Daily or Weekly weigh in's?

davidupperton6627
davidupperton6627 Posts: 24 Member
in Getting Started
Hi All,

I'm Dave, this is my first week and I'm weighing myself daily. I think it's probably the need to reaffirm that this actually works and build up a head of steam. Things have started ok, -4lbs after 4 days but I have a feeling that weighing daily won't always be a loss day, and I'm concerned about losing motivation.... so. Daily and deal with highs and lows or weekly where such a long period of time could be dangerous!!.....all comments and adds welcome!

Replies

  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    Your body consists of lots of different parts that all have different density (weight). Your body is in a constant state of flux. Food and water enters and waste leaves. If you are constipated, your scale will show more. If you are dehydrated, your scale will show less. If you are sore from working out, your muscles will retain water for repair. If you cut down of food intake, you will have less digesting food in your intestines and less glycogen in your muscles, and glycogen binds water. Sodium also binds water, so after a salty meal, you can temporarily weigh more.

    This means that you don't have a weight, you have a weight range. Most people have a 2 - 5 pounds normal range.

    If you are eating at a calorie deficit, you are losing weight. But for all the reasons mentioned above, and the fact that you can only lose fat at a rate of up to 1% of your total body weight per week, you will not be able to see your loss, clearly and definitely, on the scales, until you have been in a calorie deficit for a few weeks.

    So I suggest not basing your motivation on the results of your weigh-ins. Weight loss is slow (as mentioned above) and you are going to be in this for a long, long time, and after that, the rest of your life to maintain. Consistency, effective strategies, commitment, patience, flexibility and realistic expectations are way more important than motivation.
  • afrsilver
    afrsilver Posts: 37 Member
    I usually try weigh my self weekly, but fail and just end up getting on the scale before the week is over, I think I'm going to stick with Daily or at least 3-5 times a week, because I feel better knowing how much I weigh each day. I don't really obsess but I feel like it keeps me on track, whether I lose any thing or gain because with either result it makes me work hard and stay on track.
  • pinboman
    pinboman Posts: 18 Member
    I would agree with Kommodevaran.

    I wiegh once a week but please do not get up tight about it.
    Get the tape measure out, take pics. your body will change over time.

    I record my wieght weekly so i can look back (upto a year)

    I have not been active on MFP for some time but am looking to get back to posting, feel free to add me as friend

    Chedder cheese is my down fall too :p
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    There is no right way. It comes down to personal preference. I like the numbers and weight daily. I've seen my weight move up and down, but trending downward. I put my weight in here and then add it to an Excel sheet as well to track progress, calculate BMI etc. That is what works for me so just find what works for you.

    One concern I have with weekly weighing is hitting a bad day. 2 days ago I weighed 4 pounds more than this morning. If that was my weekly weigh in day, it would have sucked. But seeing my Christmas weight drop off like it did tells me I had a lot of water and waste in my system, and that it wasn't fat.
  • riffraff2112
    riffraff2112 Posts: 1,756 Member
    personal preference.
    I have run the gambit over the years from weighing several times a day, and had great success to not weighing myself at all and just using other metrics (pant size, etc) to let me know how I was doing.
    Presently I never weigh myself, just fell out of the habit when the battery died on the scale and I just never replaced it.
    When I was using the scale, I liked to weigh myself often knowing that there would be fluctuations but I wanted to know how my body reacted to workouts, cardio sessions, eating big meals etc. I really got to understand how my body reacted to certain foods, or intense workouts. The key is not to get too worried about not losing what was expected, as you will hear over and over again...the loss is pretty unpredictable.
  • rachelr1116
    rachelr1116 Posts: 334 Member
    I weigh daily or almost daily. I keep track of my daily weights on a trending app and log my Friday weight on MFP. If I didn't weigh daily I would have missed my low day this week which was yesterday because my weight went up a pound today. My legs are sore from a work out and since I weigh daily I know that pound is probably mostly water weight.
  • janicelo1971
    janicelo1971 Posts: 823 Member
    i weigh each AM....helps me stay accountable..but i have done this for 5 plus years and dont freak out if one day i am at 119 and the next at 125....alot of water weight gain....i know if i go more then 8 pounds its time to take action...atleast for me!
  • janicelo1971
    janicelo1971 Posts: 823 Member
    i weigh daily, but i know that i can go up or down almost 6 points and not worry about it as its water weight gain..i have done this for 5 plus year and range from 119-126..if i go above that, i know i need to take action
  • singletrackmtbr
    singletrackmtbr Posts: 644 Member
    edited December 2016
    The answer to this question isn't about the weighing, it's about you. Do you take individual weights with a grain of salt, realizing that many things can affect one individual weight? (water retention or dehydration, sodium intake, time of day, did you go to the bathroom first, etc).

    Or do you live and die by each weight, and scramble to make changes every time the number shifts?

    I will say the first way is the correct way, and I've weighed daily for 8 months. I like to look for trends, so I don't overreact if I'm up or down a few pounds. To me a trend needs to be at least 4-5 days before I make any changes (and changes should be small and isolated). I weigh first thing in the morning after the bathroom, wearing nothing.

    If you are in the second category, I would weigh less often, and try to get yourself into the first category! Good luck.

    PS Weighing more than once a day is pointless, and will drive you nuts.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    everything that @kommodevaran said ... plus, if you weigh in daily, or even every couple of days like I do .. it might be more helpful to not look at any one weight as your true weight, but to average it out with the others in that range of days ... I do this weekly on a spreadsheet, but there are apps I've heard mentioned (sorry, don't recall the names) that smooth out the weight fluctuations for you to give you that average weight number ... and what you want to see is a downward trend.
  • Meghanebk
    Meghanebk Posts: 321 Member
    I weigh daily just because I'm interested in figuring out what makes my weight swing fast - hormones, sodium, changes in daily macros, it's cool to see what impacts my body that I hadn't been aware of. I'm taking the slow route, losing a bit under half a pound a week, so the swings are kind of entertaining. I apparently gained two pounds in 24 hours from a combination of stress and hormones making me retain water. It was nice to know that wouldn't be permanent.

    I don't pay much attention to that daily number in a weight-loss sense though, I just trend the numbers to make sure I'm still headed in the right direction.
  • everher
    everher Posts: 909 Member
    singletrackmtbr wrote: »
    The answer to this question isn't about the weighing, it's about you. Do you take individual weights with a grain of salt, realizing that many things can affect one individual weight? (water retention or dehydration, sodium intake, time of day, did you go to the bathroom first, etc).

    Or do you live and die by each weight, and scramble to make changes every time the number shifts?

    I agree with this. Personally, I have weighed at all types of different intervals, but now I weigh daily and I think this is what is going to work best for me. I record all of my weigh ins in a trending weight app (Happy Scale) and it's easier for me to monitor progress rather than weighing in once a week and accidentally weigh in on a day I'm retaining a lot of water and think I am actually gaining weight or not losing when I am.

    I do not show a loss everyday, but the general trend is downward and that's what I'm looking for. Since the holidays, I have been eating in excess a bit and I noticed over the last four to five days a slow trend upwards so I knew I needed to tighten up. I like that I didn't have to wait until weigh in day if I weighed once a week or less to see I was slipping into old habits. I knew I was subconsciously, but it's nothing like the scale to hit you with a hard dose of truth.
  • davidupperton6627
    davidupperton6627 Posts: 24 Member
    Great debate guys, It's interesting to hear such different opinions....im a little clearer now, but please keep going!!
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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    If you weigh in daily, you need to understand and be comfortable with totally normal fluctuations. Yesterday I was down 1.5 Lbs from the day before...today I'm up .5 Lbs from yesterday...all in all, it looks like I've lost about 1 Lb net since last Friday.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    I weigh daily even in maintenance. Back when I was losing if I had weighed once a week I might have missed a low weight! because thats how the scale went for me it would bounce up and up then down by 0.5 to 1.5lbs each day - I tracked those readings and saw the scale was on a downward trend which was all that mattered. It really helped me understand how my body fluctuated and when I would know to expect fluctuations up - after high sodium meals, hormones at a certain time of month, DOMS from a hard work out.
    Its a personal decision for everyone when to weigh, but I found that knowledge of those fluctuations was power :smiley:
    I still fluctuate by up to 2lbs in any one day.
  • b3achy
    b3achy Posts: 2,133 Member
    I weigh daily because I like to see the fluctuations and have the data points. But I weigh 'for record' weekly. I also take my tape measurements weekly. When I don't see changes on the scale, I'll often see it on the tape measure, and vice versa.

    I'm sort of a data nerd though, and like to have more data rather than less. I also have a scale that tends to be the bane of my existence on my record weigh in days, so having those other data points from earlier in the week (often lower than the record day), helps me maintain my sanity when my record weigh in day isn't going the way I thought it would. But that's me.

    I have to agree with everyone though...when you weigh daily, you have to take the scale number with a huge grain of salt since so much can affect that number. Also, only use one scale to weigh yourself and use it to watch the relative change. Every scale will weigh you slightly differently depending on calibration, precision, etc.
  • janicelo1971
    janicelo1971 Posts: 823 Member
    not sure why my postings are not appearing, but i weigh daily it helps me stay on track....the scale i know will go up and foes 3-6 pounds but I'm good with that knowing its water weight...if more then that i change up what I'm eating
  • Dalceridae
    Dalceridae Posts: 81 Member
    edited December 2016
    With previous weight loss efforts, I always weighed myself weekly. I would feel horrible whenever the scale didn't show a loss, and I think some of that discouragement led me to just give up for the week...which then started a trend of bad weigh ins, etc.

    When I joined here 6 weeks ago, I started with once a week, but then I read about weighing daily and tracking the trend. I have switched to that, and I think it is helping. It was really, really difficult the first time the scale didn't show a loss, even though I was expecting it from everything I had read and knew I shouldn't panic. After the past week of my weight fluctuating over the holidays, I have started to relax considerably. I'm no longer so stressed about getting on the scale.
  • CafeRacer808
    CafeRacer808 Posts: 2,396 Member
    Daily, because I use a weight trending app. The trend line the app provides is more accurate with more data points.
  • Kait_Dee
    Kait_Dee Posts: 176 Member
    I'm a competitive athlete and weigh daily. :smile:
  • genpopadopolous
    genpopadopolous Posts: 411 Member
    I weigh daily, and use an app that tracks the trend and tells me what my deficit is based on my trendline.

    That's what I pay attention to. I'm OK with .8-1.5 pounds a week. When it slows down I know I need to examine my logging and see where I need to tighten up.

    The number isn't a mind- trip for me. It isn't the be-all, end-all measure of success for me.

    Plus, I'm not motivated. I'm resolute.

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