Are there any weight trending apps that take TOM into account?

ceiswyn
ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
edited April 2018 in Health and Weight Loss
I’ve been trying to avoid getting spooked by what my thinking brain knows is TOM-related water weight gain by using weight trending apps to smooth out fluctuations.

The problem is that if my period is late, the water retention goes on so long that the weight trending app takes it into account rather than ignoring it as a fluctuation, then fails to keep up with my ‘true’ weight once it all comes off... Basically, I end up worse spooked than before!

Are there any trending weight apps that can take TOM information into account in their estimates? Something that integrates with Glow or similar fertility management apps, for preference? Or is a standard factor of biology that causes large medium-term fluctuations in menstruating people’s weight just ignored by pretty much every weight management tool out there?
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Replies

  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    I am perimenopausal and my periods are all over the place. I haven't found Libra useless, in fact the opposite. Looking at trends over ,months rather than weeks showed a gradual loss and now, although up and down like a yoyo, a maintenance trend. I can also look back over it and see exactly when I got my last period.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    edited April 2018
    That’s nice that it works for you, but unless it can discount TOM-related water weight gain it doesn’t work for me.

    Can Libra take TOM information into account with its weight estimates as per my original question? As this is literally the only thing I would want it for?
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    (As for seeing when I got my last period - yeah, that’s kind of what Glow is for...)
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    That’s nice that it works for you, but unless it can discount TOM-related water weight gain it doesn’t work for me.

    Can Libra take TOM information into account with its weight estimates as per my original question? As this is literally the only thing I would want it for?

    Don't weigh yourself for that week or 2 weeks?
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    Don't weigh yourself for that week or 2 weeks?

    Great idea. Now, how do you suggest I tell exactly which week or two weeks I shouldn’t weigh myself for?

    You say upthread that you use a tracker for your period, so...
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    I use FLO—It’s not a trend app but more of a TOM tracker that includes weigh ins. It actually helped me learn that I retain water during ovulation too. I track my weight trends with Happy Scale, but now that I know when I retain water I don’t enter those weigh ins in Happy Scale. I do enter them in the Flo Ap and it’s helped a lot with accepting the 3# water fluctuations during ovulation and before TOM.

    Hmm, that sounds like it might have possibilities. I’m currently using Glow because of the MFP integration, but it just shows a chart of weight against cycle stage; it doesn’t build up a pattern over time like it does with other symptoms. And even that chart is surprisingly well hidden :)
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited April 2018
    Why want a 'weight app" to exclude your TOM, the water weight is part of your 'weight' regardless if you are on your period or not. These apps are not that fancy, so maybe you can setup something using excel?

    I am nearing menopause, mine is late each month, rather I now have 45+ day cycles sometimes I skip one all together, a trending app cannot keep up with that kind of data point. If if I am up x number weeks what is happening 'weight' wise is more than just water weight.


    eta: I use weightgrapher.com (web based) and it works well for me, the trend lines I get are on point.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    Is your cycle pretty consistently the same number of days? You can graph a 28 (or whatever)-day rolling average in excel. It’s not an app, but it accomplishes what you’re looking for. It will average the ups and downs of a full cycle, so you will see the downward trend, if in fact, you are lower than last month.

    Note, that average includes the bloated days, so it will be higher than your lowest weight. If you want to see a graph without bloat days, you can create another plot line in the same excel chart for your 10-day lows. Or 14-day lows. You get the idea.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    Great idea. Now, how do you suggest I tell exactly which week or two weeks I shouldn’t weigh myself for?

    You say upthread that you use a tracker for your period, so...

    ...so when it fails to predict a late period, I’ll be skipping weighing for the wrong weeks. Won’t that be helpful.
  • bigpapawes
    bigpapawes Posts: 10 Member
    One of the users mentioned an app called "Happy Scale". It uses a moving average (as I am sure do others), but has an "advanced lag compensation" feature that uses a double-exponential moving average. While this makes progress look a little slow on the front end of a diet (while dropping initial water weight) and can show that you are losing at the beginning of plateaus; it gives a better picture once in an established routine. Best of all it is a free app.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    Is there any reason you can't just weigh yourself and then not enter the weight on your app?

    If you only use a scale that automatically tracks, consider getting an old school one for when you're ovulating and having your period. Problem solved.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    bigpapawes wrote: »
    One of the users mentioned an app called "Happy Scale". It uses a moving average (as I am sure do others), but has an "advanced lag compensation" feature that uses a double-exponential moving average. While this makes progress look a little slow on the front end of a diet (while dropping initial water weight) and can show that you are losing at the beginning of plateaus; it gives a better picture once in an established routine. Best of all it is a free app.

    Happy Scale is the app I’m currently using. And that ‘advanced lag compensation’ is part of the problem, given that I’m dropping water weight quickly on a monthly basis.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    I do not know of a trending app or any app that does what you want.

    My period has been irregular for awhile. I don't think an app can help me with my feelings about that. I stopped using the period tracking app I had because it was too frustrating since I would like to be able to predict my period and it could just tell me my period was late. I know there are many other apps and maybe one handles irregular menstruation better but I chose to just keep track of stuff on paper and feel less frustrated about it. Maybe you would be better off just using a spreadsheet or paper instead of an app since you know why your weight is up or down that much.
    I handle not getting spooked by my weight by weighing only once a week, not using a trending app at all, not focusing so much on the number as my measure of progress, looking at longer time periods for change.
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
    OP if you are regular, you can always choose not to WI near TOM or whenever you know hormones get you bloated = heavier,I’m sure that by know you now exactly when and how much you gain, so wait a few days and keep tracking, although the whole point of daily tracking your weight is to understand and accept fluctuations that are not in your control and obviously fix the ones that are...I think you are over stressing for no reason ;)
  • gcminton
    gcminton Posts: 170 Member
    It doesn't seem like what you need exists, but every weight tracker I've ever used has the option to remove logged days. Your best bet might be to go back and remove the higher weights that you know are just retained water so they don't mess with your trend.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    2- what you want doesnt exist. we can not MAKE it exist.

    And had the first couple of responses to my post been ‘what you want doesn’t exist’, I wouldn’t be frustrated.

    But they weren’t, were they? They weren’t anything nearly so helpful. Because telling a person “You don’t have the problem you say you do” and “You need something completely different from what you say you need” is not helpful, it’s actually patronising and insulting.

    Why do you expect me to be pleasant about being patronised and insulted?
    3- A scale, ANY scale does not know if it is up 5 pounds because you pigged out for 5 days straight and ate everything in sight, or if its fluid retention.

    And that is why it would be nice if there were an app that could recognise the monthly pattern of weight gain just before the period that is common in menstruating people. It wouldn’t require a particularly complex algorithm. But if it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist.
    5- none of it matters. If its TOM of month, you probably know that, and as (I will assume) a fully functioning adult with the ability to detect basic patterns regarding your body, YOU should know if the scale jumps up for seemingly no reason (no change in diet, no over eating, no new workouts or workout intensity changes) that, chances are, Aunt Flo is popping in soon to say hi, and to disregard the little numbers on the scale for the next 2 weeks.

    Yes, I do know that. I know spiders are harmless, too. Doesn’t prevent me getting twitchy about either thing, though, because that’s not how the human mind works.

    But thanks for taking the time to actually answer my question, in amongst the rest. If only more people tried that as a first resort, rather than a last one!