Should I always weigh 1/week? Do you ever go to 1/month? Continue to log you daily food?

it seems to me that the reason my weight got away from me was that i had bad eating habits, and i wasn't mindful about nutrition, calorie intake, or exercise.

Logging your intake forces you to be very mindful of everything you eat, and helps develop that awareness; BEFORE you put something in your mouth, you are already considering how it will impact your daily goals and, ultimately, your fitness.

I don't expect i will continue to weight weekly or log regularly once i am at a healthy weight and am confident that i have developed healthy eating habits.

The devil with habits, though, is that they become routine, and you lose mindfulness. I do think that once i stop regular logging and weekly weigh-in, it will be important to monitor my fitness. monthly weigh-ins should be sufficient. And if i ever find myself more than a few pounds above or below my healthy weight, it will be time to start paying closer attention to my eating, my fitness, and my general health to figure out what's going on and reinforce/recommit as needed.

Maybe you can continue to log for another 1-2 months..then take a break... See if weght changes. ..I mean in the first place,why we are here it's because we were never mindful of what we ate before weight loss. But through this weight loss journey I'm sure all of us learnt how to eat and live better

Like those above, logging keeps me honest... stopped logging for a while when I felt I was on a good roll and found myself falling completely off the wagon. I don't weigh myself more than once every three weeks or so. I found myself getting really frustrated when I didn't see any movement on the 1/week weigh ins. Every three weeks allows me to see if I am really making some headway.

I don't weigh every week... I only weigh the week after my period, so I can compare from month to month (the other 2-3 weeks, I retain a random amount of water so it's not as accurate).

The reason I weigh is so I can make sure that my maintenance level hasn't changed. So if I gain a bit, I know that I need to eat less or move more... but I pretty much have to keep logging to be able to know that. It doesn't take much time so I do it anyway.

My personal trainers have always weighed and measured me monthly as it gives me time to make real progress. But I usually weigh myself every week anyway.

I plan on logging my food daily ...I definitely will weigh in weekly.

I tend to weigh myself two or three times a week, because I want to keep an eye on the results of my calorie intake and activity levels. In addition, I plan on logging my intake forever. It doesn't take that long, and it keeps me honest.

When I'm on the low end of my range I'll go back to weighing biweekly

TerryKes wrote: »

Since starting my weight loss/fitness goal last September, I've weighed in once a week. I hit my goal a month ago and have been trying to figure out maintenance since. So far, so good, I'm only .2 from when maintenance began. I will continue to weigh once/week at least for few months, I think, but I've been wondering, does anyone only weigh in once a month?

I'm trying to also change my thought processes about weight, weight loss, exercise, food, etc. I don't want to continue to be obsessive (which I've been very focused for the past 6 months, which has allowed me to lose 48 pounds in 5 months and maintained the past 3 weeks).

I think I'll continue to log my food - but that creates an additional question, how long do you continue to log your food after hitting maintenance?

Any insight/advice is welcomed! Thanks!!

First of all congrats! (*)

I think your question is a fairly common one and it is not that different to when people ask how to lose weight ... there is NO one-blanket answer that fits everyone.

This is a highly individualized path so the simple answer is it all depends on your personality and lifestyle.

Some people after achieving goal weight is able to regain their internal food calculator (so-to-speak) and can maintain for years without logging or weighing their food. While others (like myself) can not. The key is to be brutally honest with yourself and assess your own skill set in that regards in order to determine if you should continue to weigh & log your food intake or not. For those of us who have embraced being a life logger, weighing & logging food has truly become a seamless part of our routine and think nothing of it. Kind of an automatic mode ie. putting on seat belt in the car sort of mindless habit. But if you see it as a burden then perhaps you can experiment with gauging portion size one meal at a time to evaluate how accurate you are.

In regards to weigh-in, again, this chalks up largely to personal preference & what will compliment your personality & lifestyle. When I was losing weight I weigh myself religiously every week, same time, same day, same clothes. The first few months of maintenance I weigh in about every other week, then once a month for another few months. After about a year, when my weight have truly stabilized [1-2 lbs +/- flux (closing in on 2 years maintaining YAY)] I weigh myself whenever I think of it ... whether that is a few weeks or months. As long as my weigh is within the normal flux I don't really pay all that much attention to the number on the scale any more which is a very odd concept to get use to. lol

Just don't forget to continue to set goals in maintenance for yourself. This may seem silly but it helps me to stay on track & motivated to continue this healthy lifestyle not just something temporary. And initially doing something, anything for the rest of my life seemed daunting & overwhelming. SO I broke it down to less monumental tasks with goals. For example, my first goal was to beat the statistical odds of regaining within the 1st year. Currently I am focused more on eating cleaner (reducing overall sugar, phasing out ranch dressing in my eating repertoire) & more fitness related goals like increase general muscle definition through weight training etc.

Best of luck to you!

I like to weigh daily. I think once a week makes more sense than once a month because there can be so much variation in weight that it takes a few measurements to be able to see a trend, but if it were me I wouldn't want to have to wait 2 or 3 months to really have a sense of that is going on.

jcim1ru wrote: »

The scale is right there waiting for me every day after my shower. I step on it, read the number, think about my personal range allowance and step off. It's my sanity check. I can live without it and do when I travel. But the scale is like MFP, my buddy for life.

That's me.

I weigh once a week, but not for the pounds. I am monitoring body fat vs muscle mass. I also log faithfully. That is just how I have to be accountable to myself. It is a part of the lifestyle that works for me.

Exactly what NikonPal said!! I don't think of it as obsessive... what was obsessive was how I used to eat a box of cheez-its at night

I agree with NikonPal too. I have been maintenance for almost 2 years now. Continuing to log my intake and my weight keep me accountable. I never want to be fat again so this is now my routine.

I quit logging for a few months and found myself slipping back to old habits. So much so my IBS is in full uproar again. I am determined to be healthy and thin. Being 50 now I have to stay mindful as weight gain is even easier now and weight loss so much harder. I am back to the routine starting this week. I don't consider is an obsession, it's a lifestyle must.

Deipneus wrote: »

There are no universal rules, just what's right for each of us. I lost weight and gained much of it back when I quit logging. I am now a permanent food tracker since November 2011. I am also one of those people who weighs himself every morning. It's right for me but I don't think it's right for most people. There are technical advantages (it very accurately averages out the daily fluctuations) but for many people, psychological disadvantages. Congratulations on hitting maintenance and good luck!

Glad I'm not the only one weighing myself every day. I usually take a 3-day average as my weight to help account for fluctuations. I think everyone is a little different so you need to find what works for you where you don't feel you have become obsessive but are able to hold yourself to where you have gotten. Congrats and good luck!