Could this be true?

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This is my 3rd week on eating better and losing weight. I'm down 8 pounds. It seems as if the days I don't eat as much as others (within my calorie limit) I gain weight? Could this be possible? Do I have to focus on eating all my calories?

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  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    It's natural fluctuations. You'll never lose every day/week, especially as a female. If you do choose to weigh every day, using a tracking app such as Libra, Happy Scale, or Trendweight will help you look past those fluctuations and see the overall trend.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    edited June 2016
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    If you are a daily weigher then you will always see fluctuations regardless of how little/much you eat. Sometimes higher calorie days take longer showing up on the scale and likewise we can eat lower cals for a few days and that also takes time to show. Its about having an overall weekly deficit that determines weight loss.

    Well on on your loss to date, keep up the good work :smile:
  • VisofSer
    VisofSer Posts: 130 Member
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    Weigh daily but put more value on the weekly average. malibu has the right of this in suggesting something such as Trendweight so that you can see the trend as a chart. It helps with getting too focused on unavoidable daily fluctuations which can be water and a lot of other things. Well done on the 8lbs loss too.
  • MelaniaTrump
    MelaniaTrump Posts: 2,694 Member
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    Many things can cause daily fluctuations.
    Alcohol, monthly cycles, high salt food up to 3 days before.
    Even being out in the heat and then spending days inside.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    Your weight on a given day is not necessarily directly tied to the number of calories you ate on that day or the day before. It is affected by the calories you've been eating over a longer term plus the weight of the food/drink you've recently ingested. I've said before that weight loss/gain is not like a woodchipper where you shove results in the front end and immediately get results shooting out the back end. It's a longer term process. (I should probably use "fat loss" rather than "weight loss" in that comparison.)
  • whitneyb0421
    whitneyb0421 Posts: 36 Member
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    Wow thanks everyone for the advice I need to start looking at the overall picture!
  • kraft_kris
    kraft_kris Posts: 157 Member
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    I weigh every day but only log my weight on Mondays as my official weigh in for MFP. There is a cool app called happy scale where you can log your weight every day and it calculates a moving average, if you like that kind of thing.

    8lbs in 3 weeks is great!