The Scale...

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  • alxinhim2
    alxinhim2 Posts: 81 Member
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    I weigh myself every morning after I use the bathroom as well. I think it is really up to you. Personally I like to every day, but some like to weekly, monthly, etc. Knowing how much I weigh every day helps me keep going for my goal. If i gain a pound.. i try harder.
    So far... 11lbs in a few weeks.. so something is working! haha
  • bellstalker
    bellstalker Posts: 30 Member
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    I weigh daily...but don't stress about it. I post my weight once I've stayed at it for 2-3 times. I am close to my goal and concerned with toning now...scale isn't everything!!
  • minizebu
    minizebu Posts: 2,716 Member
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    I find that when I weigh daily, small fluctuations don't bother me, and I can usually figure out why they happened based on my food intake, i.e. sodium or glycogen. When I weighed in weekly, if I was having a bloated day, I'd just see that number on the scale and it would depress me. Now I know the patterns of my body and can shrug off small gains.

    This is a very good point. I weigh myself daily and record the changes on a chart that I keep taped to the wall in the bathroom. The day to day fluctuations do not bother me. Once a week I look at the last 7 days and I mark a dot next to the lowest weight during that 7 day period. This helps me to observe the trend. (It's easier than plugging all the data into an Excel spreadsheet and actually calculating a moving average.)

    One thing that I have noticed is that if I look simply at, say, one Friday and compare it to the following Friday, there is sometimes no change or maybe a 0.2lb change. The reason for the small variance or even no change is that we all have water weight gains/losses, depending on our sodium intake, how much we drink, what time of the month (for women), etc.

    I sometimes wonder if the people who claim to be on a plateau are weekly weighers. They may just be catching themselves at a point where one week their water weight was down and the following week their water weight was up, so it looks to them like they have had no progress.

    I think that if you are going to weigh yourself, either do it every day and don't let the day-by-day changes bother you, or do it far less often, like once a month (or once every two weeks like one of the other posters mentioned).
  • SJCon
    SJCon Posts: 224
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    Weighing in daily wont hurt you but it wont help you either in terms of long term goals. The only thing weighing every day will do is frustrate a lot of ppl. Your body doesnt change overnight- you will weigh less in the morning than you do in the evening...you will weigh 2 pounds less one day and the next you have gained it all back. That's due to a lot of reason's but mostly water changes in your body. It can drive some people nutty to look at the fluctuations on a daily basis. Your body composition doesnt change that much on a daily basis but your mood can if you get frustrated at loosing one pound one day and gaining 3 pounds the next. A better practice is to measure your weight no more than once a week-do it at the same time of day, preferable in the morning before you eat. Bodyfat changes take time so there really isnt a need to weigh every day.

    How do you know that the one day you weigh in your week is representative of your true or trending weight? That day could have been the day after a hard weight workout or salt fest and you are holding water. Seeing a daily weight lets you at least guess as to what is going on. IMO
  • marcenepea
    marcenepea Posts: 364 Member
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    I weigh in most days, but only log my weight on Mondays. Well except for this Monday because I went crazy over the weekend, so next Monday I will log. Hopefully that will be a bit more accurate.
  • MuffinTopCadz
    MuffinTopCadz Posts: 17
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    No i weigh once a month, i will get discouraged if i dont see any movement
  • stuffinmuffin
    stuffinmuffin Posts: 985 Member
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    I think it's up to you and how stepping on the scales daily might make you feel. If you find you haven't had a loss or you've gained would ruin your day then I would say weigh in less frequently.

    The body's weight fluctuates so much that I would find daily weigh-ins really dis-heartening.

    When losing weight I would weigh in once a week and now I weigh in about once a fortnight.

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