Why do people weigh themselves so much?

musycnlyrics

About a year ago, I weighed myself obsessively, every day, multiple times a day. When i began to have an emotional response to the number and it began to "make or break" my day, I stopped. I would only weigh every once in a while to see where I was.

When I began to change my eating habits and exercise in earnest (around December last year) I began to weigh every day again. I, like many of my fellow nerds, love to see the fluctuations so that I can accurately track/monitor my progress.

For example, I know that when Aunt Flo visits, my weight will jump 4-10 pounds in either direction for the first 2 days. by the 3 and final day, it will be within 2lbs of what I started with. By day 5, I'm back into measurable range.
After a night of chips and soda, my weight will be up. After a water overload (after days of sodium) I will be down 4-5lbs. I don't count that as a true loss because I know its just my body releasing retained water. The only way I'm able to say this is because i weigh every day.
When I have a "pig out" night. I weigh myself in the morning to "see the damage". i know it won't stick (not from one day of eating terribly) but it shows me where my weight WILL go if I continue to eat terribly.

It helps me alot and keeps me accountable. I know that my weight will fluctuate, but if I see a downward trend, I am happy. I only log a weight if it stays there longer than 3 days...I have another app that I track my weight every single day and I add notes so that I can compare for any crazy fluctuations...
weighing everyday is not for everyone as it can be damaging to your motivation/ego/weight loss journey. We are our own worst enemies and the voices in our head are our worst critics. If your scale ruins your day, throw it out and get a tape measure.

rockerbabyy

when im losing, i only weigh about once a month. i used to weigh daily and i liked seeing the numbers go down every day but i was way too hard on myself if they went up.
now that im pregnant, i weigh once a week, mostly because thats how often my dr appointments are now, but after the baby is born ill be going back to monthly

TAsunder

Add me to the data freak camp. However, I used to weigh myself a couple of times per day. I eventually discovered that I "lose" two to eight pounds when I sleep. I still don't entirely understand what all is going on to cause that. Some combination of exhaling water vapor and emitting heat I guess. The existence of this mysterious biological situation drove me crazy and I eventually decided once per day was enough.

kazzsjourney

For me - accountability (and having lost 183 pounds so far it has worked! lol)

med2017

obsession to be perfect

farway

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.

Why are you so concerned at what others do? Live your life & let them live theirs

I weigh every morning, just to check

besaro

ignorance is bliss.

wikitbikit

Since someone hared the existence of the Libra app the other day, I now weigh myself daily just so I can input a new number. It excites me!

edit: Seriously, I get up, pee, get naked, weigh myself, and login to the app and update, lol

SueInAz

Scale fluctuations don't bother me and I like knowing what my weight is every day. I also take my temperature pretty often when I'm running a fever.

I almost always weigh myself before and after a run, too. It lets me know how much water I've lost and therefore how much extra water I need to drink that day.

kaperlinger

Accountability. I only track the number once every week, but weighing every day lets me know if I'm moving in the right direction. If I don't like what I see I know I need to be extra strict with my diet and push a little harder at the gym. I will admit I've become a tad bit obsessive over the scale, but it's working for me so I don't feel the need to change anything at this point.

fitgal05

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!

I hear that, sometimes when you see the scale go down you have to recheck..lol. I weigh daily for the same reason. So I know if adding carbs back will change my weight or any other foods I might change...dairy...etc...

lfergurson1

I gave my scale away for 30 days I weigh myself at least 8 times a day . It's sad!

likitisplit

I'm totally obsessive about it. But I know that what I care about is body fat %, which my scale does NOT directly measure and it's impossible to take it seriously when you lose three pounds in an afternoon. But it's fun and it reminds me of my commitment.

wolfchild59

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.

This is very much true. I stopped worrying about the number on the scale so much when I saw it more regularly.

alsoagood1

I weigh every Monday morning before I leave the bathroom first thing in the morning. I know some people like to see their weight every single day but I'm not one of those people!

LeahT84

I weigh in once a week to see what if what I am doing all week long is working. Look at the scale every day gets me down. If I have a two pound loss at the end of the week, then I am happy with that, I can't keep looking over and over expecting better numbers. I step on once on sunday morning. That's it.

savithny

Data freaks -- do you actually know the accuracy of your scale? I've tried to figure out the +\- accuracy of different scales on amazon, but they don't say. I kno digital readouts aren't always actually accurate to the decimals they read out (digital fever thermometers read to the nearest 0.1, but for charting basal temp they're only accurate to 0.2, which isn't good enough to detect trends...

Are any of the home scales actually accurate to a tenth of a pound, or even a whole pound? Growing up, the spring scales everyone had were only accurate to the nearest 2 pounds (if expensive) or 5 pounds (if cheap)

jennmariepantoja

I weigh every morning as well.
I like to see the scale go up and down so I can collect data and mental notes on the food I ate.
I get motivated when I see it go down and I don't beat myself up when it goes up after I made some bad decisions.

melindanew

Data freaks -- do you actually know the accuracy of your scale? I've tried to figure out the +\- accuracy of different scales on amazon, but they don't say. I kno digital readouts aren't always actually accurate to the decimals they read out (digital fever thermometers read to the nearest 0.1, but for charting basal temp they're only accurate to 0.2, which isn't good enough to detect trends...

Are any of the home scales actually accurate to a tenth of a pound, or even a whole pound? Growing up, the spring scales everyone had were only accurate to the nearest 2 pounds (if expensive) or 5 pounds (if cheap)

I don't know how accurate mine are, but I figure if I use the same scale every day, it doesn't actually matter. The same inaccuracy is there every day so the trend is roughly correct.

I do weigh myself every day, but only write it down about once a week or so.

1ConcreteGirl

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.

The first thing to realize is that not everyone is the same. If you realize this, many things become much easier to understand.

There is no reason not to weigh yourself every hour if the fluctuations don't get in your head and you know they don't reflect your actual weight. That said, I only weigh weekly.

MayaSPapaya

It becomes like an addition...
It becomes, "Oh I ate so well yesterday! Let's see if I dropped more weight"
Or "I pigged out at the BBQ restaurant last night. Let's see if I gained anything".
Luckily I stopped doing that, because the fluctuations don't help anything.

brendacs21

I weigh myself monday so i can show myself what terrible eating on the weekends does to me! Then i weigh tuesday to see if ive lost any of it....then i weigh saturday morning to show myself what good eating habits during the week produce. its a vicious cycle for me i kinda wanna just throw away the scale for a month and do what im supposed to then check in !lol

Erisad

It's an addiction I fear, I used to weigh myself every day but now I reduced it to twice a week.

gobraves47

I'm curious--the fluctuations don't bother me at all. If I wake up 3 pounds heavier than yesterday, I know I didn't eat 10k extra calories and it isn't fat I gained. It's because I ate too much sodium, took cold medicine, need to poop, or some other mysterious reason. I weigh pretty much every time I go in the bathroom. Obviously, like everything else in life, it doesn't work for everyone.

ZellyKat

I see a scale, I jump on it.

Sometimes I am motivated by it and sometimes I get depressed by it. I guess it depends on the day I am having. Probably shouldn't do it as much though. Monday is going to be my weigh in day from now on.

Scales drive me nuts sometimes, we have two in this house and both tell me completely different things. I'm just going to stick to my scale though.

michelle7673

Honestly, I think I need the accountability. I didn't realize how much I'd gained, and I was afraid to get on a scale and see it. I didn't even weigh myself until I'd been tracking and working out for weeks. So getting on it does take the fear out of it, and minimizes its importance to an extent. I know that sounds backwards, but it's true for me.

kar328

When I tried losing weight with Weight Watchers about 20 years ago, I became scale obsessed. I was on a few times a day. I learned which of my clothes was the lightest for weigh in, and that for some reason i weighed less after my shower. But it was definitely an obsession.

I'm doing some hypnotherapy currently and the therapist has given me a suggestion to only get on the scale once a week and I do. I hop on two or three times in a row to make sure the scale is working :laugh: but then I'm off till the next week. I just don't want to get overly obsessed like last time. Weekly works for me.

Duck_Puddle

Data freaks -- do you actually know the accuracy of your scale? I've tried to figure out the +\- accuracy of different scales on amazon, but they don't say. I kno digital readouts aren't always actually accurate to the decimals they read out (digital fever thermometers read to the nearest 0.1, but for charting basal temp they're only accurate to 0.2, which isn't good enough to detect trends...

Are any of the home scales actually accurate to a tenth of a pound, or even a whole pound? Growing up, the spring scales everyone had were only accurate to the nearest 2 pounds (if expensive) or 5 pounds (if cheap)

I don't know how accurate mine are, but I figure if I use the same scale every day, it doesn't actually matter. The same inaccuracy is there every day so the trend is roughly correct.

I do weigh myself every day, but only write it down about once a week or so.

Exactly. It doesn't matter to me if the scale is accurate to the microgram-it doesn't need to be in order to measure the trends I see. I don't see jumps of .2 lbs, it's usually 3+, and I'm looking more at the direction than the actual number (up a chunk after eating enough salt to preserve a buffalo carcass, down again 3 days later). Actual weight loss over time is also an up and down trend-but whether my scale is accurate to the milligram or not, I'm pretty sure the trend from the 230's to the 150's is within the accuracy range. If I was more concerned about the absolute specific number, or if I was working with a smaller range, I might be more concerned. But as a daily weigher, I'm not really all worked up about the absolute specific number that shows up.

auriga2

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auriga2

I like to because I'm always amazed that I gain three lbs from morning to night.

Yes Yes! This is me exactly.