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Is it a good idea to weigh yourself every day?

JessBbody
JessBbody Posts: 523 Member
I've seen countless threads where people are checking in with their weight on a daily basis.

I feel like every article, every book, and every piece of anecdotal advice I've heard or read about fitness has said that it's a terrible idea to weigh yourself every day. They say you should only weigh yourself one a week or even less, and on the same day, first thing in the morning, naked.

Reason being, from what I gather, is that weight fluctuates wildly day to day depending on the food you eat, how much water you're retaining, how bloated you are, if you're on your period, etc.

It seems like you could be 0.2lbs lighter tomorrow and 0.4 lbs heavier the following day, especially if you weigh yourself at a different time of day, after you've eaten, etc.

It makes more sense to me to do it once a week to see if you've made any real progress over the course of the week. Seems like it would be healthier mentally, too, because you would be less obsessive about the number on the scale and less likely to beat yourself up if the scale shows you gained a little (probably because of sodium or water or carbs).


Admittedly I only get weighed once a month, and that's not enough. I think seeing a little progress after one or even two weeks would give me a huge motivation boost.


What do you think about daily weigh-ins?
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Replies

  • Mw000
    Mw000 Posts: 4 Member
    I weigh every day and it does fluctuate but if I dont it doesn't give me the opportunity to check myself ,I had a period when I didn't to try something different and during this period I put a stone on very easily

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,943 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    I weigh daily and look at the general trend. When weighing weekly, that weekly weigh-in could happen to be your highest weight of the week, or your lowest, or in between: you have no way of knowing unless you weigh daily.
    The more often you weigh (no more than daily, and in similar circumstances), the easier it is to spot the trend. The key is to not be too attached to individual weigh-ins.
    I've become desensitized, but for people who have a hard time staying motivated when seeing the fluctuations, it might be better to weigh less often.

    So much agree with this.

    For more in depth analysis of this, check out The Hacker's Diet, especially the section on Signal and Noise.

    There are lots of apps and sites that will take your daily data and show you just such a weighted moving average. You can alternately just create a spreadsheet and have it show a trend even if it's a simply average over a number of days. The advantage of a weighted moving average is that more recent measurements are considered more than those from, say, eight or ten days ago. They still count, but not as much.

    I like the output from WeigtGrapher. The only thing I don't like is you can't enter weight directly. It will sync with a fitbit, or you can create a fitbit account and enter your weight there. That's what I do. An example of what six months looks like is below.

    1xxqgmisp71r.png


    Crazy wild fluctuations, but it's that red line that's important. It can be difficult to "ignore" the daily weights, but you can develop that approach over time. It took me a while, but I knew it happened last week when I had one day eating almost 150% of my calories, and the scale responded the next day by going up four pounds. It came down two the day after, and another half the day after than. Used to be the initial bump up would trouble me. I have FINALLY got past that. You can too. Like losing weight, it's simple, but not necessarily easy.
  • cgvet37
    cgvet37 Posts: 1,189 Member
    Right now I weigh once a week. I think it really relies on your goals. If you have a lot to lose, I think once a week is more than enough. If you only have 5-10 to lose, or trying to maintain, daily data can be good. If you use an app like Libra, it will show you a trend. Which will take in to account daily fluctuations.
  • Diatonic12
    Diatonic12 Posts: 32,344 Member
    @sijomial That's the ticket to long term weight stability. When you cross over into logic and reason you can move away from immediate gratification and emotional eating. That's the authentic definition of freedom with food.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    (As like others above, I weigh daily and look at the trend).
  • frontdoorangel
    frontdoorangel Posts: 34 Member
    I weigh daily and only log the lowest weight here. I also record each day in a little planner so I can see the overall picture. It works for me and it's also a daily reminder to stick with the program.
  • AndreaTamira
    AndreaTamira Posts: 272 Member
    I think daily can be good if you expect the fluctuations or are happy to deal with calculating the mean weight for the week. It may make a really cool and interesting looking graph, too.

    I weight in weekly as described by OP. I know me and know if I did it differentlyntly I may develope an unhealthy fixactukn with the scale, weighing several times a day.

    I think getting a clearer picture of more data points may be one thing I'll use if/when I hit a plateau.