How often do you update your weight??
1ocean1girl
Posts: 197 Member
Lately I have steadily been losing weight and am not sure when to update my goals?
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Replies
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It's up to you. Personally I log it every Monday - down, up or the same.
Update your calorie goals about every 10 lbs down or so.6 -
Everyday because I want to track the fluctuations.3
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Once a week, Sunday mornings after using the washroom. As far as goals, I've got MFP set to have me lose 1 lb/week. I'm actually losing something like 1.5 (I eat back 50% of my exercise calories). Not a concern right now, since I've got just under 60 lbs to lose and between 50 and 75, 1.5 is acceptable. However, as the weight comes off, the rate of loss is going to slow down. I'll readjust at that point. (I'm short and currently on 1380 calories before exercise. It's getting a little tight and I don't see a point in adjusting it downward when the weight's coming off.)
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Every time I see a drop. I know that weight fluctuates and why (for me), so right now all I care about tracking is my drops. This keeps my numbers clean and lets me more quickly calculate if I'm losing at my expected rate of loss.6
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Be aware that fast weight changes aren't fat (which isn't fast lost or gained).
So water weight.
And if it comes off fast - it'll go back on fast too. Higher sodium meal, good workout, stress in life, extra carbs, ect.
That can appear and be discouraging to some that can't separate a stat and what it is actually reflecting, from what they think it means.
Besides which - it is actually just noise if the goal is to lose fat - why log noise?
Weekly at best. Knowing your metabolism literally changes through the month, so really a monthly figure is what you can start discerning something from.
Or use trend weight for the daily stuff, MFP for when it changes enough to matter.2 -
MsHarryWinston wrote: »Every time I see a drop. I know that weight fluctuates and why (for me), so right now all I care about tracking is my drops. This keeps my numbers clean and lets me more quickly calculate if I'm losing at my expected rate of loss.
I do the same. I know I'm not gaining on about 1600 gross calories, and my weight fluctuates as much as seven pounds in a day due to water weight, so I only record my current low. If I don't see a new low every few days, and there's not a reasonable explanation (such as sodium or sleep schedule), I tweak something. Sometimes a drop will be temporary, but eventually my new low is my old high.2 -
MsHarryWinston wrote: »Every time I see a drop. I know that weight fluctuates and why (for me), so right now all I care about tracking is my drops. This keeps my numbers clean and lets me more quickly calculate if I'm losing at my expected rate of loss.
I do this too. I know gains are just normal fluctuations, but I find it very discouraging to see the little line go up on my graph. Also, this way it is easy to see where each dip is and how long it took to get there so I can establish a pattern and change things up if I need to.1 -
1ocean1girl wrote: »Lately I have steadily been losing weight and am not sure when to update my goals?
I'm not sure if there's a time when you're supposed to. I figure I'll do it when my weight loss slows down.0 -
I get on the scales no more than once a month, and tweak the calories then. I believe you cant make short term changes, changing your calorie intake from day to day wont change much, consistency is the key to achieving your goals.2
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I track my weight every morning before the shower using Libra. Every Monday I enter the trending weight on here. Hopefully it will be much less once I have figured out how many calories I need for maintenance.2
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I weigh every day, I log every time I see a couple of day trend (because I'm too impatient to wait for logging on my weigh in day) so if I'm down half a pound and still down the next day I log, same if it goes up. Kind of eliminates some of the water weight fluctuations, for example I might have gone 500-1000 cals over maintenance at the weekend eating pizza but the scale may well be up a couple of pounds the next day, I'll give it a day before I'll log a gain. Same if I've had a particularly good day and I've lost more than expected I'll give it an extra day to make sure it wasn't just dehydration.
This also stops people congratulating me too often on my feed for losing and gaining the same pound
At the end of the day do whatever works for you it's just data, as long as you're aware you're looking for long term trends rather than daily fluctuations, (water weight fluctuations seem to really get people down) I tend to log often but look at my monthly progress for perspective.
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I log it whenever I have a weigh in sprung on me as I dont know when they are coming the OH decides when I should do it and then I cant plan my cheating
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In short: The minimum you need to do is to update your weight periodically. What 'periodically' is is up to you: monthly ought to be enough if you really don't like weighing yourself. As for other goals (weekly goal for weight loss/gain, goal weight) you may never have to change these, but they are your goals and so I think you should change them if you want.
In more detail: MFP needs a fairly accurate and recent weight if it is to give you a sensible daily goal for calorie intake. As your weight changes, your calorie intake ought to change too. MFP will make the change automatically when it realises you have gained/lost 10 lbs (about 4.5 kg). It probably takes a month or more to change weight as much as that, so while MFP recommends weekly weighing, monthly weighings ought to update things enough to use the product successfully. There are arguments for weighing more often (something to do if you like that; data to collect if you like that; MFP updates immediately you cross the 10 lb line; you get used to the meaningless small short-term day-t-day changes in weight). But you don't have to weigh often if that's difficult for you (e.g. hard to get access to scales, or you know that you are at risk of getting upset or obsessive about your scale weight).
here's a link to the article about how the calorie goal reset works: MFP portal: will my goals change if my weight changes?
If you're happy with the weekly goal for weight change and the final goal weight, then you can leave those alone. But if I found my weekly goal was too tough I would change it to an easier one without embarrassment - better to change weight more slowly than to be miserable all the time, or set an impossible challenge and give up. The goal weight is something MFP suggests by calculation. It isn't magic and might not be exactly right - you may find that you're happier and feel better at a slightly different weight. link to a good article on Greatist.com discussing this2 -
1ocean1girl wrote: »Lately I have steadily been losing weight and am not sure when to update my goals?
My goal has always been the same.0 -
I use the Libra app to track trendweight so I put in figures there daily, but I typically log it in MFP Fridays and sometimes I randomly do it too. I don't really have a set schedule.0
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When I was losing weight, once a month. In maintenance now, I weigh every day and track on the Libra app, but I leave MFP set with my UGW.0
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I log my weight daily in the Happy Scale app, and on Mondays I update MFP based on my Happy Scale trend weight0
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Every Saturday morning, gain or loss.0
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I weigh every morning. Fluctuations don't bother me, and a chart that only goes one direction without any little bumps is boring.
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MsHarryWinston wrote: »Every time I see a drop. I know that weight fluctuates and why (for me), so right now all I care about tracking is my drops. This keeps my numbers clean and lets me more quickly calculate if I'm losing at my expected rate of loss.
I do this too. I know gains are just normal fluctuations, but I find it very discouraging to see the little line go up on my graph. Also, this way it is easy to see where each dip is and how long it took to get there so I can establish a pattern and change things up if I need to.
Yup! With my new workout schedule and Fitbit I wasn't sure how my loss rate would be effected. For a while I felt like I was still losing too slowly since I wasn't eating back my exercise calories for the info gathering period. But once I had a few weeks of pure drop info logged I discovered that my big drops are on about a 9 day cycle. And the rate when compared to calorie burn was about for 2/3 of my exercise calories. So I can eat up to 2/3 of my workout calories. Though my math could be a bit spotty.
It would have taken SO MUCH LONGER to figure this out if I had to sift through all the extra data points to pull out the drops.2 -
Every day in Happy Scale. It evens out the highs and lows and reduces my anxiety over fluctuations.0
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I threw out my scale a long time ago tbh. Seeing it go up or down would change how I felt about my progress. I measure my progress through measurements and photos as my weight doesn't change much but I lose inches etc0
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When I feel like it. That used to be daily. Now I weigh 2-5x per week but don't get around to logging it as often.1
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I weigh myself every Saturday morning, because I know I'll get the most accurate reading only once a week.0
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Daily on happy scale and when I lose on MFP. Fluctuations matter very little to me so weighing daily doesn't phase me. I adjust my goals when I lose manually because MFP doesn't do it for me.0
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I weigh daily and log it in MFP every morning. When it's a new low weight, I have MFP recalculate my calorie goal. Usually it doesn't change, but once in a while there's a decrease of 10 calories.
I'd much rather do it that way than have bigger reductions less frequently.0 -
I weigh every day and log my weight every day BUT I do not change my fitness goals until I have lost (or gained) 5 lbs, then I will reevaluate to see if I need to change calorie goals, etc.0
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I weigh every 1-2 days, then i log the weight in Fitbit which automatically syncs to Trendweight and MFP.0
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I weigh every morning right after the am evacuation. Then log my weight change usually every few weeks if it changes...0
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Every time I weigh in, which works out to every two to three weeks, depending on if I can access the scale in the health office at work.
I'm currently losing at a rate of 1.5 pounds a week on 1600-1700 cals with no exercise, so I think i'll adjust that when the weight loss slows. Or add daily walk.0
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