The scale fluctuates so much
cgunter20
Posts: 14 Member
So sometimes I’m 81kg and sometimes 78kg depending if I weigh myself in morning or in day . Can anyone explain why?! Which one am I
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Replies
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Hey OP, I’ve been on MFP for 3 years now and have seen this question a quite a few times. Best advice I could give is to browse the forums, there is so much amazing info about weight fluctuations here. Hormones, salt intake, excersise, so many different factors to consider. Type into the search bar weight fluctuations and it’ll bring up heaps of threads. Happens to everyone. It sucks4
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In spite of local gravitational anomalies you are still you!
You don't have a single weight. Your weight changes. All the time. You put things in your body. You push things out of your body. It's the way these little sacks of flesh work.
So think of it as a weight range.
If you want to figure out your weigh trend, the easiest way involves weighing yourself in a consistent state, in a consistent location, at a consistent time, and plotting the weight samples you take every day into a trendline!
after 3 weeks or so if you don't have monthly hormonal water retention, after 4-6 weeks if you do... voila: your trendline is fairly obvious!
Some people use Happy Scale on their iPhones, Libra on their Android phones, some people use spreadsheets or MFP's weight graph, weightgrapher.com and trendweight.com are more my cup of tea (or coffee in my case)12 -
Totally agree. I was going to mention those apps. I used happy scales. Helped me heaps when I first started so I could see my trend weight loss3
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Which one am I
Both.
How much does your breakfast weigh? How much do the drinks you have during the day weigh? Do you strip off during the day or wear the same clothes?
Think fat loss (which is slow) as opposed to weight fluctuations which are rapid and you will see that weighing multiple times of day is confusing you more than helping you.2 -
Body weight is not one constant figure - it's composed of more than fat.
Try to think of weight management (loss/gain/maintenance) more as fat management.
If you're trying to lose weight (not sure your motivation from your post) you are trying to lose fat, this happens through consistently having a calorie deficit, if you're consistently in a calorie deficit you're losing fat whether the scale shows it or not.
It is your weight trend which will show you what is happening with fat in the long run, short term scale differences don't really tell you anything beyond what's in your system and what's affected the fluid levels in your body.
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Weigh yourself at the same time of day and limit it to once per day. I weigh first thing in the morning. Use a trending app and you will see a pattern over time.3
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I've gotten used to it. I weigh in the morning after toilet in underwear and still get variations of a few pounds. My 24 hour record change is at least 5 pounds, which came after a day of hiking (presumably due to swelling). It was gone and more in a couple of days. I weigh, record, and forget it.
Yes, your weight will rise during the day due to what you eat and drink. FYI: you lose weight via the toilet but also by breathing and sweating. (When your body breaks down fats, they turn into water and CO2.)
If it causes you distress, stop weighing. It is a useful metric for monitoring health, but not if it gives you undue anxiety.2 -
Weigh first thing in the AM, no clothes, before eating anything. You want to weigh your body, not your clothes or your meals.1
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Doctors recommend you weigh in the morning because your body is light. The reason why it’s higher in the day is because once you start eating and drink and working out it makes your body heavier from all the calories your body hasn’t digested yet and you haven’t peed and pooped it all out yet. Mornings when you wake up your body is relaxed. Also clothes and shoes and up to two pounds.1
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And don’t pay attention to total weight because it weighs muscle mass bones vesicular fat body fat and water percentages together. For instance my scale reads 230 but 105 pounds is muscle. Get a body fat scale the work with Bluetooth. Mine automatically updates to mfp it will also give you your bmr1
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Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the comments! All of it seems to make a lot of sense2
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Can't believe this wasn't already shared:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p12 -
tawnyamh1209 wrote: »And don’t pay attention to total weight because it weighs muscle mass bones vesicular fat body fat and water percentages together. For instance my scale reads 230 but 105 pounds is muscle. Get a body fat scale the work with Bluetooth. Mine automatically updates to mfp it will also give you your bmr
Bodyfat scales are notoriously inaccurate for measuring body fat, particularly in women. The bio-electrical impulses only travel up so far and women tend to carry more fat in their lower body. Additionally they can be thrown off by hydration levels.
Although your first sentence is absolutely right, the disagrees most likely pertain to the need for a body fat scale. You can track an approximate trend with them but no accurate readout. It's as accurate if not less accurate than looking in the mirror.4 -
So sometimes I’m 81kg and sometimes 78kg depending if I weigh myself in morning or in day . Can anyone explain why?! Which one am I
Because body weight fluctuates naturally...it's normal...body weight isn't static. Your body is comprised of roughly 55-65% water and that will always be in flux...you will always have varying degrees of inherent waste in your system, etc.
Also, if you're weighing yourself later in the day, you are also weighing the contents of anything you've consumed and ensuing waste in your system. The scale measures weight, not fat...things you consume during the day, clothes, etc all weigh something and that would reflect on the scale.1 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »Body weight is not one constant figure - it's composed of more than fat.
Try to think of weight management (loss/gain/maintenance) more as fat management.
If you're trying to lose weight (not sure your motivation from your post) you are trying to lose fat, this happens through consistently having a calorie deficit, if you're consistently in a calorie deficit you're losing fat whether the scale shows it or not.
It is your weight trend which will show you what is happening with fat in the long run, short term scale differences don't really tell you anything beyond what's in your system and what's affected the fluid levels in your body.
I am glad to read this. I know all of this is true sometimes I need to be reminded to not focus on the number on the scale. I was up 2 lbs this week. In my head I knew it was water weight. I drank a ton of water yesterday to see if those 2 lbs would go away. This morning IT DID NOT!! At first I was thinking "Screw it I am going for pizza and beer tonight". Then I a part of me was like "You know it is water weight STAY FOCUSED and COMMITTED!!"
I went to the gym got on the In Body analysis machine and I was UP 2.7 lbs in Muscle Mass and down 2.3 in BF!!
That was a big motivation!! Screw the scale and the number!!! OP Stay focused and committed and look at the bigger gains!1 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »Body weight is not one constant figure - it's composed of more than fat.
Try to think of weight management (loss/gain/maintenance) more as fat management.
If you're trying to lose weight (not sure your motivation from your post) you are trying to lose fat, this happens through consistently having a calorie deficit, if you're consistently in a calorie deficit you're losing fat whether the scale shows it or not.
It is your weight trend which will show you what is happening with fat in the long run, short term scale differences don't really tell you anything beyond what's in your system and what's affected the fluid levels in your body.
I am glad to read this. I know all of this is true sometimes I need to be reminded to not focus on the number on the scale. I was up 2 lbs this week. In my head I knew it was water weight. I drank a ton of water yesterday to see if those 2 lbs would go away. This morning IT DID NOT!! At first I was thinking "Screw it I am going for pizza and beer tonight". Then I a part of me was like "You know it is water weight STAY FOCUSED and COMMITTED!!"
I went to the gym got on the In Body analysis machine and I was UP 2.7 lbs in Muscle Mass and down 2.3 in BF!!
That was a big motivation!! Screw the scale and the number!!! OP Stay focused and committed and look at the bigger gains!
While I more than agree with your general sentiment and conclusion, I am concerned with some of your decision points as they're still not far enough from perceptual errors that may lead to self-sabotage.
Drinking more water may or may not help water retention depending on the cause.
Water retention is not something for you to manage actively; not unless you're sick and your body is not working properly. That, in turn, would be best diagnosed by a doctor who looks at your electrolytes from labs and any other issues you may be having.
There can be many reasons why you're up 2 pounds week-to-week. Your trend is easiest to determine with single daily weigh ins. Whether mentally you can handle them or not that's a different story.
Drinking a litre of water before you get on the in-body machine will give you different results. It is still a bio-impedance based machine.
Water weight is not guaranteed to move away in one day or two days or 3 days.
If you're female and subject to hormonal monthly water retention that by itself can commonly account for 3 to 5 lb swings and settings of more than eight pounds are far from unheard.
Water weight is just your body doing what it needs to do to keep you healthy.
If the process that you've set up to lose weight is subject to "screw it I'm going for pizza and beers" then you may be pushing yourself and your body a little bit too much.
Are you planning on giving up pizza and beers forever?
Is it a crime to have a maintenance day and eat out at maintenance or even slightly above within the context of continuing along the normal plan the rest of the week?
Life goes on while we manage our weight.
Deliberately going out for some pizza and beer we want to enjoy is part of the management process.
"Screw it I don't care" is a failure of the management process.
Having to stop the failure by willpower may signal the availability are some room to improving the management process in the first place!!!
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This is a great link someone posted in another post
https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/1 -
That seems like a normal weight fluctuation, tbh.
Intake of sodium and carbs causes water retention - the more sodium or carbs, the more water retention. I've been up as much as 14.6 pounds after a particularly heavy salt and carbs binge. Takes about a week to drain it all off by getting back on plan and eating right.
Only a third or so of you is fat; the other 2/3 of you impacts the scale too, including and especially retained water. Nothing to be concerned about.0 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »Body weight is not one constant figure - it's composed of more than fat.
Try to think of weight management (loss/gain/maintenance) more as fat management.
If you're trying to lose weight (not sure your motivation from your post) you are trying to lose fat, this happens through consistently having a calorie deficit, if you're consistently in a calorie deficit you're losing fat whether the scale shows it or not.
It is your weight trend which will show you what is happening with fat in the long run, short term scale differences don't really tell you anything beyond what's in your system and what's affected the fluid levels in your body.
I am glad to read this. I know all of this is true sometimes I need to be reminded to not focus on the number on the scale. I was up 2 lbs this week. In my head I knew it was water weight. I drank a ton of water yesterday to see if those 2 lbs would go away. This morning IT DID NOT!! At first I was thinking "Screw it I am going for pizza and beer tonight". Then I a part of me was like "You know it is water weight STAY FOCUSED and COMMITTED!!"
I went to the gym got on the In Body analysis machine and I was UP 2.7 lbs in Muscle Mass and down 2.3 in BF!!
That was a big motivation!! Screw the scale and the number!!! OP Stay focused and committed and look at the bigger gains!
While I more than agree with your general sentiment and conclusion, I am concerned with some of your decision points as they're still not far enough from perceptual errors that may lead to self-sabotage.
Drinking more water may or may not help water retention depending on the cause.
Water retention is not something for you to manage actively; not unless you're sick and your body is not working properly. That, in turn, would be best diagnosed by a doctor who looks at your electrolytes from labs and any other issues you may be having.
There can be many reasons why you're up 2 pounds week-to-week. Your trend is easiest to determine with single daily weigh ins. Whether mentally you can handle them or not that's a different story.
Drinking a litre of water before you get on the in-body machine will give you different results. It is still a bio-impedance based machine.
Water weight is not guaranteed to move away in one day or two days or 3 days.
If you're female and subject to hormonal monthly water retention that by itself can commonly account for 3 to 5 lb swings and settings of more than eight pounds are far from unheard.
Water weight is just your body doing what it needs to do to keep you healthy.
If the process that you've set up to lose weight is subject to "screw it I'm going for pizza and beers" then you may be pushing yourself and your body a little bit too much.
Are you planning on giving up pizza and beers forever?
Is it a crime to have a maintenance day and eat out at maintenance or even slightly above within the context of continuing along the normal plan the rest of the week?
Life goes on while we manage our weight.
Deliberately going out for some pizza and beer we want to enjoy is part of the management process.
"Screw it I don't care" is a failure of the management process.
Having to stop the failure by willpower may signal the availability are some room to improving the management process in the first place!!!
I can appreciate what you are saying. I am basing this on my experience. In the past, several times I have lost water retention from drinking a lot of water. I am perimenopausal so I am sure my hormones has an affect, I do heavy weight lifting, as well as other factors.
Yes I do plan on having pizza and beer eventually but having coming back from the Holidays and vacations (staying in maintenance mode for 6 months after losing 15 lbs.) I need to get focused and stay in MY perceived healthier calorie deficit and tone up (muscle gains) and lose these last 15 lbs before this years Summer vacations. This is the way I deal with it.
My In-Body analysis over time is accurate as I am seeing the trends in a good way and I can see it physically muscle strength and tone.
MY whole point is that I cannot let the number on the scale affect my progress when I know I am doing what I should be doing.1 -
Your body weight is what you weigh in the morning after peeing, and pre-coffee/breakfast0
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Since September 2019 my weight has been between 170-179...I literally cannot get past the 170...I can’t figure it out 🤷🏻♀️I’ve adjusted calories, ate bad ate good nothing...drank more or less water...ate more ate less literally nothing is helping...I’m so close to throwing the towel in and say screw it...0
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