Weight loss so unpredictable

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mbanks123
mbanks123 Posts: 117 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I can't stand how unpredictable weight loss is. I'm a logical person and I like to understand why I have and haven't lost weight.

Yesterday I was perfect yet today the scales went up but I have no idea what the reasoning could be this time.

I always try and justify it with lifting, water weight, excess salt, time of the month, bloated but I can't be any or these this time!

What kind of things affect your weight?
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Replies

  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
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    Sleep! If I don't get enough sleep, the scale goes up. But that may just be me.
  • Myki3012
    Myki3012 Posts: 153 Member
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    You should extend the time between your weigh ins. It's both more practicle and good for your mind and the latter is an important factor for weight loss.
  • mbanks123
    mbanks123 Posts: 117 Member
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    Really?? I didn't think that would have such an immediate impact.
    Thanks for your input :)
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
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    Injury. Sunburn. Ovulation.

    Water weight comes from a whole gamut of reasons, most you wouldn't even think of.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    The scale goes up because you eat food and drink liquids. The scale does down because you exhale carbon dioxide and excrete various stuff. The balance between the things that make the scale go up and those that make it go down determine the net effect.
  • kingleahnidas
    kingleahnidas Posts: 280 Member
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    I agree with @Myki3012 . Weight changes during the week really don't mean anything.. I mean, you can say it was water weight, bloating, etc. but you'll just drive yourself crazy trying to make sense of it. I suggest either weighing yourself less often, or use an app like happy scale to see the overall trends. For example, my weigh-ins this week:
    Sunday: 257.2
    Monday: 258.8
    Tuesday: 257.8
    Wednesday (today): 256.2

    If Happy Scale didn't show me my moving average was in the 256s all week, I would've probably freaked out when I saw that 258.8. But I didn't do anything different that day. Weight is weird. It fluctuates, and it's different for everybody.

    Good luck!
  • Stella3838
    Stella3838 Posts: 439 Member
    edited February 2017
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    Love the Happy Scale app. I weigh in almost every day and it's great for mapping trends. When I look at 30 days, it's definitely heading downward. My weight fluctuates for all kinds of reasons, but seeing that graph trend down tells me I'm on the right path. Weighing every day doesn't work for some people, but for me it's perfect. You can't worry if you go up one day and down the next. Micromanaging will drive most people crazy. But maybe mapping your trends will help you see how your overall program is working for you.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Weight loss is very predictable, but you need to filter out the noise. Water and food (even air, as mentioned) goes in and out and so body weight goes up and down. Weigh yourself every morning, and look at the trend over time. Whatever you do one particular day, has in isolation no impact on your weight over time, and that's what you want to change, right? What you do day after day, adds up. With logic and reason you'll have no difficulty handling this.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,885 Member
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    mbanks123 wrote: »
    What kind of things affect your weight?

    Larger amounts of exercise than usual
    TOM
    Ovulation
    Salt
    Heat
    Sunburn
    Flights
    Travel in general sometimes
    Bowel movements
    Dehydration


    I weigh myself every day and can usually guess whether I'm going to go up down or stay the same because I've figured out my patterns.

    Although late last week, my weight threw me a curve ball. I suddenly gained 1.1 kg. Weird. All was revealed on Sunday night. It was some sort of odd hormone glitch.
  • mbanks123
    mbanks123 Posts: 117 Member
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    I am using trendweight which does the same as happy scale but automatically updates itself from my wifi scales.

    My weight isn't getting me down as I know not to ever expect anything but I just wondered what kind of things massively effect others.

    A night out drinking for me and my weight drops loads but I know it will always go back up
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Alcohol -> dehydration.

    I never expect anything frommy scales either :D
  • mbanks123
    mbanks123 Posts: 117 Member
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    Machka9 wrote: »
    mbanks123 wrote: »
    What kind of things affect your weight?

    Larger amounts of exercise than usual
    TOM
    Ovulation
    Salt
    Heat
    Sunburn
    Flights
    Travel in general sometimes
    Bowel movements
    Dehydration


    I weigh myself every day and can usually guess whether I'm going to go up down or stay the same because I've figured out my patterns.

    Although late last week, my weight threw me a curve ball. I suddenly gained 1.1 kg. Weird. All was revealed on Sunday night. It was some sort of odd hormone glitch.

    Heat and sunburn will never be the causes for me living in sunny England :)

    Thanks for you input. It's interesting to see what effects people's weights :)
  • victoria_1024
    victoria_1024 Posts: 915 Member
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    I think the longer you do it, the more predictable it is. My diet the day before doesn't usually mean much to what the scale says unless I way overeat salty food and then it'll definitely be up. But like others have said, hormonal things, bowel movements, activity levels, etc all impact it. If I wake up sore from a strength training work out it's almost guaranteed I'll be up a pound no matter what my diet looked like the day before.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I'm like you and I want the scale to move 0.2857142857142857 lbs per day so I see my 2 lb per week loss.

    But it goes up and down. You may have had a solid day, but your previous weight might be a bit dehydrated so the solid day fixed that and now your weight is up. For me, there are just too many variables. Like last Saturday I was 258 (my current mini-goal) but that was down 2.6 from Friday and I went right back up Sunday. So no celebration for me until I'm under it for 2 days.

    I just picked up a Withings scale that I found on a clearance table but put all my weight into the Withings app and started using Trendweight as well.
  • mbanks123
    mbanks123 Posts: 117 Member
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    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    I'm like you and I want the scale to move 0.2857142857142857 lbs per day so I see my 2 lb per week loss.

    But it goes up and down. You may have had a solid day, but your previous weight might be a bit dehydrated so the solid day fixed that and now your weight is up. For me, there are just too many variables. Like last Saturday I was 258 (my current mini-goal) but that was down 2.6 from Friday and I went right back up Sunday. So no celebration for me until I'm under it for 2 days.

    I just picked up a Withings scale that I found on a clearance table but put all my weight into the Withings app and started using Trendweight as well.

    Trendweight is fantastic :) My weight seems to always be going down which is brilliant. It means that when my weight jumps up one day, i'm not demotivated as my trendweight is still going down.

    https://trendweight.com/u/476e3770145f48/

    This is the link to mine if anyone wants to have a look at what it is like.
  • leanjogreen18
    leanjogreen18 Posts: 2,492 Member
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    Today I went up and it was my socks. I kid you not lol.

    One can hold up to 4lbs of poo, water retention can be from all sorts of things.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    mbanks123 wrote: »
    I can't stand how unpredictable weight loss is. I'm a logical person and I like to understand why I have and haven't lost weight.

    Yesterday I was perfect yet today the scales went up but I have no idea what the reasoning could be this time.

    I always try and justify it with lifting, water weight, excess salt, time of the month, bloated but I can't be any or these this time!

    What kind of things affect your weight?

    Why couldn't it be any of those things...your body is 50-65% water...that's always going to be in flux regardless...certain things can exacerbate it, but water in your body will always be in flux. You also will always have varying degrees of waste in your system.

    What happens on the scale one day is not necessarily indicative of what happened the day before...it isn't a linear function. Weight loss and weight management in general is all about trend analysis.
  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
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    Was talking about this just last night with the hubby. He summed it up well:

    "BIOLOGY SUCKS!" (his words, not mine)
  • jdhcm2006
    jdhcm2006 Posts: 2,254 Member
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    I have a sore throat, so yesterday I gargled with warm salt water before going to bed. My weight was up this morning. Add in the fact that I'm bloated due to PMS, I'm sore b/c of lifting and pole on Monday, and I'm sick, my body is holding onto to some serious water weight.

    Ask yourself, have you truly consumed enough calories to justify actual weight gain? If the answer is no (and you've been honest with your logging), you can plan on that "gain" being water.
  • Stella3838
    Stella3838 Posts: 439 Member
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    jdhcm2006 wrote: »
    Ask yourself, have you truly consumed enough calories to justify actual weight gain? If the answer is no (and you've been honest with your logging), you can plan on that "gain" being water.

    This is a good point. I've seen other posts where someone was worried about their gain until someone posted how many calories they would have needed to consume for that gain to be from food. It really puts it into perspective how many other things are going on.

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