Proof that weighing daily is confusing unless you look at the big picture. (Spreadsheet!)

Lottiotta
Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
edited July 2015 in Getting Started
I've been losing weight pretty consistently for a few weeks with a combination of calorie-tracking and my Fitbit. According to MFP and Fitbit I'm eating at maintenance and don't really have a calorie deficit on average, but I'm losing about .25 kg per week. My start weight was 62 kg and my goal weight is... uncertain, but probably 59 kg or a smidge lower.

Anyway, when I heard that weight can fluctuate by several lbs per day based on water intake, salt intake, hormone levels, recent exercise, etc., my "let's make a spreadsheet" reflex kicked in. This one, I enter my weight every day in the morning before breakfast, and that varies a LOT - but then, in another column, it tells me what my average weight for the past two weeks of entries is. And then it puts everything on a graph, so I can compare my calorie intake vs. burn, my weight every day, and my 14-day weight average.

{LINK TO SPREADSHEET}

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In this graph, the red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that. The good bit is the thick green line, which is my 14-day average weight, and the thin grey line "behind" it is my day-to-day weight. See how it's all over the shop, but the thick green average line is steadily declining? If you don't look at the big (14-day) picture, it's very easy to think that there's no rhyme or reason to your weight. One week's worth of daily weight recording doesn't mean much at all, but a 14-day average over time will show you trends.

When my 14-day average weight changes, that's when I log the weight in MFP.

So I'm posting a link to my spreadsheet here, so people can:
  • see how weight can fluctuate a lot day-to-day but *on average* consistently go down .1 kg every few days for many weeks. (I'm almost 2 kg down from my start weight, and it's taken me a little bit over 6 weeks.)
  • copy the spreadsheet to their own Google Drive or download it to their computer to use themselves.

The moral of the story: weighing yourself daily is a path to madness - unless you obsessively spreadsheet everything! ;)
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Replies

  • elga_thres
    elga_thres Posts: 117 Member
    Thank you for sharing this!
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    elga_thres wrote: »
    Thank you for sharing this!

    No problem! :)
  • deckerp
    deckerp Posts: 4,365 Member
    I weigh everyday just so I can log it. If you don't record it you can't report on it later. It's good to see the progress over time. Yes it varies each day and you can just ignore the ups and downs, that's usually water weight. It can also be very encouraging to see a low number pop out there sometimes. It's easy for me to ignore the high numbers and enjoy the low numbers.

    My glass is half full.
  • justrollme
    justrollme Posts: 802 Member
    As someone who was becoming a little scale-obsessed, I really appreciate that you've tracked and posted this. I'm going to take this as a lesson to cool my jets on the scale. :D
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
    Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    AJ_G wrote: »
    Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

    That doesn't take into account hormones, salt, and exercise. But even if it did, I'd still rather have a spreadsheet 'cause it's easier!
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    justrollme wrote: »
    As someone who was becoming a little scale-obsessed, I really appreciate that you've tracked and posted this. I'm going to take this as a lesson to cool my jets on the scale. :D

    Happy to have helped! :) Also I like your avatar, it tickles me. :P
  • ohmscheeks
    ohmscheeks Posts: 840 Member
    edited July 2015
    Interesting, though my weight doesn't fluctuate that much from day to day (this far, ha).
  • mgonyer123
    mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
    That's interesting!
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited July 2015
    If you have a fitbit or withings Aria scale that is linked to MFP, make an account on trendweight.com

    If you don't, make an account on fitbit.com (you don't need to own a fitbit for this), synch to MFP, then make an account in trendweight.com

    And you get lovely trend charts of your weight that help you track your fluctuations and ongoing weight

    Like this

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    k4gofkjzu6a8.jpg
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    AJ_G wrote: »
    Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

    Not true cos also sodium, change-up in exercise and hormones affect scale weight
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    @rabbitjb That does look a lot tidier than my graph! I'll try it out. (I might not stick with it though - I find it motivating to see how weight loss is affected by calories.)

    Thanks for taking the time to put in some screenshots. :)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Lottiotta wrote: »
    @rabbitjb That does look a lot tidier than my graph! I'll try it out. (I might not stick with it though - I find it motivating to see how weight loss is affected by calories.)

    Thanks for taking the time to put in some screenshots. :)

    I am an excel geek and love your graph @Lottiotta so don't stop, because the calorie overlay isn't available on trendweight

    The thing with trendweight is so long as you log your weights in MFP and have synched them all up, it's automatic...any time you go in to trendweight it just sits there
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Trend weight is also a weighted moving average giving more weight to recent days than older values, I think. A straight 14 day moving average responds more to the difference between today and 2 weeks ago as all the other points are the same.

    So you could put another line on the excel and tweak the EWMA parameters to see which is best.
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    I am an excel geek and love your graph @Lottiotta so don't stop, because the calorie overlay isn't available on trendweight

    The thing with trendweight is so long as you log your weights in MFP and have synched them all up, it's automatic...any time you go in to trendweight it just sits there

    I already had a Fitbit account and I like the weight input thing in the MFP app, so it turns out TrendWeight is much easier for me than I thought it would be! I like how it shows the weird little fluctuations, it's different from my spreadsheet graph. I do still like that I can poke my spreadsheet and graph to show whatever I want (like calorie intake), so I'm definitely going to keep doing it - and now I've set up TrendWeight it'll just keep going in the background.

    So, thank you!
  • swirlybee
    swirlybee Posts: 497 Member
    Thanks for posting the excel file. I've been using trendweight but I like the calorie information on your spreadsheet. Comes in handy.
  • NikiChicken
    NikiChicken Posts: 576 Member
    AJ_G wrote: »
    Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.

    Not true at all! No matter how "good" or rigid you are with you calorie intake, there are other variables that will play into your scale weight. Salt, hormones, heat (I swell in the heat), undigested food in your belly, water that you haven't yet peed out, as well as many other factors all play a part in your scale weight as well. You can think you have been perfect, but the scale might still show a gain. You have to always understand that weight loss is not linear, no matter how much you want it to be. The trick is to look at your overall trend, not the individual day-to-day weights.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    AJ_G wrote: »
    Or you can be consistent with calorie intake on a daily basis, as well as water intake, and you won't have the problem of your weight fluctuating from day to day.
    that is completely untrue. utterly
  • Bacchants
    Bacchants Posts: 92 Member
    This is really cool to look at! I weight weekly as I find the fluctuations difficult to deal with, but seeing it on a graph with a trendline looks really good. I might give this a go!
  • DarinGettingHawtin2013
    DarinGettingHawtin2013 Posts: 256 Member
    edited July 2015
    I am both a scientist and a data geek, so I'm absolutely loving this thread. I mean, really, really loving it. Going to check out trendweight.