Telling where we really are

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  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,485 Member
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    I've been maintaining for 8 years. When I post I rarely say I weigh x number of pounds, I say I maintain between 100-105lbs.
    Why?
    Some days I have a large lunch and small dinner. This means by morning I have generally had a late previous day BM and lost some of the water retention from salt and alcohol.
    On these days I will weigh in at anywhere between 100-102.

    Some days I have a very late dinner, desert, and a couple of glasses of wine. In the morning all this joy is still transiting.
    On these days I weigh between 103-105

    My normal, things going according to plan, weight mid week is, more often than not, 103.4.

    I don't expect a steady weight even though I am maintaining, I expect to be within the range I know works for me.

    (I am post menopausal so don't have to account for hormonal disruptions, hence a 5lbs range working for me)

    Relax and recognize if your feeding times change, or do IF, or eat out, or have extra salt, or have a couple of drinks, etc, etc, your weight will fluctuate because of it.

    Cheers, h.
  • WhereIsPJSoles
    WhereIsPJSoles Posts: 622 Member
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    donjtomasco wrote: »
    If you looked at my daily page of what I eat and exercise calories I add then eat back you will see that I am not on a dangerous disordered diet by any means. My goal is to lose anywhere between 0.00001 to 1.0 pounds per week, and so far since Oct 30th I am averaging 0.5 pounds loss per week (on average).

    I just like exploring different possibilities. Sometimes it seems like asking off beat questions really rocks the boat in this community. But that's fair. I enjoy all the comments.

    I don’t think anyone minds that you asked, but that you seem to be ignoring their replies that they took time to make.

    A few weeks ago I had a night where I drank a lot went from 120 to 118 the next morning. It took almost two weeks for me to see that 118 number again. Doesn’t mean I did anything different, I still ate at a deficit. What probably happened was the night of drinking dehydrated my body a bit and caused a low scale number. That’s no more my “true” weight than the day before at 120 when my body was more fully hydrated.
  • lilolilo920
    lilolilo920 Posts: 184 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Scale weight is just one stream of data points, in a multivariate world. There are tape measurements, before/progress/after photos, clothing sizes, body fat estimates, and more - just in the realm of weight management, not even bringing fitness or health into it.

    Really, the only important thing with scale weight is consistency. Accuracy is very secondary.

    Why?

    We don't really have a "true weight", as you seem to be thinking. We have a weight range over any given short time period (hour, day, etc.) Over the longer term (weeks, months, years) we have a weight trend: Up, down, or level.

    Weight loss is the process of trying to manage the trend downward, over time, then holding it level around a goal range.

    If you're thinking about fasting to learn your "true weight", you're flirting with distorted thinking, along the edges of eating disorders.

    Don't go there, please: Granny likes to see everyone stay healthy, physically and mentally.

    Best wishes!

    And it’s quotes like these that remind me why I love it when you post in the forum :smile:
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
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    THANK YOU GRACE!!!!!

    You wrote:"

    "When I worked as a RN on cardiac floor with lots of patients with kidney problems, who retain fluid which can cause potentially fatal issues, we always weighed first thing in the morning, after the patient had used the bathroom. The physicians who were closely monitoring weight as a sign of fluid retention, would often check with us if the weights were accurate, meaning right after awakening and after using the bathroom. So it is technically and medically the most accurate."

    I would say hospital docs, nurse's and rn's might know a think about this. This was exactly what I needed to hear.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
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    I agree that you're overthinking it.

    I agree that consistency is the most important thing to consider when tracking scale weight.

    I agree that trend weight apps can be hugely helpful.
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
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    Wherels, I did thank people for their responses. I apologize now to people who comment expecting a specific comment back to you, I did not know that this was expected in the community. I have read some posts where the poster never came back in at all to comment on any comments made to their question, but seldom have I read someone complaining about this in the thread that the poster did not acknowledge comments to the thread. Some days I guess some of us are away from MFP working or doing other things, and I don't get alerts to my post being commented on. If I read them at the end of the day I might not have time then and there to comment.

    I will say again that I appreciate everyones comments. Some are thought provoking, some are great specific advice, some are quarrelsome and that is fine too, this is why I live this community since everyone has an opinion and there are some really great answers and suggestions here and some very wise and experienced people who know their stuff.

    Thank you all.
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
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    I wish when we hit the 'Insightful, Inspiring or Like' that it says who did this. When I have time to quickly read through comments I will hit these buttons if I don't have time to specifically comment to what has been said.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    donjtomasco wrote: »
    Is it fair to say though that your lowest weight of the day is what your weight truly is? This has nothing to do with how much weight one has lost, since that would be most fairly gauged on weighing at the same time every day, I get that. But it seems like if one took the effort to weigh at multiple times during the day, then the lowest weight of the day would be what a person really weighs. Yes? No?

    It's fair to say that is your true weight as of that moment. But yes, I would agree if you fat loss is your primary reason for weighing then the lowest of the day would probably give the best picture because fat is not lost as quickly as waste and water.
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
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    AnnPT77 - Thank you! That was another answer that I was looking for which I can understand and was along the lines of my thinking and in my question. I appreciate what you said, that makes sense to me and really helped!
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,888 Member
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    I, the god of MFP forums, doth decree that your one true weight today was in the morning, right after you evacuated your internal waste and before you added external nourishment.

    All other scale readings you take today are the result of gravitational anomalies and can be ignored for the purpose of determining your fat level over time.

    Do not, under any circumstances, do something insightful such as use any of the weight trending apps that are out there and available for your phone and desktop and go through your day convinced that your weight trend over time is more important than your one morning weight today!

    (For the purpose of determining water retention, as described above by a poster for cardiac patients, the most important piece of info would be a rapid and substantial sudden increase in weight indicating water retention. So NOT your weight over time!)
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 5,014 Member
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    donjtomasco wrote: »
    kgirlhart, if I drink a gallon of water during and after stuffing myself at a buffet restaurant and eat till I am so stuffed that I might explode (think of Paul Newman's stomach in Cool Hand Luke after eating 50 hardboiled eggs) then I immediately weight myself, you are saying this would be my true weight? I think the low weight of the day would be a better indicator of a true weight then the highest after most likely eating a full meal.

    At that moment in time, that would be how much you weighed. It would change pretty quickly. The point is your weight is a range, not a specific number. our true weight is not one number, it is always changing. If you weigh 8 times per day you will most likely have 8 different weights. They are all true at the time that you step on the scale. If you weigh at the roughly the same time under the same circumstances then you will have a pretty good idea of what your average weight is and you will be able to see if it is going up or down or if you are maintaining.
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
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    THANK YOU PAV MFP GOD!!!!! I worship the ground you preach from and am taking a knee while I write this! :)

    The only app I use is my walking app that tells me how far I walked and how many calories I burned. I weight in the morning, I usually weight each night before bed just because I like to see how much I lose each night (scientific curiosity, sorry GOD to throw some science at you....), and I log everything as accurately as possible in my daily log knowing it is not as accurate as it could be, ergo, if the green check mark is not beside the entry, i know someone else entered it and it might be right, might not be too right, and in some cases there are '-0-'s' in the macro columns. Still, close enough, I was a general idea to keep logged. To adjust for these differences I usually will errr to the side of having eaten more, and exercised less, and I guess I am doing it pretty close, since my numbers since October 30th seem to track pretty well. I have lost just about as much as MFP says I should have lost, or it is in an acceptable range rather, so all in all I am close. Good enough.

    I particularly like your "Star Trek" sounding verbiage (the 1960's Star Trek version) that seemed to come out in your comment along with your obvious "Spiritual/Religious" reference. Nice contrast. I like your wit. GREAT COMMENT TOO! Thank you!!!!!

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