The scale just messes with your head - Relax ;)

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Koldnomore
Koldnomore Posts: 1,613 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
About once every few months I opt to venture into the oft maligned and sometimes dreaded "newbie forums" fro a while. This is in no way a reflection on the actual new people but just the sheer number of threads created every day with the SAME exact questions over and over and over - often within 5 posts of the last person who asked the exact same thing. This avoidance of certain forums/threads is a common theme with a lot of people who have been 'around' for a while and have been having some reasonable success with their journeys. Sometimes this will leave new people with no real 'help'. I have seen many threads where the only people replying are themselves only a few months old. Sometimes these individuals have found the path which works for them quickly and have figured out some of the more generally accepted 'rules' of the weight loss game and so the advice they give is good. But sometimes the opposite is true... This makes it really hard to be a new person around here.

One of the more common threads I see are the "Help! I gained 5 lbs yesterday - what am I doing wrong?" or something like that. In the past 24 hours there have been at least 6 of these threads posted and every time the answer is the same. Relax, it's NORMAL. Our bodies fluctuate a lot throughout the day/week. I wanted to show you guys something. For the past 4 months I have been tracking my weight every day on a spreadsheet which I use to track a lot of other things too. In that period I have lost about 5 lbs ( that is less than .5 /week ) which is very normal for someone with my goals. I made a chart from that spreadsheet so you guys can understand that the daily fluctuations don't matter as long as the TREND is going down.
26632427_2027.jpg
The blue points in this chart represent my weight taken every morning, the red line shows the trend going down. You can see that some days it looks like I gained 3-5 lbs but nearly every week I have lost and this is what it has looked like every day for the last 16+ months that i have been doing this ;)

Step away from the scale, don't let one day derail you. Your weight fluctuates, that's NORMAL. Hold your course, keep doing what you are doing and watch for the trend. I hope this helps someone ;)

Replies

  • pkw58
    pkw58 Posts: 2,038 Member
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    Awesome post. Wish we could put it on "auto post to anyone who has an "unexplained weight flux"...Thanks for sharing
  • graysmom2005
    graysmom2005 Posts: 1,882 Member
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    :drinker:
  • tegalicious
    tegalicious Posts: 629
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    Thank you for this!
  • grillnchill
    grillnchill Posts: 772 Member
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    Great one!
  • stephenwebbe
    stephenwebbe Posts: 31 Member
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    Thank you for this. I definitely let the scale get to my head sometimes :)
  • sarahrbraun
    sarahrbraun Posts: 2,261 Member
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    About once every few months I opt to venture into the oft maligned and sometimes dreaded "newbie forums" fro a while. This is in no way a reflection on the actual new people but just the sheer number of threads created every day with the SAME exact questions over and over and over - often within 5 posts of the last person who asked the exact same thing. This avoidance of certain forums/threads is a common theme with a lot of people who have been 'around' for a while and have been having some reasonable success with their journeys. Sometimes this will leave new people with no real 'help'. I have seen many threads where the only people replying are themselves only a few months old. Sometimes these individuals have found the path which works for them quickly and have figured out some of the more generally accepted 'rules' of the weight loss game and so the advice they give is good. But sometimes the opposite is true... This makes it really hard to be a new person around here.

    One of the more common threads I see are the "Help! I gained 5 lbs yesterday - what am I doing wrong?" or something like that. In the past 24 hours there have been at least 6 of these threads posted and every time the answer is the same. Relax, it's NORMAL. Our bodies fluctuate a lot throughout the day/week. I wanted to show you guys something. For the past 4 months I have been tracking my weight every day on a spreadsheet which I use to track a lot of other things too. In that period I have lost about 5 lbs ( that is less than .5 /week ) which is very normal for someone with my goals. I made a chart from that spreadsheet so you guys can understand that the daily fluctuations don't matter as long as the TREND is going down.
    26632427_2027.jpg
    The blue points in this chart represent my weight taken every morning, the red line shows the trend going down. You can see that some days it looks like I gained 3-5 lbs but nearly every week I have lost and this is what it has looked like every day for the last 16+ months that i have been doing this ;)

    Step away from the scale, don't let one day derail you. Your weight fluctuates, that's NORMAL. Hold your course, keep doing what you are doing and watch for the trend. I hope this helps someone ;)

    I'd also like to point out that the number on the scale doesn't tell the WHOLE picture.

    In the picture on the left, I'm not 100% sure what I weigh, but I know it is between 188lbs and 199lbs. I wear a size 16/18 pants and a 42DD bra. In the picture on the right, I weigh 192-193lbs, wear a size 14 pants, and a 38C bra.

    10035269906_47277afec6.jpg
    Untitled by crochetmom2010, on Flickr
  • greenmonstergirl
    greenmonstergirl Posts: 619 Member
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    I weigh daily to keep me motivated to keep going.

    I was stuck at 170 for 8 weeks but dropped 2 jean sizes and lost 20 inches! The scale doesn't tell the whole story but it's just another tool to use in the weight loss game.
  • CharChary
    CharChary Posts: 220 Member
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    lovely post. Thank you! I hope this reaches many that struggle with that dang number machine
  • emobarbie7
    emobarbie7 Posts: 75
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    About once every few months I opt to venture into the oft maligned and sometimes dreaded "newbie forums" fro a while. This is in no way a reflection on the actual new people but just the sheer number of threads created every day with the SAME exact questions over and over and over - often within 5 posts of the last person who asked the exact same thing. This avoidance of certain forums/threads is a common theme with a lot of people who have been 'around' for a while and have been having some reasonable success with their journeys. Sometimes this will leave new people with no real 'help'. I have seen many threads where the only people replying are themselves only a few months old. Sometimes these individuals have found the path which works for them quickly and have figured out some of the more generally accepted 'rules' of the weight loss game and so the advice they give is good. But sometimes the opposite is true... This makes it really hard to be a new person around here.


    ^ this is awesome! I am so glad you showed this, these girls only eating 1200 calories and watching the scale stand still, or fluctuate causing them to attempt to eat less...really need to see this.
    One of the more common threads I see are the "Help! I gained 5 lbs yesterday - what am I doing wrong?" or something like that. In the past 24 hours there have been at least 6 of these threads posted and every time the answer is the same. Relax, it's NORMAL. Our bodies fluctuate a lot throughout the day/week. I wanted to show you guys something. For the past 4 months I have been tracking my weight every day on a spreadsheet which I use to track a lot of other things too. In that period I have lost about 5 lbs ( that is less than .5 /week ) which is very normal for someone with my goals. I made a chart from that spreadsheet so you guys can understand that the daily fluctuations don't matter as long as the TREND is going down.
    26632427_2027.jpg
    The blue points in this chart represent my weight taken every morning, the red line shows the trend going down. You can see that some days it looks like I gained 3-5 lbs but nearly every week I have lost and this is what it has looked like every day for the last 16+ months that i have been doing this ;)

    Step away from the scale, don't let one day derail you. Your weight fluctuates, that's NORMAL. Hold your course, keep doing what you are doing and watch for the trend. I hope this helps someone ;)
  • 43932452
    43932452 Posts: 7,246 Member
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    I <3 your spreadsheet .. thank U for sharing it. :)

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