Weight fluctuations

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navillus3
navillus3 Posts: 14 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello! This morning I weighed in at 117.8 lbs (relatively empty stomach, just had some coffee) after eating oatmeal with banana, berries and Greek yogurt mixed in I was curious to see if my weight changed and it had gone up 3 lbs. I’m wondering what other people have experienced with weight fluctuations throughout the day. What is the largest difference seen from morning to night? Also, is your morning weight the best example of your “true” weight?

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,429 Member
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    Stand on the scale with an empty 1 quart water bottle. Fill the water bottle, you'll weight 2 pounds more (subject to the precision of your scale). Drink the water, you'll still weigh 2 pounds more. What's the point?

    We don't have a "true current weight" IMO.

    Over a day to a short number of weeks, we have a current weight range, up and down a few pounds depending on normal water weight fluctuations and digestive contents, mostly (not mostly fat changes). Right now (current week), my range is 129.6 to 132.0, up and down.

    We also have a longer term weight trend, in the sense that our current weight range is lower (fat loss), higher (fat gain), or about the same (maintenance). Last month, at this time, my weight range was 131.4-133.4 (also up and down that week). Conclusion: I'm slowly losing weight, because my current range is lower than it was then.

    There's no real point in looking at weight over a day, IMO. If I hold an apple in my hand, it has a weight. As soon as I eat it, it's part of my body weight, until I excrete the non-calorie portions. Who cares? Not me. The only exception is that sometimes, when it's hot weather and I do outdoor exercise, I will weigh myself to check that I'm drinking enough water to offset the amount I sweat. Otherwise, I don't care, and don't see why I would.

    In a normal day, my scale weight fluctuates by 2-4 pounds, typically. I don't care. It's meaningless (outside of the hydration issue).
  • errollmaclean
    errollmaclean Posts: 562 Member
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    The best time is usually morning. Also if you track your weight everyday and watch the pattern throughout the month, you can see how much you fluctuate and realize not to freak out as you go up or down. You want to watch the trend over time.

    This will also allow you to see how accurate you are being with logging your calories. If you're not losing at the expected rate, you know there is a problem either with your food logging "calories in" or your exercise logging "calories out". Weight loss is just math. Calories in vs calories out = your weight on the scale. The hard part is you have to be accurate for it to work, which is why people advocate digital food scales and not relying on calorie burn estimates to be 100% accurate.
  • dawnkirkwood18
    dawnkirkwood18 Posts: 41 Member
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    I easily fluctuate 5 or more pounds in a given day. I used to OBSESS over the scale and by spending time weighing myself and tracking I learned how much I fluctuate daily- based on what I may eat or drink, times of my cycle, exercise and recovery, etc. - doing so taught me a lot and helped me relax a bit frankly. I use one time of day to weigh myself as my official weight- first thing in the morning.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,988 Member
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    Every time you step on the scale, assuming the scale is accurate, you're seeing your "true weight" for that moment and those conditions (how you're dressed, whether your hair is wet, etc.)
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,107 Member
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    iuoyuwwrmlioxneunm wrote: »
    Yup, she is about two days from Office Spacing that scale:

    Haha just rewatched the movie 2 days ago.

    OP @AnnPT77 more or less sums it up nicely.

    I am not in the habit of weighing day and night, I record my weight daily in a trend app. I think the highest day-to-day fluctuation I had was around 8lb which was a combinations of air travel, DOMS, beer, pizza & shark week.
  • gradchica27
    gradchica27 Posts: 777 Member
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    I can fluctuate 1-5lbs in the course of a day, thanks to hormones, medications, food, etc. just yesterday I “gained” 2.6 over the course of the day (under maintenance calories for two weeks, did little activity) thanks in part to the anti inflammatory I’m taking for my hip (.6 of that hung around until morning, the other 2lbs “disappeared” overnight). So I try not to weigh at night unless I’m weirdly curious about how a certain food/medicine/workout is affecting me—I weigh first thing in the am after using the bathroom so I can minimize variables and see a trend.

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