Why do people weigh themselves so much?

Options
13567

Replies

  • fitgal05
    fitgal05 Posts: 149
    Options
    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 :smile:


    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
    lfergurson1 Posts: 137 Member
    Options
    I gave my scale away for 30 days I weigh myself at least 8 times a day . It's sad!
  • likitisplit
    likitisplit Posts: 9,420 Member
    Options
    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
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
    Options
    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
    alsoagood1 Posts: 79 Member
    Options
    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
    LeahT84 Posts: 202 Member
    Options
    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
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
    Options
    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
    jennmariepantoja Posts: 145 Member
    Options
    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
    melindanew Posts: 150 Member
    Options
    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
    1ConcreteGirl Posts: 3,677 Member
    Options
    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
    MayaSPapaya Posts: 735 Member
    Options
    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
    brendacs21 Posts: 180 Member
    Options
    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
    Erisad Posts: 1,580
    Options
    It's an addiction I fear, I used to weigh myself every day but now I reduced it to twice a week.
  • gobraves47
    gobraves47 Posts: 213 Member
    Options
    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
    ZellyKat Posts: 15 Member
    Options
    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
    michelle7673 Posts: 370 Member
    Options
    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
    kar328 Posts: 4,151 Member
    Options
    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
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
    Options
    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
    auriga2 Posts: 9 Member
    Options
    .
  • auriga2
    auriga2 Posts: 9 Member
    Options
    I like to because I'm always amazed that I gain three lbs from morning to night.

    Yes Yes! This is me exactly.

Categories