Yo - Yo weight... is it a girl thing??

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jessicahanlon87
jessicahanlon87 Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been pretty religious about counting calories over the past week (admittedly with a few slip ups!), and I notice my weight keeps bouncing all over the place. I seem to be moving between the same 2-3 pounds without being able to break out of it. Is this a hormonal girl thing? I've never really tried to manage my weight before so I can't tell if this is something that my body was constantly doing or if this is a new thing now that I am actually monitoring my weight.

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  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
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    Weigh yourself once an week and watch for a general downward trend. Your weight will fluctuate on a daily basis.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
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    Everyone fluctuates daily. I'm a daily weigher, but I don't let the numbers bug me. I log the daily weight in my Fitbit app because it gives me a handy dandy graph and shows the ups and downs for the past week, month, 3 months and year, and tells me the overall loss or gain for that period. And despite my graph looking something like a ski run full of jumps and moguls, I'm down 2.5 lbs overall for the past month.

    Hormones, sodium, alcohol, workouts - many things contribute to daily fluctuations, and the scale will show every single one of them. This is why I also take measurements - the scale may show a gain that's just water weight due to the Chinese food I ate last night, or a tough workout the day before. But the tape measure shows inches lost and is a better way to gauge progress.
  • Nedra19455
    Nedra19455 Posts: 241 Member
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    It may be affected by hormones, but this happens to everybody, not just girls. Weight fluctuates even when you try to be consistent about when/ how you weigh yourself. I use an app called WeightTrend+ to calculate a 7-day moving average of my daily weights. So even though today's weight was higher than yesterday's weight, today's weight averaged with the last 6 days is lower than yesterday's weight averaged with the 6days previous to that -- if that makes sense. So my trend weight is always going down and that's what I pay attention to to see if I am on track.
  • lemon629
    lemon629 Posts: 501 Member
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    This is a human thing.
    Just watch for a downward trend and new low numbers.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    male or female, natural body weight fluctuations are generally 3 - 5 Lbs day to day. Stop weighing yourself so often...stop obsessing about a singular number...nobody weighs exactly XXX Lbs...everyone has a range...body weight isn't static. Maybe start looking at things as a general trend and averages....because really, that's how you have to look at things.
  • shellydd
    shellydd Posts: 156 Member
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    I too weigh myself daily. I'm in a slump regarding losing weight BUT I'm sticking to the program and not letting the numbers bring me down. I need to EAT on occasion. When I do eat "forbidden" foods, or should I say "high calorie" foods.....I don't freak out anymore. I make sure I walk at least once a day and say NO to OVEREATING. weight loss is a wavey road.......
  • sadrithmora
    sadrithmora Posts: 121
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    It's not just a girl thing, but I'm pretty sure it's a little more common in women. Weight does fluctuate, just try weighting yourself in the morning and again in the afternoon (or don't, it's scary). Some of it will be water weight. Ate a bit more salt one day? Don't be surprised to find yourself weighting a pound more than expected. Had some alcohol the night before? I usually find myself weighting a lot LESS the next morning (due to dehydration), but it's not a good thing. Like others said, just watch for the overall trend, and maybe don't weight yourself everyday, but once or twice a week on set days. If you weight yourself everyday like I did, you might get those silly thoughts like 'oh, I had alcohol AND lost weight, awesome!' and 'I was so good yesterday, but I didn't lose any, why should I bother?'

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