The Scale: Every Day or Once a Week?

I do it daily, I find it keeps me far more accountable. Trying to do measurements once a week though, I'm really lax with those.

I weigh myself daily, write it down in one of those cheep monthly calendars and see how I progress through the week, month, year. I can also see what X amount of sodium, excess calories etc does to my body.

I take my measurements weekly. I measure neck, chest, waist, hips, thigh, bicep, calf.

I weigh every day because it keeps me focused for the day ahead. However, I can completely relate to the let down when the scale goes up and the neurosis that follows. I have started a new approach, exercise. If my scale is a little higher, I drink more water and add more minutes to my cardiovascular. Say 5 minutes extra for each pound, 1) it makes me feel in control and that I have power over this 2) it can't hurt 3) by the end of the workout I'm too tired to care LOL!! and you get extra calories to eat:)). Exercise can make you retain some fluid, so can your sodium intake so don't be too surprised if your scale goes up after a strenuous workout, it will adjust. Don't starve yourself , just add more fiber on your heavy day, no carbs, veggies(greens)...I find the fit active vanilla shakes are great!!! Hang in there!!: also, you can weigh every 2 days if that gives your mind a rest!! smile:

I weigh myself daily. But if you choose to go that route, you have to understand that your weight fluctuates daily based on different things. I'm just a curious person, though.

If you're finding yourself becoming obsessive or discouraged with weighing daily, I'd definitely suggest going with once a week.

This.

And to answer the question, I generally weigh in every other day--sometimes more (every morning--I do not weigh in multiple times per day, that would be disastrous), sometimes less. If it's the day before my weigh-in and I know I went off my typical menu and may be retaining water, I hold off for another day because I can get a little discouraged seeing the number go up even a little (even knowing about the fluctuations, even realizing it's not "fat" gain) sometimes.

I recommend daily weigh-ins, with a huge caveat: you need to do some math to find the difference between your actual weight loss and the daily fluctuations, which are much larger.

Your weight fluctuates depending on water, salt, and fiber intake, and other factors having nothing to do with calories. Using an exponentially weighted average can help you filter out the noise and focus on the trend, as John Walker explains in "The Hacker's Diet" (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/). The chapter on "The Rubber Bag" explains, briefly, the source of these fluctuations. The chapter on "Signal and Noise" explains how some simple math can filter them out. Walker explains how to do the math, but you can also set up a free account on his server to do it for you, or use a service like Beeminder or TrendWeight.com.

If you're going to be all "OMG! I'm bloated!" if you see the number go up by 2 lbs. from one day to the next, then daily weigh-ins aren't for you. Personally, I'm not bothered, because it's the trend that matters. My daily weight has gone up every day for the past 4 days, even though I've been eating at a decent deficit every day. But because I've been doing this for over a year, I know that it's because I have been eating more restaurant food (with lots of sodium) and doing some unaccustomed exercise (cross-country skiing -- finally enough snow!) that's related to fluid retention. I expect the number on the scale to be lower tomorrow. But if not, I won't beat myself up.

I think this is definitely a matter of personal preference. Personally, I'm aware of the fact that my weight will fluctuate a little bit day-to-day, and that doesn't freak me out. If seeing a slightly higher number stresses you out, weekly measurements might work better for you. That being said, from a statistical point of view, you will have a better idea of what is going on with your weight loss and its general trend if you have more data (aka daily measurements). For example, if you tend to get bloated around your TOM, a weekly measurement might fall on your most bloated day, making you think you've suddenly gained a pound or two within a week. If you had been taking daily measurements, it'd be easier to spot that measurement as a statistical outlier.

More data is generally better in my opinion so I weigh once a day first thing in the morning. This allows me to look at rolling averages and trends that filter out the noise caused by the natural fluctuations in my weight and any lack of repeatability in my scale.

I weigh around twice a week, though not always the same days. Mostly whenever I'm feeling curious, and think it's been long enough to see some progress (so 3-4 days). However, if I happen to weigh myself on a day where my weight is higher than last recorded, I will weigh myself the next day as well to see if it was just a fluctuation, or whether I need to snack a little less for the next few days!

I do weekly weigh ins, Monday mornings. Picking Monday for weigh in mentally helps me behave over the weekend, which are hard days for me to keep from over doing it. I also measure on Monday mornings. But I also measure other times during the week too. The tape measure really helps me from over doing it more so than the scale.

I like to weigh every day but I only track Wednesday mornings.

That said, I treat the scale like a the tool it is, not the end-all. I also measure and know not to freak out over fluctuations (ok I admit to happy-dancing when it goes down).

It sounds like you make unhealthy choices when you see fluctuations so maybe for you, it's better to keep it weekly...

Good luck!!