Why I weigh daily

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Replies

  • CarolElaine25
    CarolElaine25 Posts: 102 Member
    I get WAY to down on myself to weigh daily. In fact I started this process 3 months ago and STILL haven't weighed myself. I know I've lost weight as I've gone down in pants and shirt sizes, but for so many years I worried more about weight than how I felt/looked that I just can't get around to it. At some point I will start weighing myself, but for me now, it just isn't good for me. I applaud all the people that can deal with the ups and downs that come with weighing yourself! :)
    I have a friend like this. She's a lovely woman who is all about being active and eating healthfully, but she's suffered from EDs and low self-esteem in the past, so weighing herself at all can be a trigger for behaviors she's worked hard to overcome. I have no problem weighing myself daily (and I pretty much do), but for people like my friend, it's not a good idea.

    As always, find out what works for you (even if it takes a few months to do so), stick with that and you'll achieve your goal.
  • Pamela_June
    Pamela_June Posts: 342 Member
    I totally agree with you... !!!

    :bigsmile:
  • BrendaLee
    BrendaLee Posts: 4,463 Member
    I'm a big fan of a daily weigh. I've seen others posting on here saying they had to see the same weight three days in a row before they'd count it as an actual loss. I'm not sure where that logic comes into play, because if you're down, you're down. Even if you go up the next day, as long as you're eating at a deficit, it isn't fat gain. If I weigh on Thursday and I'm down 2 pounds from last Thursday, I know I've lost at least two pounds that week. Even if the number spikes on Friday, I've still lost two pounds.

    P.S. I love graphs. I can't wait until I reach my goal and cut & paste together this huge graph from my Wii weigh-ins.

    1013653_10151680914741113_85114013_n.jpg


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  • thisdamselflies
    thisdamselflies Posts: 92 Member
    I dig your point too. To me, though, I'd rather be able to nip problem behavior in the bud early on. If I think I spent the last two weeks gaining, I'll be freaking out, beating myself up over what I'm doing wrong. If I know I ate a bunch of tortilla chips last night, it doesn't phase me to step on the scale in the morning and see that it's gone up a pound or two. But I do think "Yikes! No more tortilla chips for a bit here!" and drink some extra water for the next couple days. For me, it's easier to be in tune with my body this way.

    I absolutely agree with this. Weighing in every day is less about making myself feel good/bad than it is about seeing how what I do directly affects my body. I don't beat myself up about spikes in my weight -- I just use the information to either verify that what I'm doing is on the right track or inform me early if I'm headed in the wrong direction so I can alter my course. I binged for two days in a row last week, and my weight spiked. Once I got it under control, my weight immediately dropped back to its previous levels. I can almost always look at my current weight, look at what I did the day before, and figure out what caused whatever is going on, whether that's a rise, drop, or plateau. I don't beat myself up about it. I'm also an obsessive kind of person, and a huge nerd, and I love my graphs. Seeing the trendline continue on its downward slope in spite of a few spikes is incredibly satisfying!
  • RockingThis
    RockingThis Posts: 26
    I used to be obsessed in a bad way about losing weight. Every time i used the restroom or before i went to bed.. just all the time. i would weigh myself.. it got really unhealthy.. although, it was a motivator and learning lesson about what i eat and how it affects my body. It also made me feel depressed and angry about myself and maybe a decision i made , I might not eat or binge even. I started to do this again recently and I have stopped but it's a battle everyday not to get too into it and be obsessed it's just a number on the scale! I know if i do it once a day... i will have to do it all day.. I wish i had the strength to be able to do it once a day like you guys!
  • allifantastical
    allifantastical Posts: 946 Member
    Glad it works for you. For me though, weighing every day was starting to determine how I felt about myself that day. I now only weigh once a week, and not during TOM. I am much happier this way.

    I agree. Weighing every day was really hard on my self-esteem.
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  • Liz_Mfp
    Liz_Mfp Posts: 172 Member
    I am a daily weigher
    fluctuations ...don't upset me in the slightest
    weighing once a week or even once a month but this can be very upsetting if you weigh on a high peak day.

    I also weigh daily and just ....Watch the Trend....
    :-)
    I know the Lower numbers can be an anomaly as much as the Higher numbers can be
  • aimforhealthy
    aimforhealthy Posts: 449 Member
    I like weighing every day. It's motivating for me, even when I go down and then go back up. Just having seen the lower number helps.
    That's how I feel too :)
  • cardinalsfootball
    cardinalsfootball Posts: 167 Member
    I just really wish that you could check a box on MFP that says "Update my feed when I hit a new low weight" and then you could weight EVERY day but would only tell your friends when you hit a new low, and if so, by how much weight since that low!

    Because if you weigh daily, it's constantly telling people you lose 2 lbs since last weigh in!
  • drojen
    drojen Posts: 203 Member
    I weigh daily as well. I find the fluctuations fascinating and if I feel I'm getting too attached to the # on the scale, then I force myself to stop weighing for a day or two. I know for the last 2 months, around a certain time, I "gained" 4 lbs. Then they slowly disappeared. I also have an app. that I track the #'s on. it's just interesting and as long as those #'s don't go up and up and up, I'm ok with it. I know I didn't gain 4 lbs in a day, just like I know I didn't lose 2 lbs the next day. It's all kinds of factors. It's being able to understand and make sense of those factors that counts.
  • Rianne90
    Rianne90 Posts: 229 Member
    I don't weigh daily, as I don't have a digital scale (yet). I'm currently just weighing weekly and logging the weights, after a few weeks I might make a graph out of it :)
  • nlespier
    nlespier Posts: 47 Member
    I'm so glad I'm not alone in this. I too weight every day first thing in the morning. I like seeing losses, even if they are small. It motivates me and keeps me on track. If I see a gain, but I know I've stayed on track, I look back at what I ate and drank to see if maybe I had too much sodium and not enough water. Or maybe I just ate something heavy for dinner and it stuck with me. It's really helped me think about everything I'm eating and drinking. I had gotten to a point a LONG time ago that I would weigh myself multiple times a day and finally one day my husband hid the scale from me and would only bring it out in the mornings. Thankfully I'm over that :)
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    I used to be obsessed in a bad way about losing weight. Every time i used the restroom or before i went to bed.. just all the time. i would weigh myself.. it got really unhealthy.. although, it was a motivator and learning lesson about what i eat and how it affects my body. It also made me feel depressed and angry about myself and maybe a decision i made , I might not eat or binge even. I started to do this again recently and I have stopped but it's a battle everyday not to get too into it and be obsessed it's just a number on the scale! I know if i do it once a day... i will have to do it all day.. I wish i had the strength to be able to do it once a day like you guys!

    Awhile ago just for fun I weighed myself every two hours for two days except at night. There was a 5 pound swing throughout the day. What was really crazy (to me) was that each night I lost two pounds from the weigh in right before bed to the weigh in upon waking. I am pretty sure the fat fairy comes and feeds off of of you if you have been good :bigsmile:

    Other than that I never weigh other than first thing with one tiny exception... we keep a scale here at work in the bathroom and another guy and myself have a secret competition called the biggest loser, it's a um um um before and after sort of thing if you know what I mean. The record so far is 1.8 pounds! We don't tell anyone else about this, especially the women :laugh:
  • themedalist
    themedalist Posts: 3,218 Member
    These are all excellent reasons for weighing in daily. I think it really boils down to personal preference and how well a person tolerates the normal day to day fluctuations.

    I've been in maintenance for almost a year and I weigh myself daily allowing a two pound fluctuation. When my weight exceeds this 2 pound range (only happened 2 or 3 times since last July) I up the exercise and decrease my food intake slightly until my weight is back in range. Weighing myself daily is integral to maintaining my weight.

    I will never step on the scale having gained 47 pounds overnight! Daily weighings allow me to make small adjustments as needed. It's much easier to lose 2 pounds than 20.

    Best wishes, everyone!
  • radcliff17
    radcliff17 Posts: 22 Member
    Me too. I don't panic when I gain. I just feel motivated to be more healthy that day.
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  • LauraDotts
    LauraDotts Posts: 732 Member
    I am also a big fan of the daily weigh in, but not of paying any attention to the high spikes while eating at a deficit. They are a curiosity, but caused by too many different factors to make any sense of them, IMO. You only rarely get your actual truly empty body weight and it is not possible to be "less than empty". The incorrect weights do not cancel each other out because there are only incorrect high values, not low ones. It's the only weight that makes sense to me as an absolute or relative for comparison. If your weight samples were between 180 and 185 one week and 179 and 186 the next, you lost a pound. Just because you captured a higher spike the second week doesn't mean you should average it in and say you lost nothing.

    I agree with this 100%! You can't have an artificial low unless you just got your really long hair cut short. When I see a new low number, in my head I consider this to be my new low even though it may be a week until I see it again.
    I agree as well and this is why I weigh myself every morning. I only record new lows.
  • nlespier
    nlespier Posts: 47 Member
    Do you guys log everyday.

    I weigh everyday, but only log on Thursday. But, I'm thinking about logging daily so I have the info.

    If there's a change (up or down) I log it.
  • eep223
    eep223 Posts: 624 Member
    Do you guys log everyday.

    I weigh everyday, but only log on Thursday. But, I'm thinking about logging daily so I have the info.

    I usually still only log weekly. I logged today, because it was a low number I've hit a couple times now and I wanted to counteract a higher number I'd been hitting a few days in a row and felt I needed to log to keep myself honest.
  • thisdamselflies
    thisdamselflies Posts: 92 Member
    Do you guys log everyday.

    I weigh everyday, but only log on Thursday. But, I'm thinking about logging daily so I have the info.

    I record my weight in a personal graph at home, but only log it into MFP once a week, so I have a stable weight to log and not some random peak. I usually average my week's weigh-ins (minus any extreme outliers) and put that number in.
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    I just really wish that you could check a box on MFP that says "Update my feed when I hit a new low weight" and then you could weight EVERY day but would only tell your friends when you hit a new low, and if so, by how much weight since that low!

    Because if you weigh daily, it's constantly telling people you lose 2 lbs since last weigh in!

    That would be a nice feature.

    My friends know I weigh daily so they don't comment unless I type "A new low!" below the announcement.
  • iarelarry
    iarelarry Posts: 201 Member
    No whey this works!!




    JK. I'll give it a try, thanks.
  • NicoWoodruff
    NicoWoodruff Posts: 369 Member
    I do the same.. if I'm down on the scale in the morning I'm happy and motivated by the success..

    If I'm up on the scale in the morning (and usually I know why from what I did the day before) after a moment's annoyance I'm doubly motivated to get back on track and have a better day.

    So either way it's a win for me.
  • andijean31
    andijean31 Posts: 139 Member
    What app are you using to track your weight daily? I like the graph and I'm interested in downloading it or something similar.
  • EDollah
    EDollah Posts: 464 Member
    I'm actually a twice a day checker, only because I'm really interested to see how weight fluctuates. It's especially fascinating to see a 4-5 pound swing (typically up) during the course of a day. I only log once a week though.
  • arac62
    arac62 Posts: 65 Member
    I weigh daily as well. Actually usually multiple times per day. It's basically just because i find it interesting. It's like my weight loss is a science experience and the more data samples I get, the better I can understand the process. I don't get upset by high readings as long as the overall trend for the week, or month is down. I find it really cool to see what patterns my body goes though daily and weekly. For example, my lowest weight of the day is usually after my workout right before dinner. I also tend to lose all my weight for the week between Monday and Thursday and the plateau over the weekend (alcohol may or may not have something to do with this lol).
  • drojen
    drojen Posts: 203 Member
    Do you guys log everyday.

    I don't log here every day. I have an app I use for my daily weigh ins. I oh log the weight here at the beginning of each month. That is also when I take my measurements.
  • caly_man
    caly_man Posts: 281 Member
    I like this!

    too bad I'm too busy to start doing this
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    I like this!

    too bad I'm too busy to start doing this

    It only takes about 30 seconds a day!

    The app I use is a free phone app (shown in the original graph) called Libra. It's not fancy but is super easy to use. I weigh before getting into the shower and then think about why I was up or down while showering. Get out, dry off and log it.

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