Okay I guess I just need reassurance..

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meganreid163
meganreid163 Posts: 72 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay so last week I weighed 193. I’ve rated at my calorie goal or below all week. This week I weigh 195.. this happens a lot were I stay the same weight or slightly gain and then a week later I drop a few pounds. But why???
It’s really irritating when I work out, eat healthy and I don’t see progress. I know that next week I’ll probably see a drop but like why?

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  • lx1x
    lx1x Posts: 38,311 Member
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    It will be fine.. weight fluctuates... It's normal.. keep up with your progress and don't think too much about the scale..

    You looking good so far (saw your other thread).. keep up the good work!!
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
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    meganreid163 wrote: »
    Okay so last week I weighed 193. I’ve rated at my calorie goal or below all week. This week I weigh 195.. this happens a lot were I stay the same weight or slightly gain and then a week later I drop a few pounds. But why???
    It’s really irritating when I work out, eat healthy and I don’t see progress. I know that next week I’ll probably see a drop but like why?

    Most likely water weight fluctuations - frustrating when you're basically doing the same thing each week but perfectly normal. Take a look at your monthly rate of loss, that will most likely give you a better picture of your actual progress. Sounds like you're doing fine :)
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    Weight loss isn't linear, and so many things affect what shows up on the scale.

    Read this, it's helpful. physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    Understand that what you're experiencing is normal, and the important thing is to keep an eye on the long term trend over 6 weeks or so. Week to week or day to day is too small a picture, annoying as that is. If you haven't already done it, downloading a weight trending app can be really helpful.
  • meganreid163
    meganreid163 Posts: 72 Member
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    Guess it’s time to start measuring myself & maybe not step on the scale every week.
    Use to do it biweekly and found that was helpful.
  • meganreid163
    meganreid163 Posts: 72 Member
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    So weighed myself yesterday and I weighed in at 194.. still 1 pound gain.
    I think I’m going to reduce my calories a bit. So fusterating that I haven’t lost in a couple weeks.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
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    Do you use a food scale? Check out this thread.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
  • tmpecus78
    tmpecus78 Posts: 1,206 Member
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    NovusDies wrote: »
    meganreid163 wrote: »
    So weighed myself yesterday and I weighed in at 194.. still 1 pound gain.
    I think I’m going to reduce my calories a bit. So fusterating that I haven’t lost in a couple weeks.

    You should not reduce your calories on 2 weeks worth of information.

    THIS X10

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    meganreid163 wrote: »
    Okay so last week I weighed 193. I’ve rated at my calorie goal or below all week. This week I weigh 195.. this happens a lot were I stay the same weight or slightly gain and then a week later I drop a few pounds. But why???
    It’s really irritating when I work out, eat healthy and I don’t see progress. I know that next week I’ll probably see a drop but like why?

    Because weight loss isn't linear...

    It looks like this...

    weighttrendgraph1.gif

    Also, a couple of weeks isn't nearly enough time to do any kind of meaningful analysis...you need way more data points and you need to look at the overall trend over time (like more time than just a couple weeks)...that would be the red line.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    On the "weighing yourself" side of thing, there are two general strategies:

    1. Weigh less often, so odds are higher that if fat loss is occurring, it will show up rather than being masked by random water weight and digestive-contents variations. For premenopausal women, you might have to go all the way to once a month to be fairly certain you won't see a scale gain when there's actually fat loss happening behind the scenes.

    2. Weigh every day, so that over time you learn what causes your personal weight fluctuations, and how big they're likely to be. This is probably not the best strategy for people who are ultra-stressed by seeing fluctuations, but if a person can stand it for a couple of months without being overstressed, it can be a good way to make peace with how one's healthy body functions, and take the emotions out of it longer term. (This is the option that works best for me.)

    Especially if you go with more frequent weighing, I'd encourage you to get one of the free weight trending applications, which - after you get a few weeks of daily weight data in them - will help you visualize your long-term weight trend via statistical projections (i.e., not magic: can still be misleading). That's what the graph wolfman posted came from. Their are free ones, like Libra for Android, Happy Scale for iOS, Trendweight for people with a free Fitbit account, and others.

    I 100% agree with others that 2 weeks is too short a time to test a new regimen, especially for a pre-menopausal woman (if that's what you are), and doubly especially if you've increased your exercise or materially changed what you eat (more fiber, for example). Four to six weeks is much more sensible, the only exception being someone who loses ultra-fast and simultaneously has otherwise-unexplained negative symptoms like weakness or fatigue (those people should eat a little more, because that combination of symptoms is a danger sign).

    Work on tightening up your logging so you have sound data, and re-evaluate after 4-6 weeks, then adjust. Continually tweaking things with a short time horizon is never going to let you see what's really going on - fat doesn't change day to day in sync with daily eating/exercise, it changes in weeks to months with patterns of behavior over time.

    Beyond that, tweaking every couple of weeks can increase stress levels, and even (perhaps surprisingly) lead to yet more water retention, or subtly down-regulated daily activity through mild fatigue, or even binge tendencies because of over-restriction. Any of those are completely counterproductive, if weight loss is the goal.

    You're getting advice from several "old hands" around here who've lost material amounts of weight by using MFP, and now try to help new people toward success. I'd suggest maybe taking their advice on board. (Me, I'm small potatoes, compared to some of the folks above: I lost around 50 pounds 3 years ago, and have stayed at a healthy weight since. I started at 10 pounds less than you are currently, at 183, in early 2015, and hit my current weight, 133.8 this morning, by Fall 2015.)

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