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

2»

Replies

  • DarinGettingHawtin2013
    DarinGettingHawtin2013 Posts: 267 Member
    edited July 2015
    Love spreadsheets too.
  • karbruce
    karbruce Posts: 73 Member
    This is really really amazing- Thanks for sharing.
  • fraserkr
    fraserkr Posts: 110 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. :)

    @Lottiotta, I was also going to mention trendweight plus weightgrapher.com; both I discovered via FitBit apps that sync with these two sites.

    I like your spreadsheet graphing calories to weight. I've wanted to see this myself. But I wonder why you note 'red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that'. Where are the calories that you are not ignoring shown on your graph?

    I splurged on the ARIA scale. I like electronic gadgets and like that the input gathered can be easily graphed by tools that sync with my weight tracking.
  • MFD7576
    MFD7576 Posts: 271 Member
    @Troutsy This is why excel is awesome lol
  • Brolympus
    Brolympus Posts: 360 Member
    This is a solid post, I hope more people look at this and get less discouraged at the day-to-day fluctuations. Big picture, everybody!
  • EmmaFitzwilliam
    EmmaFitzwilliam Posts: 482 Member
    deckerp wrote: »
    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.

    Same here.

    I log my weight, and consider the data in relation to other factors (sodium intake and other factors affecting water retention, previously recorded weight, low to date weight, relative activity). I celebrate the "low to date" (and especially the 5 and 10 pound mini-goals!), consider the affective factors if the weight has gone up, and rock on with my day.

    No drama, no angst, not crazy-making.

  • DanIsACyclingFool
    DanIsACyclingFool Posts: 417 Member
    Daily weigher here. I totally agree that the "big picture" is the only one that matters. But I have to point out that you can't see the big picture by weighing once a week either, not if the weekly weigh-in happens to land on some of the "funny" weigh-ins. There's really no subsitute for taking MANY data samples and taking an average. It's a form of "aliasing" (digital signal sampling error) from not enough samples.

    For instance, what sounds "better", an mp3 sampled at 32kbs? Or one at 192kbs?

    For the most complete picture you MUST weigh often and you MUST disregard the unusually high and unusually low weigh ins.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I already use Trendweight, but I'm considering 7, 10 or 14 days' moving average too, because Trendweight is also all over the place :persevere:
  • maillemaker
    maillemaker Posts: 1,253 Member
    Yup, it's all about trends. I weight myself every day on my Withings WiFi scale that automatically uploads my results.

    MM7HNsa.png

    Lots of fluctuations, especially weekends! :)
  • Azexas
    Azexas Posts: 4,334 Member
    I use the Happy Scale app at the moment to track trends. Kind of the same concept
  • LeslieB042812
    LeslieB042812 Posts: 1,799 Member
    Thank you so much for sharing your spreadsheet--it's fabulous! I had made one a long time ago, but yours is much better. LOL

    As another option, there is a free app called "Libra" that serves a similar sort of function. I like it because it shows your trend line along with predictions for meeting goals, assuming the current trend holds. It also gives a summary of the history (date of highest weight, date of lowest weight, date of lowest trend, etc.). Just another option! :smile:
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    edited July 2015
    fraserkr wrote: »
    I like your spreadsheet graphing calories to weight. I've wanted to see this myself. But I wonder why you note 'red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that'. Where are the calories that you are not ignoring shown on your graph?

    @fraserkr This is where it gets a bit weird. According to MFP and Fitbit, my calorie intake and burn have been around the same since I started counting everything a couple of months ago. And yet I'm losing about a quarter of a kilogram per week. TrendWeight says I'm burning ~240 kcals more than I'm eating per day, which means MFP and Fitbit must be underestimating my daily resting calorie burn (is that TDEE?), but I have no idea how to change my settings to take that into account. So until I can do that, the calorie line on my graph is pretty useless.

    However, I do like that the calorie line is on there. It clearly shows that Fitbit is underestimating my calories burned (or I'm overestimating calories consumed), and that is useful information. :)
  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    edited July 2015
    LeslieB042812 wrote: »
    Thank you so much for sharing your spreadsheet--it's fabulous! I had made one a long time ago, but yours is much better. LOL

    As another option, there is a free app called "Libra" that serves a similar sort of function. I like it because it shows your trend line along with predictions for meeting goals, assuming the current trend holds. It also gives a summary of the history (date of highest weight, date of lowest weight, date of lowest trend, etc.). Just another option! :smile:

    I'm glad so many people are finding the spreadsheet helpful!

    Thanks for the recommendation of Libra, @LeslieB042812. :)

    Edit: I just went and found this article about Libra, if anyone is curious. It appears to be an app on Android only.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Lottiotta wrote: »
    fraserkr wrote: »
    I like your spreadsheet graphing calories to weight. I've wanted to see this myself. But I wonder why you note 'red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that'. Where are the calories that you are not ignoring shown on your graph?

    @fraserkr This is where it gets a bit weird. According to MFP and Fitbit, my calorie intake and burn have been around the same since I started counting everything a couple of months ago. And yet I'm losing about a quarter of a kilogram per week. TrendWeight says I'm burning ~240 kcals more than I'm eating per day, which means MFP and Fitbit must be underestimating my daily resting calorie burn (is that TDEE?), but I have no idea how to change my settings to take that into account. So until I can do that, the calorie line on my graph is pretty useless.

    However, I do like that the calorie line is on there. It clearly shows that Fitbit is underestimating my calories burned (or I'm overestimating calories consumed), and that is useful information. :)


    That sounds right .. 250 calories a day is roughly 0.5lb a week, which is roughly 0.25kg isn't it?

    .. how many calories do you think you're in defecit in a day roughly? Might that be a logging issue?
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 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.

    It doesn't matter what you do or how accurate you are your weight will still naturally fluctuate from day to day.

  • Lottiotta
    Lottiotta Posts: 162 Member
    edited July 2015
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Lottiotta wrote: »
    fraserkr wrote: »
    I like your spreadsheet graphing calories to weight. I've wanted to see this myself. But I wonder why you note 'red line is my calorie "balance" and you can pretty much ignore that'. Where are the calories that you are not ignoring shown on your graph?

    @fraserkr This is where it gets a bit weird. According to MFP and Fitbit, my calorie intake and burn have been around the same since I started counting everything a couple of months ago. And yet I'm losing about a quarter of a kilogram per week. TrendWeight says I'm burning ~240 kcals more than I'm eating per day, which means MFP and Fitbit must be underestimating my daily resting calorie burn (is that TDEE?), but I have no idea how to change my settings to take that into account. So until I can do that, the calorie line on my graph is pretty useless.

    However, I do like that the calorie line is on there. It clearly shows that Fitbit is underestimating my calories burned (or I'm overestimating calories consumed), and that is useful information. :)


    That sounds right .. 250 calories a day is roughly 0.5lb a week, which is roughly 0.25kg isn't it?

    .. how many calories do you think you're in defecit in a day roughly? Might that be a logging issue?

    I am very careful about logging calories but I guess my scale might be inaccurate and think things are heavier than they are...?

    According to my spreadsheet, I have no calorie deficit at all. That's why I'm wondering whether Fitbit/MFP are underestimating my TDEE. Which is entirely possible! I think I trust TrendWeight more, because if I am losing about .25 kg per week and that means my deficit must be ~250 kcals per day AND I'm pretty sure I'm logging food accurately, that means the TDEE must be off... right?

    My instinct would be to tell Fitbit that my TDEE is higher and put in a custom value, but I don't think that's possible.

    Edit: Oops! Tagging @rabbitjb :)

Categories