How often to weigh in maintenance
Replies
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Every day for me for the last 7 years, 5 of them in maintenance. It took a while for me not to freak at the number and Happy Scale helps with that. But when you are in maintenance for a while, you learn what works for you and how to handle numbers.7
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I find my weight changes throughout the day. It can vary by up to 5lbs!
If I get up to use the bathroom during the night, I check my weight on the digital scale, and miraculously the number drops throughout the duration of the night. Just depends how dehydrated I am. I live in USA/Southwest and keeping hydrated is a never-ending battle.3 -
I find my weight changes throughout the day. It can vary by up to 5lbs!
If I get up to use the bathroom during the night, I check my weight on the digital scale, and miraculously the number drops throughout the duration of the night. Just depends how dehydrated I am. I live in USA/Southwest and keeping hydrated is a never-ending battle.
Not just (de)hydration. Around 80% of the fat we lose leaves our body via exhaled gases, the rest as water (some of which is also exhaled, because breath is higher humidity).
When asleep, we have no food or water intake (normally
), and the percent of calories we're burning from fat is higher than for many, many other things we do. (We're not burning numerically many calories; I'm not saying we don't burn more pounds of fat at other times, I'm saying the small number of calories being burned are coming significantly from fat, when sleeping).
Unless we're sleeping in the open rain with mouth open or something, we're going to get lighter over night during sleep, not heavier or steady. Between water & fat, it's usually enough to show up on the scale.
Bodies are weird.
Consumer-friendly overview at:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/12/16/371210831/when-you-burn-off-that-fat-where-does-it-go7 -
I personally find it useful to weigh daily. As much as anything, it's a reminder - I'm sure if I changed to weekly, I'd end up forgetting. It's easier to have it as part of a morning routine, along with taking my medication, brushing my teeth, etc!1
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Personally, I have to weigh in almost every day. Otherwise I start to relapse back into gaining. Weighing in keeps me honest, so even in maintenance, I weigh in daily. But that's just me, because I KNOW what will happen if I don't. 2
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BreezyWerner wrote: »Every day shortly after I get out of bed. Close to the same time every day under similar conditions. Then enter daily data to a spreadsheet that calculates a moving average to even out the inevitable daily spikes. I also use a website that does a weighted moving average which I like better because it assigns a higher value to measurements in the recent past versus farther in the past (about ten days).
I have seen many times when, if I had been only weighing once a week, the scale would have told me something that I would have completely misinterpreted. Weighing every day that I am near my scale works great for me. All that said, I haven't COMPLETELY disassociated my emotional response from the number I see each day. It's still a little bit of a challenge. But I KNOW in my head what it is, and I try to convince my heart (or liver depending on where you think emotions come from
) that it's just a number, and then look at my TREND. I'm a recovering scientist, so data are my friend.
As an example, here's the graph of the last six months from Trendweight:
As an example, if I weighed myself on Sundays, my scale weight between September 1-8 went up four pounds, but the weighted moving average went DOWN a third of a pound. Conversely, between August 18-25, my scale weight went down 1.8 pounds, but my trend was UP 1.3 pounds. It's the trend that's most important. I will continue to work on disconnecting from the daily readings because without taking the daily readings, the trend is less accurate.
A recovering scientist.... I am a recovering electrical engineer. Totally get it.
It comes from a dieting book by a programmer, The Hacker's Diet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker%27s_Diet). The guy who put up and maintains TrendWeight based the algorithm on the one that John Walker, the programmer, describes in his book.
If you're a geek and have the time and the interest the book is free and an interesting read. It's linked in the aforementioned Wikipedia entry.2 -
Daily and one time only.
Five years ago, I bought into that dieting theology that the scales don't really matter, neither do calories or your BMI. The scales are only one data point. So I gave up the scales and CICO and that was exactly the recipe for eating it all back. Worst mistake I've ever made as far as weight stability goes.
I'm a long time follower of the lasting and long term weight stability maintainers here. Not one of them said any of those things above. They practice due diligence and stay right on top of their data points. All of them. They weigh themselves and face their reality and music every day. Isn't that the way?8 -
I stopped weighing myself. My clothes and the mirror are my metrics I use now.4
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I’ve been in maintenance for years and only started weighing myself now as I’m trying to bulk. If I feel I’ve gained weight by looking in the mirror I’ll eat less, if I feel I’ve overindulged for a few days or a week I’ll have a few healthy days (no sweet snacks). I find this works for me but then again I only tend to gain a few pounds and lose a few pounds through the year so it equals itself out.0
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More recently I have eased up on the weigh ins, think hormones are changing the way my body holds on to water (seem to spend 3 weeks of each cycle now 3lbs up), so find it better to go by how my clothes feel and the mirror. Don't get me wrong I still step on them every week but instead of being fixated on the number I prefer to go by how I feel and look.3
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My bathroom is *tiny* so I find myself standing on the scale nearly every time I brush my teeth, unless I lean the scale up against the wall - which has a tendency to mess with the calibration over time. If the number is outside the range of numbers I'm used to seeing, I log it in my phone and keep logging the trend until I'm back in the range I'm used to seeing for a week.1
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I'm .8lbs away from hitting my goal weight, which will be 150 (range being 153-147). So close right?
But, this isn't my first rodeo. I lose and gain like champ, maintenance is a tough pill to swallow.
During my most current round of weight loss (15lb cut) I weighed every Sunday. I plan to do that same thing going into maintenance as well. I've been really comfortable eating at my current deficient (1400 calories/daily), so eating close to 1800 will be struggle "mentally" when I decide to switch.
The last time I did this I weighed everyday for about 6 months then it became a chore so I just quit. I think for me, once a week will at least give me enough data to figure out where I'm at and not get obsessed with it. I think. We'll see!
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I weigh in daily no matter what, it keeps me from ignoring my mistakes/cheats/ and saying I'll do better tomorrow, I need the accountability. If I were to go a whole week or month, I would fail horribly, and would probably give up.1
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Another reason I like to do daily weighing in maintenance -- I just had a four-day wild-ride. My mass went up four pounds over two days, stayed there a day, then came back down two to my goal weight in two more days. Daily weighing made this less stressful. Unfortunately, my trend is on a slow increase, so I'll be attentive to that, and the daily weights will help. All that said, the two days I was up, I could FEEL it -- bloated. So yeah, there's other feedback that helps inform what the scale is telling me. Even the trend is up and down and up and down. That's pretty normal for me.
This is a similar anecdote as I wrote about a couple weeks ago. I guess I mean it....
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BreezyWerner wrote: »Every day shortly after I get out of bed. Close to the same time every day under similar conditions. Then enter daily data to a spreadsheet that calculates a moving average to even out the inevitable daily spikes. I also use a website that does a weighted moving average which I like better because it assigns a higher value to measurements in the recent past versus farther in the past (about ten days).
I have seen many times when, if I had been only weighing once a week, the scale would have told me something that I would have completely misinterpreted. Weighing every day that I am near my scale works great for me. All that said, I haven't COMPLETELY disassociated my emotional response from the number I see each day. It's still a little bit of a challenge. But I KNOW in my head what it is, and I try to convince my heart (or liver depending on where you think emotions come from ) that it's just a number, and then look at my TREND. I'm a recovering scientist, so data are my friend.
As an example, here's the graph of the last six months from Trendweight:
As an example, if I weighed myself on Sundays, my scale weight between September 1-8 went up four pounds, but the weighted moving average went DOWN a third of a pound. Conversely, between August 18-25, my scale weight went down 1.8 pounds, but my trend was UP 1.3 pounds. It's the trend that's most important. I will continue to work on disconnecting from the daily readings because without taking the daily readings, the trend is less accurate.
A recovering scientist.... I am a recovering electrical engineer. Totally get it.
It comes from a dieting book by a programmer, The Hacker's Diet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker%27s_Diet). The guy who put up and maintains TrendWeight based the algorithm on the one that John Walker, the programmer, describes in his book.
If you're a geek and have the time and the interest the book is free and an interesting read. It's linked in the aforementioned Wikipedia entry.
So excited someone has mentioned The Hacker's Diet! IMHO, the best book out there on weight loss, and I have read quite a few (it's also free). Old book but spot on. Before the rise of online tracking tools like MFP.1 -
Interesting. When I was losing, I weighed in every Friday morning. I continued my Friday weigh-ins for quite some time in maintenance - maybe 3 years. I realize we are (mostly) a bunch of obsessive-compulsive people. That's how we ended up here in the first place. I stopped logging a couple of years ago and quit the weekly weigh-in around that time as well. I weighed myself today - first time in two months! It was very liberating! (Also rather difficult to wait so long) OK, I was up a pound (gasp!), but my clothes still fit, I can still run for an hour plus, and most importantly, I am happy!
Oh yeah, I am a 61 year old female who lost over 70#7 -
I may be weird, but I made weighing in a part of my daily routine. Every morning, (naked!), before I eat or drink anything, I step on the scale and log my weight.
Not because I’m worried about it, but because now it’s habit. It also gets me used to the fluctuations without feeling panicky. I KNOW it’s impossible to gain five pounds of fat overnight, as I know I can’t even eat myself into a five pound fat gain over a week.
Now I know what’s normal for me and it keeps me in track. Sometimes I find the trend is that I’m still losing a bit, and I don’t want to, so it lets me plan a couple of nice splurge days.
I’ve been in maintenance for a few months now, and so far, so good!8 -
I weigh myself at least once a week, but rarely more than twice. My weight fluctuates a lot depending on what I eat and whether my muscles are holding on to water after a hard workout, so I pick a day that isn't after a high salt meal (i.e. pizza or any restaurant meal) and isn't after a hard workout or long run. If the weight seems to be more than I expect or less, I'll weigh myself again a day or two later to see if it's a fluke or a trend.4
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I weigh myself every day. You can use an app like libra or happy scale. It will show you your trend weight and smooth out the fluctuations. Weighing every day helps me see what my weight does daily, based on exercise, diet, and hormones. I have begun to recognize patterns. This is helpful because I know I will weigh more after lifting and after ovulation. If I was only weighing once a week or less, it would be harder to recognize these patterns and I might attribute the scale going up to fat gain instead of water for muscle repair.4
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I've gone from weighing daily to weighing once or twice a week. Purely because, when I got my new phone I lost two years worth of data on the libra app and I just couldn't be bothered anymore.1
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I do every day.1
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If I don’t weigh daily I tend to get off track w my eating. It just works for me.2
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I way every morning, at this point, purely out of habit...1
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I've been in maintenance for a while now but I still keep track of calories intake and weigh myself on an InBody 570 at the gym. I give myself a couple pound up and down as normal fluctuation from my maintenance weight. I don't worry about a couple pounds since I know what I am eating. It has always gone back down. There are more days when I see I need to have a snack than days when I can't. I also weigh myself on the same day of the week at the gym BEFORE my workout and fasting (no breakfast but protein drink). It works for me.2
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I weigh every morning after I go to the bathroom and before I eat. I know I'll bounce around within a few pounds. I worry when I bounce higher. If I weighed every week, I'd fret.3
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Inspired by this thread (and my love of being able to make informed decisions - data!!) I've reinstalled Happy Scale (other trend trackers are available) and started tracking my morning weight.
Interesting week to start: TOM (predictably) and being whacked with a proper nasty illness. And I don't see a notes section on Happy Scale - does anyone know of a good tracker that has them (without just using excel and doing the maths myself...)
This seems like the right place to go...0 -
I like to weigh myself every day. I now take into consideration daily fluctuations. If I am eating healthy and in my calorie range and see a slight fluctuation, I don’t get upset because I know it’s temporary. Sometimes I get a surprise when I ate more than my caloric range and still didn’t gain weight. Even if I hit a plateau, I think this is better than gaining. Some think weighing once a week is better. See what works best for you.1
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Inspired by this thread (and my love of being able to make informed decisions - data!!) I've reinstalled Happy Scale (other trend trackers are available) and started tracking my morning weight.
Interesting week to start: TOM (predictably) and being whacked with a proper nasty illness. And I don't see a notes section on Happy Scale - does anyone know of a good tracker that has them (without just using excel and doing the maths myself...)
This seems like the right place to go...
Libra lets me make notes.1
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