentioned to my friends today how the scale LIES! I weighed myself as soon as I woke today and was a certain weight, then after the shower (dry hair, dry body, no food still) and gained a pound and a half in that 20 minutes :laugh: It reminds me that I shouldn't trust the scale and pay attention to my inches and my clothes


ETA: I don't usually weigh myself multiple times in a short period but I saw a number today I hadn't seen in a long time and wanted to see it again.....which didn't happen haha!

bokodasu

It's not about motivation, it's about data collection. If you don't want to know things like "how much water do I retain after pizza night?" then don't do it. But if you *do* know that, and you happen to have had pizza the night before your weekly weigh-in, then you don't freak out when you see an extra 20 ounces on the scale that day.

Greenrun99

People think the weight will drop after 1 day of eating correctly and exercising, only to realize it varies based on a ton of different factors.. They want to see instant results from their sacrifice.

jacksonpt

I weigh myself all the time. I know what the scale number represents... I know what's being weighed so hourly/daily fluctuations don't bother me. I have a healthy relationship with my scale.

chocl8girl

I enjoy the science behind the fluctuations. I like seeing an overall trend. But then, I'm a total nerd. Also helps that FINALLY, the number on the scale doesn't really mean all that much to me.

Mokey41

I'm maintaining now and I rarely get weighed unless I feel my clothes getting tight. I now as long as I eat right and exercise I don't need to obsess over the scale. I think it's a bad habit to get into.

SweetestLibby

data collection. I know how my weight fluctuates during my cycle. How my birth control affected my weight when I first started taking it. How, what types of foods, and sodium intake, etc will affect it...

EmmaReed84

I have weighed myself daily as I suffer with IBS and knowing the fluctuations helped me. I will now weigh once a week on a Friday and will be better able to gauge any gains or loses depending on what my body is doing.

GauchoMark

I weigh daily as well. Mainly so then the scale goes up or down, I have enough data to see if it is real or not. Simply having one datapoint for a relatively inaccurate measurement is pretty useless.

wibutterflymagic

Also, I mentioned to my friends today how the scale LIES! I weighed myself as soon as I woke today and was a certain weight, then after the shower (dry hair, dry body, no food still) and gained a pound and a half in that 20 minutes :laugh: It reminds me that I shouldn't trust the scale and pay attention to my inches and my clothes

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has had this happen. I thought it was just that I had a crappy scale.

I also like to see the fluctuations so I know what is normal. If you don't know what normal is you can't determine when something is really off.

rabblerabble

I weigh every single morning right after my shower before drinking or eating anything. I track it in a spread sheet with a line for each week where I compute the maximum, minimum, and average for the week. While the trend for me has been steadily declining over time, there are bumps back up on particular days and they seem to often occur TWO days after a less than ideal eating day. But as long as my weekly average is consistently decreasing a bit, I'm happy.

krissy_krossy

I like to see the fluctuations. I don't track every day on here (I use a different app) but I just like doing it and I don't let it drive me crazy.

lithezebra

If weighing themselves helps them stay motivated, more power to them. I measure my waist every few days. It fluctuates too, but has the advantage of not tricking me into thinking that muscle mass means I'm gaining body fat.

literatelier

I weigh every single morning right after my shower before drinking or eating anything. I track it in a spread sheet with a line for each week where I compute the maximum, minimum, and average for the week.

Ha!!! I do the exact same thing!!

bbyrley

So far, weighing frequently motivates me especially when it reads less than my weigh in weight. I do weigh in and track my weight once a week and measure and track once a month.:blushing: ::bigsmile:

Lunira

I weigh every morning, right after I get out of the bed and use the bathroom. Not only is the data collection aspect fascinating, but it helps keep me focused on my goals. Where I work, my coworkers tend to bring a lot of junk food to share (cupcakes, donuts, etc.) and it's easier to stay away from all that stuff if I can think to myself... "You know, you're going to see that on the scale a couple mornings from now if you eat a bunch of that..."

wolfchild59

I weigh daily because seeing the fluctuations really helps me stay grounded in regards to the changes on the scale. I know that I can be spot on with calories and macros, but way over in sodium, and I’ll have an increase from the sodium. Or I can eat over my calories, but have it not be a sodium blowout, and still go down the next day. I know that I can “gain” 10 pounds in three days of constant bad eating, but that over half of that will drop back off in the following three days. I gain about.2 to .4 pounds every day leading up to TOM and then drop it after it starts.

Most importantly, when I originally started weighing every day, it helped me break the cycle of having a cheat every week. I’d thought that I was basically maintaining and was trying to use the cheat each week to break through that plateau. What I discovered when I started weighing daily is that I would lose a little bit of weight almost every single day of the day of the week, then my cheat meal would add it all back on, and then I’d spend the next week losing that same jump on the scale all over again. So I stopped the weekly cheat and saw a more steady overall decrease from week to week.

I don’t log it here every day, I only log every other Saturday. But I do keep track of my daily weight in a spreadsheet where I also track my calories and macros. When I eat too low on carbs and too high on fat for many days in a row, my weight starts to increase. Drop the fat and increase the carbs back up, the weight starts going back down. I know that, and all of the stuff I listed above because I weigh myself daily.

Is it for everyone? No. But has it helped me? Definitely.

Ed98043

I think if you're able to not get emotionally upset by daily weigh-in fluctuations or plateaus, more power to you. However, some people (like, me, though I'm getting better) see the numbers go up or stay the same for no apparent reason and the old inner voice starts to whisper that it's no use, all that effort for nothing, I weighed the same when I ate whatever I wanted so what's the point, etc. If you're one of those people, it's best to limit the scale. I personally weigh a couple of times a week and never after a big dinner the night before because, while I may not have exceeded my calories, I know that giant salad is sitting in my gut and weighing 5 lbs. I prefer to weigh the morning after my fasting day - it's always good news.

GuybrushThreepw00d

Once you weigh yourself every day for a few weeks you understand the fluctuations that naturally happen.
The number means less and less, the more I weigh myself.

Just2Bhappy

In hopes they dropped 20 pounds over night. :P