How often should I weigh myself?

pfprimo
pfprimo Posts: 91 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello. I've been making good progress with my nutrition and exercise, nothing too crazy as I'm working to lose at least 5 pounds per month (of course, more is better if I can achieve that). I do have a setback every now and then. I keep up with meal and exercise logging on a daily basis. Question is, how often should I weigh myself? I've been weighing myself every Sunday morning, but should I perhaps weigh myself mid-week as well? Thanks,
Paul

Replies

  • saynow111
    saynow111 Posts: 135 Member
    Hi Paul,
    Measure yourself once per weak
    Hydrate well
  • Unicorn_Bacon
    Unicorn_Bacon Posts: 491 Member
    Weigh yourself as often as you like, some people do it daily and log their weight in a trend weight app, some people do it weekly because the fluctuations are hard for them mentally. It's all personal choice
  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
    I was weighing myself only on Sunday mornings, but for the past 5-6 weeks it's read the exact same weight, so now I'm weighing a couple times during the week as well.

    I need to find a trending app to help see the fluctuations better.
  • ChickenKillerPuppy
    ChickenKillerPuppy Posts: 297 Member
    When I was losing I weighed myself once a week but there was a lot of pressure on that number and it could affect my mood and cause uncertainty for the whole week. I decided as I got closer to maintenance to weight myself every day and use Happy Scale. It helped desensitize me to the number to weigh myself every day. I am at maintenance now and with myself every day still using happy scale.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,252 Member
    edited April 2020
    If it causes mental anguish you can, certainly, only weight yourself once a week,

    The counter-argument is two fold.

    Doing so makes your weekly weight in "very important" to you.

    And you still have no way of knowing ahead of time, and no guarantees, that your single sampling point will be truly representative of your week's progress.

    It's only one sampling point and it can easily be "right on", or a low, or high, outlier for that week.

    This has the potential to create a jagged graph with sharp peaks and valleys and to make it harder to correspond your weight changes to caloric intake and expenditure changes, assuming that you keep track of the latter two.

    By taking daily observations, you increase your sampling rate, and increase your chance of being able to chart your true trend (by using a weight trend app or website, or even simple averaging) even when, as is inevitable, some of your individual snapshots (weigh-ins) are outliers.
  • richardgavel
    richardgavel Posts: 1,001 Member
    I think daily weighing is best because it's easier to see a trend and weekly puts a lot of pressure on that one day and it might be an abberation. For me personally, if I see the daily trend and all of a sudden I see a spike, then I can be comfortable knowing it's a spike and being able to easily look back on the last 24 hours and knowing "you didn't overeat by THAT much"
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    From a data trending point of view then higher frequncy is better.

    But from an emotional point of view then it's entirely personal but I do think whatever the frequency it needs to be put in perspective and not too much of "a big event". It's just one day / one week / one data point in the context of the entire period of your weight loss or even rest of your life.

    It's also a somewhat unreliable indicator of fat loss due to fluctuations in water and food volume - many people who weigh daily seem to gain a better understanding and acceptance of normal weight fluctuations. I had a large, late and quite salty meal yesterday evening and it's no surprise that's reflected in a temporary gain in weight this morning. That simply can't be 2lbs of fat gained (I didn't eat 7,000 cals over maintenance yesterday - honest! :smile: ).

    Daily weighing to monitor my trend casually and regarding the number as data works best for me - but I'm not you.
  • The_Wallflower
    The_Wallflower Posts: 111 Member
    I weigh a couple of times a week in the early morning, no clothing. I try to keep it the same each time.
  • pfprimo
    pfprimo Posts: 91 Member
    KrissCanDoThis wrote: »
    I also just wanna say that more is not better with weight loss, 5 pounds a month is more then enough, maybe even too much depending on your stats.. and you look somewhat fit in your pic, not obese

    You're exactly right, more isn't necessarily better. And 3 pounds per month is a much more realistic (and healthy) goal. That race pic hides the fact that I'm clinically obese, I was about 218 pounds at my 5'9" frame. I'm just wanting to get down to 190 pounds and do my best to maintain that weight.

    Thanks for your input.

    Paul
  • pfprimo
    pfprimo Posts: 91 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    From a data trending point of view then higher frequncy is better.

    But from an emotional point of view then it's entirely personal but I do think whatever the frequency it needs to be put in perspective and not too much of "a big event". It's just one day / one week / one data point in the context of the entire period of your weight loss or even rest of your life.

    It's also a somewhat unreliable indicator of fat loss due to fluctuations in water and food volume - many people who weigh daily seem to gain a better understanding and acceptance of normal weight fluctuations. I had a large, late and quite salty meal yesterday evening and it's no surprise that's reflected in a temporary gain in weight this morning. That simply can't be 2lbs of fat gained (I didn't eat 7,000 cals over maintenance yesterday - honest! :smile: ).

    Daily weighing to monitor my trend casually and regarding the number as data works best for me - but I'm not you.

    Good points and thanks. Based on your and other's feedback, I'm going to go with daily weighing so that I can get a better understanding of those spikes that occur from time to time. There are also days when I really tank up on water / fluids more than others, which throws off the trend. Also, it's frustrating when you're tracking nutrition / calories, you know you're in a calorie deficit for the week but that once per week weigh-in result isn't what you expected, as was the case for me today.

    Paul

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