How does weighing once a week make sense?

Seaglass1123 · February 2013

I weigh in every morning. I never understood the "once a week" method either. Weighing in every morning holds me accountable and it works for me, so that's the only logic I have behind it. I would say, do whatever works best for you!

This!

teebeegeebee · February 2013

I go to the gym every day and use the cardio machines so I weigh myself and take advantage of the guidance the machines can offer
I enter my wieght, age and time as part of my programme and then the machine warns me if I push my heart too hard
so its worth it
It also tells me to keep going
my gyms scales are in kg and have a decimal plae weight read out
I find it usefull but i dont worry if i go up, as stockbrokers say the value of share can go up and down - well I spent a lot of money investing in my belly so why not expect to see a surge now and then ........

vlpenney74 · February 2013

The best advice is to be consistent with time. If you want to weigh every day do it at the SAME time every day because even an hour difference can make a 1-2 pound difference. I think the main reason most say to only weigh once a week is because you see a real change. By weighing everyday you may only notice a difference of an ounce or two which wouldn't be very encouraging, but weekly you may see it in pounds. Personally I weigh myself at 7:00 pm every day. (Trust me it can change as much as a pound if I do it an hour or two before that.) But I only record the weight once a week. That way I still see the bigger weekly difference but can keep myself on track too.

sullus · February 2013

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/comptools.html

Not supporting the Diet proposed, but the spreadsheet offered is a good tool. It tracks daily weights, then uses a moving average to graph an actual weight trend. So having a weigh-in that's "up" a little will cause the loss trend line to flatten a little, but you can still see the real trend.

It will give you a graph like this:

Where the points are your actual weights, and the red line on top is your actual weight trend.

Chagama · February 2013

I see a lot of people on here saying, "Weight fluctuates! Don't weigh everyday...weigh once a week!" I don't really understand the logic behind that...if weight can really fluctuate that much (which I KNOW it can!) wouldn't it be possibly counterproductive to only weigh once a week? If I weigh every day I can see the fluctuations. If I weigh once a week...what if THAT'S the day it fluctuated in the wrong direction and now I think I've gained weight when maybe I haven't...

Just curious as to the logic behind this...

I agree 100%, I want to know every day so I can know which are the outliers and ignore them. If you weigh once a week and on the first week it fluctuates down on that day, and then on week 2 it fluctuates up on that day, you have a completely unrealistic picture of what's going on.

squigglypuff · February 2013

I cannot weigh in every day -- I get too discouraged when I don't see the progress that I think I should be making. Yes, I'm one of those people that runs for an hour and wonders why I don't lose 3lbs with each workout. I also have some stomach issues so even if I weighed in at the same time every day, it didn't matter because my bathroom habits aren't exactly predictable.

I went from weighing in several times a day to the other extreme of only weighing in once a month. Once a month didn't work for me, I only did it for one month because I couldn't handle the suspense!! So for the following month, I took my weight and measurements on the 1st and the 15th. That still wasn't enough for me so now I weigh and measure on the 1st, 10th, and 20th of each month. So far this works best for me. I'm really close to maintenance anyway, so my sporadic weigh ins show small losses of 0.5-2lbs... basically the same difference I'd see if I weighed in every day, but it's less stressful for me to see -1 every 10 days, then +/- 0-3lbs daily.

Also it's important to keep in mind that weeks and weekdays have no basis in nature, as opposed to days and months which are natural occurrences. Your body doesn't know what a week is, but you can bet damn sure it knows what a month is ... just ask the ladies.

HollyHobbitToes · February 2013

To me, weightloss is a formula and I like to investigate daily the cause of the fluctuation so I can correct it and make the formula work as efficiently as possible...so I weigh each morning at 6:50am, after potty break and only in my undies...if I have a gain of less than half a pound I don't record it....I record every loss and a gain over a half pound....then I take those numbers and look at the previous day or so in my food diary to see why the food/exercise on those days altered the formula....

Maybe that makes me a geek and a tad obsessed BUT after gaining and losing weight for the last 20 years, I'm OK with being obsessed with it....I'm tired of being a yo-yo and I want to know what works for my body....and MY weight DOES change a lot from day to day....yesterday I lost nearly half a pound and this morning I lost over a half pound....

Do whatever works for you, but I do think it's a good idea to weigh yourself every day....if I let a week go by without knowing what was going on with my weight I would go CRAZY....and I'd be more likely to allow more "treats" in my diet....but if you don't have a problem with that, weigh in as often as you like

Kat5343 · February 2013

Right now I weigh myself once a week but when I was losing at a constant pace I weighed myself at the same time (naked) every morning before I put any food or liquid in my body...

FitandFab33 · February 2013

1. Weighing more than once per week is considered "chronic weighing".

2. I used to weight daily- it got to the point that when the scale went up, I wanted to give up. When the scale went down, I felt like I was successful enough and slacked off. For me- the scale is a POS. haha

3. Weigh once per month, or weekly and compare week to week in the following month (for women).
Weight does fluctuate dramatically throughout the day- and week to week depending on where you (women) are in your cycle. So if you want to weigh weekly, compare week 1 of your cycle to week 1 of your cycle the next month, week 2 to week 2, etc etc. That might seem too involved, but as far as accuracy goes- it's the best way. :-)

kmsairam · February 2013

I think everyone has to do what feels right for him/her. I weigh once a week and it helps me stay on track and see (roughly) how my weight loss is progressing. I refuse to weigh myself every day because -- again this is me -- I would start obsessing over the number, even knowing that weight fluctuates daily. I already obsess about enough things in life. I don't want to do that with the scale.

As with everything, you gotta do what works for YOU.

debendavey · February 2013

a night of pizza and beer occasionally will not have any real impact on your weight - it is what you are putting into your body on a redular basis that effects your weight. If you were to have a beer or 2 every night, yes, big impact, but a night out with your mates doesnt have to be a green salad and a glass of water

How does weighing once a week make sense?

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