Scale addiction

Stay away from the scale - daily weighing is only a killer believe me I've been there. Im still addicted to the scale so much so that my husband has threatened to hide it until my weight in on Saturday mornings. I hop on once to make sure I'm 'ok' whatever that means but I don't take it serious until my weigh in day . I'm not as bad as I was but its a thin line :blushing: I think you'll get more of a sense of accomplishment if you take your weight at the same time once a week (I keep telling myself this :ohwell: ) God luck

Am I seeing this right? You have lost over 200 lbs? WOW!!!

I jump on the scale everytime I am in the bathroom however I know it is going to fluctuate and I actually just find it interesting how it does. It makes me more aware of what is going on with my diet and exercise. However...... I do my official way in at the same time every sunday morning before I eat to keep it consistant and that is the only one that matters too me.

As an engineer I can definitively say that more data is usually better and there's nothing wrong with weighing every day. What IS problematic is expecting each day's number to be meaningful by itself. Your body weight will fluctuate as a percentage of your total body weight, most people are usually within +/- 2 lbs or so of their actual weight depending on digested food, retained water, urination, bowel movement, sweat and any number of other factors. Problem is, since you're probably dropping no more than 2 lbs per week your daily fluctuations can be enough to "undo" your hard work according to the scale.

Science to the rescue - enter the moving average. For what we call "high noise systems" we engineers have a method of smoothing out the curves in that crazy data. We take many samples over a statistically meaningful period of time and then plot a second line on the graph representing an average of a certain number of measurements surrounding that point. It creates a trend line that accurately indicates mid to long term trends despite the crazy fuzziness of the data.

There are some good resources for this here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

In his free ebook, Mr. Walker actually suggests you weigh every day, but ignore the number on the scale (if that's something you're capable of) and instead enter another data point. After about 10 days you'll generate your first meaningful point of data and then a point of data every day thereafter.

There's nothing wrong with being a data junkie, you just need to understand the data you're looking at and have some way of peering through the noise to find the signal.

I weigh everyday. I think the difference is your outlook. If the weight fluctuations bother you, then I don't think you should weigh everyday. If you don't see a change in a day or if you panic anytime you see it go up, then I don't think weighing everyday is a good option. I personally do it because, when I do see the scale go up or even if it stays the same, it helps motivate me to make a change to stay on track. That change might be to increase my calories and drink more water if I am on a short "plateau" for a few days. That usually gets it dropping again. That way I don't find out 5 days later that I have been hitting a wall or maybe even doing something wrong. It also pushes me to work harder during my workout so that I can see that difference tomorrow. If it doesn't happen, I don't get frustrated.
This is definitely an personal preference and you just have to find out what's right for you and get your mind to focus on the ultimate goal. Take things one day at a time. If you weigh yourself everyday, do it at the same time and only once a day. But, I know the only weight that matters for me is the weight I have on my official weigh in day. I keep it on my calendar and just write it in in the bottom corner. There are so many things that influence weight. I don't try to understand it! I just go with the flow and as long as I am ultimately seeing results once a week on my official day, I know I am ultimately moving in the right direction.
You can do this! Don't let weight fluctuations that are beyond your control frustrate you. This is HARD! Just know we ALL have them, we all face the same scale monster! But there are so many things that make this hard! Choose your battles and know that you CAN do this and that, as long as you are making progress, no matter how big or how small, you CAN reach your goals! Good luck!!!

I was weighing every day too and it made me quit going to the gym for 3 weeks cause "working out wasn't working"... I have vowed this round to not weight myself more than once a week. My mom said to do it once a week if not less than that because it will cause you to give up a lot easier.