For those who weigh themselves everyday

yaseyuku

Do you often see the scale going up despite staying within your calorie limit? I recently bumped up to 1200 after VLCD and have been sticking with it and being sure to stay within the defect

Though despite staying at 1200 calories, my weight has been either staying the same or even increasing daily. Some days I lose, but then it comes back shortly after.

I know it can possibly be the weight of the food or just water retention but how long does this usually last before you see any weight loss after upping calories?

Mmmmona

I weight myself three times a day.
1. When I wake up (after I use the bathroom and before I eat or drink anything)
2. Afternoon (before lunch, after workout)
3. Evening. (Before dinner, after workout)

I weight more and more as the day goes on. Most in the evening.

I also weigh my food and deduct that from my weight (if I don't go to the bathroom)

bms34b

I tend to weigh daily.

When my weight loss was more steady, I found that I would be doing 1200 for two or three weeks then bumping up to more relaxed calorie limits for another 2 weeks or so. That cycle helped me a lot. If you've not tried it, I highly suggest it. You may gain a few pounds while you eat at your maintenance, it definitely helped me reach my goals overall.

BarackMeLikeAHurricane

I weight myself three times a day.
1. When I wake up (after I use the bathroom and before I eat or drink anything)
2. Afternoon (before lunch, after workout)
3. Evening. (Before dinner, after workout)

I weight more and more as the day goes on. Most in the evening.

I also weigh my food and deduct that from my weight (if I don't go to the bathroom)

Why so often?

Mmmmona

I weight myself three times a day.
1. When I wake up (after I use the bathroom and before I eat or drink anything)
2. Afternoon (before lunch, after workout)
3. Evening. (Before dinner, after workout)

I weight more and more as the day goes on. Most in the evening.

I also weigh my food and deduct that from my weight (if I don't go to the bathroom)

Why so often?

OCD. I like to keep specific track of things.

vickydubuis

I weigh myself everyday, but I am trying my best to stop. It has become an obsession that bums me out on some days.

JohnnyCashMoney

I weigh myself everyday, but I am trying my best to stop. It has become an obsession that bums me out on some days.

Why are you weighing at all! You look fabboo! Just keep doing what you're doing and don't obsess so much.

popsicklestar

I weigh myself everyday. I always do it right when I wake up before I eat anything. Sometimes the scale does go up when I haven't really gone over my calories much, and it's usually because I ate too much sodium the previous day or did a really intense workout and it's due to muscle damage repair. If you haven't eaten over your maintenance calories, you're not actually gaining fat. It's just water weight. The scale can also falsely go down if you're dehydrated. This sometimes happens when you drink alcohol the night before. Make sure you are watching your sodium intake and drinking a lot of water, and weigh yourself at the same time everyday.

hungryhobbit1

I am a compulsive weigher (ok kind of a compulsive everything-er) I used to feel guilty about it but I read a study that found that people who way themselves everyday lose weight more successfully than those who weigh themselves less often. So, yay, enabled!

Anyway, yeah, it varies from day to day. I made a deal with myself that I'm not allowed to get angry or frustrated about it. I know that if I'm eating at a deficit every day, simple physics dictates that I will lose weight. If the scale goes up by .2 - .8 pounds from one day to the next it's probably water, muscle repair, or ? I don't know. But the point is, it eventually always goes back down. I'm doing some cycling now of low net calories days followed by higher net calorie days (keeping it to more or less the same average over the week) and that seemed to kick start some loss.

Ejourneys

I weigh myself daily but I take the long-term picture into account. I got into the habit of daily weighing in 2001-2002. During that weight loss I took a weekly average:


The averages give a smoother decrease than either daily or weekly numbers because the fluctuations are evened out.

These days I log only a decrease in weight. This shows my progress from Sept. 2012 to Feb. 2013:


The long stretches between diamonds represents plateaus and is where my scale numbers go up and down and up again for a while, until they continue to go down. I just make sure I'm doing the right things and remain patient.

craigmandu

Weigh as much as you'd like. Just understand that weight loss is not "linear"....there will be days that the scale doesn't move, or goes up a little, etc...

I personally weigh once a week, keeps me from "second-guessing" what I'm doing.

cdjs77

I weight every day in the morning, after I go to the bathroom but before I shower and eat. At that time for the most part, I am completely empty. I have only seen my weight go up one or two times, however, I usually have my last big meal at about 5 or 6 the night before and maybe a small snack like a pear or an apple at around 8:00. If you eat bigger meals later at night your weight will go up the next morning for a while, as it takes a while for the food to pass through you. If you can, try eating your bigger meals earlier and see if that works out.

bunbunzee44

I weigh myself almost everyday. seems like it takes a week before it 'settles'. I seem to weigh the least on mondays :laugh: no idea why because I eat crappier during weekends.

Ipalavra

I find weighing to only be useful if done sparingly (i.e. weekly, bimonthly). If you weight yourself everyday you might improperly blame fluctuation on certain choices you've made and it could affect your psyche with your goal. Couple that with the emphasis you're putting on numbers rather than what you see in the mirror or emotionally/behavior/mentally.

Also, to add, you're body will regulate its metabolism based on your diet (it had a tendency to want to stay at a certain weight). What this means is that if you commit to a lower calorie diet without any compromise ever, it will tend to stop burning as many calories after a period of time because of no need to. Throw in a day where you eat more calories than your new diet (something like 2000 for you). It will keep your body up to speed.
I know this might sound strange but if I recall correctly, this is exactly what my book and studies have taught me.

Besides, anecdotally, people have used cheat days as a means of actual dieting for this purpose rather than to just indulge. I've noticed it in myself as well when i first started true dieting, after long bouts of dieting, my body would try to refuse an increase in uptake of food on a certain day. I implemented cheat days slowly (concluded at once every 1.5-2.5 weeks depending on snacking breaks in my diet, which at this point really is okay, because it only resets my motivation to prolong my cheat day) and found it to be much more accepting of taking in whatever amount of food i desired on any nonspecific day and I wouldn't feel overwhelmed when eating more OR a big appetite when i ate less; my body just sort of rolled with whatever I chose.

CatMcCheesey

I weigh myself daily but I take the long-term picture into account. I got into the habit of daily weighing in 2001-2002. During that weight loss I took a weekly average:


The averages give a smoother decrease than either daily or weekly numbers because the fluctuations are evened out.

These days I log only a decrease in weight. This shows my progress from Sept. 2012 to Feb. 2013:


The long stretches between diamonds represents plateaus and is where my scale numbers go up and down and up again for a while, until they continue to go down. I just make sure I'm doing the right things and remain patient.

I love this! I'm going to start tracking mine.

Vailara

I weigh daily, and of course my weight fluctuates, but I've been surprised at how little it changes. I don't know when I last saw a change of more than 2 pounds. It's usually a pound either way. I've tried to look out for "reasons" but often it feels like it's random. I lost a pound the other day after two days of eating up to my TDEE. I've now put it back on again.

There might be something else going on, though, if you've changed from a VLCD to 1200. Some posters here recommend doing a metabolic reset, which I think involved eating at your TDEE or close to it for a little while. It's not something I've tried (I haven't done VLCD), but I've read about others doing it. They seem to get a bit of weight gain, then it evens off. It might be something that's worth looking into.

AnexRavensong

I weigh myself everyday because I'm curious to see weigh fluctuations one day to the next even if they annoy me because it can be like 3lbs in one day. However, I only officially weigh in once a week and update my measurements that day as well.

For only eating 1200 calories I'm not surprised your weight doesn't move though. That's what happened to me when I ate like that for years. It's not enough. I don't know WHY MFP puts that as the default for everyone. It's like the generic BMR calorie measurement... and I know my BMR is 1400 something (too early to dig up the exact number)... so I eat more than that and lose weight.

I know it is slightly off-topic, but if you dont notice your weight moving again you might want to consider eating more and reading this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/974888-in-place-of-a-road-map-2k13

Lyadeia

I weigh myself monthly because I don't have a lot to lose, and daily would certainly just piss me off since the changes would be so small in either direction.

This summer I will be participating in a fat loss challenge attempting to win the "most ripped female" award, and to follow the rules, I have to weigh in weekly. But there's no point in stressing over it as long as you know that you are on the right track. I tend to put much more stock in circumference measurements, body fat measurements, and simply how good my clothes look/feel over the scale weight.

CristinaL1983

I weigh everyday. I don't worry about the fluctuations unless they last more than a week (and it's not shark week). If you know you're logging accurately, don't worry about it.

As far as how long it will take to even back out, figure 4-6 weeks. You didn't specify how much you increased your food intake but figure that much food is now regularly sitting in your system (and it wasn't before) and if it's accompanied by an increase in fiber and carbs (which it should be unless you're doing keto or something) there will be more water in your system as well. They say that with any significant change in eating habits, wait 4-6 weeks before weight loss equals the amount of water/food being retained. Could be less than that if your deficit is higher.

lilalief

I used to weigh myself daily, sometimes twice a day. Now, I try to limit my weigh-ins to once or twice a week. A daily weigh-in did motivate me when I saw the number drop, however, on those days when I weighed more than the previous day, I got desperated which resulted in binging. That's why I decided to stay strong and only weigh myself once or twice a week, ha ha.