Weight Fluctuations

lilharumaki
lilharumaki Posts: 112 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello all- I was just wondering if this was normal. Yesterday I weighed in at 161. Today when I checked, I weighed 164 again! >.< Is that much of a fluctuation normal? Did I really gain that much weight in a day?? Also, I didn’t eat breakfast yet when I weighed myself yesterday, but I did today. Thank you!

Replies

  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
    Yep. It’s kinda normal.
  • creesama
    creesama Posts: 125 Member
    Eating would definitely have an effect, drinking something too. You could've had more sodium in recent meals, water retention could be up. Possible hormones causing fluctuations. Did you use the bathroom? Alllll kinds of factors. It is annoying though when that happens!
  • lilharumaki
    lilharumaki Posts: 112 Member
    Thank you so much, guys!! It makes sense how there’s many factors that could vary it... if only weight loss were linear! 😂
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    It’s absolutely 100% totally normal!

    I have no idea what you ate for breakfast before stepping on the scale today, but imagine if you’d weighed before eating it - then got on the scale again with the food in your hands...would it surprise you that the food in your hand had changed the scale readout? So that same food in your stomach/digestive system has weight.

    All that plus the normal water weight fluctuations driven by hormones/sodium/climate etc etc.
  • amart4224
    amart4224 Posts: 345 Member
    Yes, it's normal. Fluctuations like this are the reason I can't weigh myself every day. I have to stick to once a week so I don't get discouraged if I gain a little day-to-day.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,967 Member
    Normal. Even at a smaller size, I've gone from 128.8 to 131.4 overnight, quite recently . . . and have seen much more extreme swings over the 5 years I've been calorie counting. One time my weight shifted by *6 pounds* overnight!

    This is a good read about reasons why this can happen:

    https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

    IMO a good rule of thumb: If you didn't do anything radical on the calorie side (like eat literally *thousands* of calories over *maintenance* calories), then quick changes on the scale aren't about fat gain/loss, they're about water retention or digestive contents.

    Water weight fluctuations - as you'll read in that article - are part of how a healthy body stays healthy. Digestive contents in transit - the residue that will eventually be waste - is a side effect of the foods we eat (higher fiber, for example, is more residue, but not more calories). Neither of those things are fat, so not worth worrying about.

    Best wishes!

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