Baffled by the scale..how much do I really weigh?

ccaym · April 2011

I realize that weight loss is only a smart part of the reward I am getting from excercising and eating well, but the number on the scale (both low and high) really motivates me. For about two months I was seeing that number very slowly going down...about 1 pound a week. There was some fluctuation, but not much. Several days ago I reached 196. The following morning I was 199, even though I had stayed on track. How could that be? Since then I've seen anything from 198 to 200, weighing myself every other day or so. Last night - after three days of PMS (chocolate) and two meals out, I weighed in at 194. Could I really be 194? I can feel the PMS bloat in my hands and feet (sorry for TMI, guys) so I know I am carrying water weight. This morning I was 196...so maybe the overeating yesterday had not caught up to me last night? I probably seem overly fussy, I know, I just wish that I had a better sense of my weight.

How you you track your weight? Do you enter in the low number and wait until you see a lower number to update? Do you change it even when it goes up, or just ride it out? What is most effective in terms of motivation? I really like to weigh-in every day or two rather than weekly but maybe I should change this. I cannot afford a new scale right now. I have two scales - one ancient, dented thing and one modern, no-frills digital one....they both show my weight at about the same amount...give or take a pound or two. I typically use the digital one (my weight is usually higher with it).

Any thoughts on all of this? Thanks!

Onesnap · April 2011

I report every weigh in. Every single one. Water weight can make you go up and down, but just keep at it. Weigh yourself once per week on the same day and time and first thing in the morning.

Remember, it's not the scale. It's how the clothes fit. If you're getting more in shape and gaining muscle you'll burn more calories sitting on the couch doing nothing!!

kms1981 · April 2011

I only care what the scale says one day a week, that day I record it even if it is a gain...that way the scale can't play tricks with my mind and emotions

JustBill · April 2011

Your weight can and will fluctuate by a couple of pounds... not just from day to day, but within the same day! That's why most people recommend that you do NOT weigh yourself daily. Instead, pick a specific day and time to consistently weigh yourself. I find first thing in the AM on a work day to be best. Use the same scale in the same location. Keep everything as consistent as possible. You'll get much better results with a weekly weigh-in over a daily, IMO.

johannahooks · April 2011

Weight yourself 1 time a week, on the same day each week, at the same time of day.

KimberSt · April 2011

I weigh first thing in the morning after...ummm.....you know. I use whatever number comes up first. JMHO, it's just like making an A-B-C choice. You either know the answer or you pick one and your first choice is usually the right one. Your always going to get fluctuating numbers, unless you have one of those Doctor's scales. Again, just an opinion. Hope it helps.

1983Miller · April 2011

I ride it out because I can weigh myself every day and get a slightly different result, depending on sodium, tom, amount of effort in exercise, etc. I ride it out if it is a 2 pound fluctuation. Try checking late at night or first thing in the am. Mid day is not a good time to weigh in.

EmicaL · April 2011

Sometimes when you are strict with your calories and diet and you go out for a meal or have a splurge day your body is used to burning calories and kicks into high burn gear.

Water weight & hormones do also play a big deal. Maybe you are eating too few calories?

I also weigh in about ever other day and record it but don't focus on it too much. I'm just a numbers girl & loose weight is mathematical

Monsherri · April 2011

Same here...weigh once a week. Hormones, water, stress can all make the scale reek havic on our minds. I have a pair of jeans that I love. I can get them on, just not snapped. So a couple times a week, I put them on to see how close I'm getting. I've been at this a couple of weeks, and my scale has not changed either. In fact it went up, but I'm getting closer to those jeans. Go figure. Record everything, drink plenty of water, exercise at least 3 days a week. You'll get there!!

McKayMachina · April 2011

Bodies can fluctuate as much as 7 lbs. from day to day. I know. It sounds crazy. Try not to obsess about it week-to-week. Long-term trends will tell the truth.

TonyNewton · April 2011

This is my first post!!!

The scale is probably right. I know I fluctuate a huge amount when I cheat, more than should be possible for the amount of food I eat. What it seems to be happening is sugar is causing my body to retain water. Not the same as the PMS thing but probably similar. I also notice if my regular carb intake is higher than normal, no matter what my total calorie intake is, I will fluctuate up a pound or two or three.

hpsnickers1 · April 2011

I realize that weight loss is only a smart part of the reward I am getting from excercising and eating well, but the number on the scale (both low and high) really motivates me. For about two months I was seeing that number very slowly going down...about 1 pound a week. There was some fluctuation, but not much. Several days ago I reached 196. The following morning I was 199, even though I had stayed on track. How could that be? Since then I've seen anything from 198 to 200, weighing myself every other day or so. Last night - after three days of PMS (chocolate) and two meals out, I weighed in at 194. Could I really be 194? I can feel the PMS bloat in my hands and feet (sorry for TMI, guys) so I know I am carrying water weight. This morning I was 196...so maybe the overeating yesterday had not caught up to me last night? I probably seem overly fussy, I know, I just wish that I had a better sense of my weight.

How you you track your weight? Do you enter in the low number and wait until you see a lower number to update? Do you change it even when it goes up, or just ride it out? What is most effective in terms of motivation? I really like to weigh-in every day or two rather than weekly but maybe I should change this. I cannot afford a new scale right now. I have two scales - one ancient, dented thing and one modern, no-frills digital one....they both show my weight at about the same amount...give or take a pound or two. I typically use the digital one (my weight is usually higher with it).

Any thoughts on all of this? Thanks!

Weight fluctuates through the day (can go over or under true weight). I weigh around 122 point whatever in the morning (I even saw 120.4 recently but only lasted a day). I can go as high as 127 by evening. You can weigh in every day but do it in the morning, after you pee and stuff, naked and before eating. Sodium will show up the next morning as a gain. TOM will also show up - I felt bloated this week but no change on the scale. So remember if you do weigh every morning you will not see the same number every morning.

I logged all losses. Right now my weight here says 120.4 even though I have yet to see it again. I'm not too worried since I have been treating my goal as a range of 120-123 (that is how our metabolism sees it). At healthy weights, the fluctuations are even worse. Water balance is everything

TankiBabi · April 2011

I am right there with you on that issue. However I do weigh myself twice a week. I weigh myself on my last day of working out then the day after I rest. My scale bugs me as well because after my rested period I jump down 2 to 3 pounds then go back up 2 pounds until the next week. It has been doing this to me since I hit my first platue. I am so close to getting to my second 10% mark and this keeps happening. It can be very frustrating. I am just trying to push through it. Testing whether you are losing weight by clothing is the best way to tell that you are losing weight however it takes long to tell which stinks

.

hpsnickers1 · April 2011

I am right there with you on that issue. However I do weigh myself twice a week. I weigh myself on my last day of working out then the day after I rest. My scale bugs me as well because after my rested period I jump down 2 to 3 pounds then go back up 2 pounds until the next week. It has been doing this to me since I hit my first platue. I am so close to getting to my second 10% mark and this keeps happening. It can be very frustrating. I am just trying to push through it. Testing whether you are losing weight by clothing is the best way to tell that you are losing weight however it takes long to tell which stinks .

this is what has helped me. I have clothes that fit me better now than they did previously at a lighter weight. I can thank exercise for that.

Sho_Rowell · April 2011

I am right there with you and at about the same weight! It is sooooooooooo frustrating. I stepped on the scale Wednesday (my usual weigh ins are on the weekend, but I felt like I wasn't doing so well, so wanted to see what the scale said). To my surprise, I was down 3 pounds from 198 to 195. I was very excited and immediately logged that weight. Stepped on it again this morning to see if maybe I had hit 194 and BAM! I'm back at 198! So now I'm wondering the same thing you're wondering; was I ever really 195??? I'm gonna wait it out, try to go light on the sodium and weigh myself again first thing Sunday morning. I would advise you to do the same, but if your TOM is about to start, then I would wait 2 day after it goes off before I step back on the scale. Good luck!

skhny · April 2011

I will confess that I weigh myself a zillion times a day! It motivates me to be better about my eating and exercise - I know I am nuts. But here is what drives me crazy - it depends where I put my scale as to how much I weigh!! I can move it around my bedroom and it goes up and down 30 pounds! My husband says its because of the carpet and level of the floor (old farmhouse) but come on!! I have one spot now where I leave it and go by that weight. I ahve no idea what I might actually weigh on a real good scale. I wait a couple of days to see a consistent number before I log it in and i don't ever change my number during "that week", lol!
My real answer is how I have changed in the mirror and how my clothes have changed. I recently went shopping through all my old clothes that I had out grown and have a whole new wardrobe again. My husband also told me I look thinner than I have in years.

Qarol · April 2011

I fluctuate a lot. How often to weigh and what motivates you is very personal. You have to find what works for you. What works for me is weighing every day to remind myself to stick with it but to track weekly progress. I fluctuate a lot during the week, some up, some down. So while I get excited about a new low number, I have to remind myself that it may just be a low fluctuation. I may not see that low number again for another week.

bizco · April 2011

I recently started doing this: I weigh myself every day first thing in the morning (naked) after using the bathroom. I type this weight in the comments section of the food diary. Then, every Friday morning I calculate the average weight for the past week and this is what I log into MFP. So I weigh everyday but log only once per week. The weight can fluctuate so much due to many factors so taking the weekly average allows me to concentrate on trends, not day-to-day. But you still have visibility to daily weights that could help with motivation. Edit: You might want to read the link in my signature "Why the scale lies." It was an eye opener for me.

Bviera · April 2011

The fact of the matter is that there are a LOT of things that influence the number of the scale. Sodium intake, menstrual cycle, hormones, amount of undigested food in your stomach, water retention, muscle inflammation, etc etc etc. When we say we weigh X number, what it really means is that we weight somewhere in between the range of X and X. I can weigh anywhere between 146 and 150 at any given time in the day. It's usually closer to 146, so I use 146 as my weight. When I say I want to weight 135, I mean I want to be anywhere between 133 and 138. The number is not the most imporant thing. What's important is your body fat content and muscle mass.

Here's the best way to do it: get a good, flexible tape measure. Like the ones that seamstresses use. Get the circumference of your waist, hips, arms, neck, thighs, and calves. Write the numbers down. (MFP has a feature to add whatever measurements you want.) Every month, or every two or three weeks, measure yourself again and write it down again. Find al old pair of pants that you don't fit into anymore and try them on every few weeks. Do you notice your current clothes getting loser? Are you seeing any definition in your muscle tone? *Those* are the most important aspects of weight loss. The number on the scale helps, and of course, if it just 10 lbs and stays there, you know you're doing something off. But if it's more or less constant within 5 lbs, it's not that big a deal.

For a number to log on MFP, find one time of the day, one day a week, one single scale, and one location in the house and weigh yourself there. For me, it's on Wednesdays as soon as I get up, after I use the bathroom, before having breakfast, wearing nothing or next to nothing, on the hardwoord floor right ouside of my bathroom (because it's firm and even). That's the number I go by.

ccaym · April 2011

Thanks so much, everyone!

dragonairis · April 2011

Everyone has great reasons why the scale fluctuates, and I know those reasons. I had your exact problem, and I wondered whether to ride it out or change my weight up. I let it ride for two weeks, but then I got to feeling like the number on my ticker was a lie. I also knew that when I 'lost' the water weight again and started dropping below the weight I still had recorded, it wouldn't look like as big of a loss, and that would demotivate me. So now I just look at it like this. My weigh in day is my weigh in day, no ifs, ands, or buts. But I don't let the number define me. I also keep track of my weight every day on an excel sheet, just so I can see how crazy it can be and remind myself that way.

LaurnWhit · April 2011

Bump

chevy88grl · April 2011

My weight fluctuates a lot when I have PMS. That's why I only weigh myself once a week. If I weigh everyday, I'll slowly drive myself insane. Day to day fluctuations are completely normal. It is affected by everything from water retention to the last time you had a bowel movement. Scales are fickle.

TMLPatrick · April 2011

Cheap bathroom scales are mechanical devices that tend to report differently depending on where they are.... I really notice my crummy weight watchers electronic scale will report different weights if I weigh myself 3 times in a row on it. It also changes based on where my feet are on the scale... the best thing you can do is not get attached to the number that comes up on that screen. Weigh yourself regularly, and keep track and just make sure that the overall trend is downward. If your weight this week is between 195-200, make sure that in 3 weeks it is between 190-195.... that is how you know you're doing the right thing. It sounds simple, but people tend to get caught up on a single measurement, which does not really mean much of anything.

ccaym · April 2011

It's good to hear that I am not the only one frustrated by crazy fluctuations. I am going to try weighing myself once a week and recording that weight whether up or down. We'll see if I can actually resist weighing myself the other days. As I mentioned before, the number is on the scale is a big motivator for me so I will have to stay open and see what works best. I know I am moving in the right direction...my clothes and rings are looser, I can see changes in my shape, and my legs are much stronger. MFP folks have been so supportive! I can't express how nice it is to be able to come here with questions or needing encouragement knowing that you all have my back/ Thank you!!!

TourThePast · April 2011

Because weight can fluctuate from day to day, I never rely on a weekly weigh-in. If you happen to weigh yourself two weeks running on "heavy days" that can be extremely demotivating.

I therefore weigh myself at the same time every morning, after going to the loo, before having a drink, and enter the weight on a spreadsheet which creates a graph.

While the weight may fluctuate from day to day, it's easy to see a clear downward trend on the graph - whereas two points on that graph, representing two random days a week apart, may give an extremely false picture.

Baffled by the scale..how much do I really weigh?

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