Is it a good idea to weigh yourself every day?

sal10851 wrote: »

Yes you should weigh yourself everyday and log it. After every week I find the median number and that gives you a better representation of your progress and maintenance. This avoids fluctuations which also include water weight and food that has not been digested.

No issue with you or anyone doing this if they wish to.

or doing averages or spreadsheets or any of that.

But it isnt a "You should' do thing - as in everyone should do it that way.

If you want to do it - do

if you, like me, are happy with weekly - do that.

Whatever works for you.

paperpudding wrote: »

lorrpb wrote: »

Weighing daily helps you learn and understand and track your normal daily fluctuations. If you weigh once a week, you don’t know whether it’s an up, down, or average day on the scale. The reading books advise to weigh weekly is because some people tend to obsess over the fluctuations.

Sure - it does if you want to understand minutiae of data.

But if you are happy just seeing the big picture and an overall downward trend - or a staying in maitenance range - then weekly is fine.

I'm not fussed about understanding or tracking my daily fluctuations and I dont stress over them and it doesnt worry me if my Sun evening weigh is sometimes an average, low or high day - as long as overall trend fits into big picture.

I feel I am flogging a dead horse a bit here - but I also think it is important for readers to know they do not have to do it one way - like daily - if they dont want to and they don't have to understand and follow every little variation if they don't want to.

I would argue that, at least as people are describing it, weighing daily doesn't help them understand minutiae of data. People seem to be operating under the erroneous belief that the daily fluctuations they see are about fat gain and loss rather than water retention levels and the amount of food/waste in their digestive system. Getting more data is great if that's what you want. Making adjustments in diet and exercise based on the belief that today's scale reading says something meaningful about yesterday's food intake or workout is not likely to be productive.

I'll put another check-mark in the "do what works for you" advice column. Also in the "don't adjust behavior based solely on the results of any two consecutive weigh-ins" and I'd say the latter about hourly, daily, weekly, and mayve even monthly weigh-ins. I could pick out data points for myself where any one of those schedules would've been seriously misleading, if comparing only 2 points at those intervals. Weight management is a long game.

Personally, I like data and everyday statistics, in a general sense, across multiple domains that interest me. I'm also one of the least emotional people I know. 😆

So, I weigh daily, and put it in Libra. (I don't even necessarily believe the Libra trend line, BTW. Sometimes, it's wrong.) Before Libra, for a decade or more, I was plotting daily weight on a graph paper chart taped inside my linen closet door. If I miss a day or more - traveling, forget, whatever - meh, no big.

Once in a while, I weigh during the day (for reasons like wondering if my hot-weather hydration is working well, for example, or just curiosity), but don't put those in Libra. I don't think that's obessive (because I'm not at all compulsive or stressed over it).

I think talking about this as "liking data minutia" is a little bit value-laden characterization.😆

Though it's counter-intuitive, I neither budget nor balance my checkbook, and haven't for decades. I'm incapable of intuitive eating, but I seem to be capable of intuitive spending. The results have been neither chaotic nor stressful, either. (Before retirement, I did track net worth monthly, FWIW, even though I'm far, far from wealthy. Personally, I think net worth is more analogous to body weight, budgeting to pre-logging or menu planning . . . checkbook-balancing to calorie counting, maybe - the last is a shakier analogy.)

People differ in their outlooks, interests, needs, and the outcomes that flow from those. I find that variation kind of fascinating, personally.

Back to weighing again: I will push back on people who are pushing one alternative or another to others, or feeling swayed by orthodoxies from blogs (like the "you should only weigh weekly" one), without factual basis. Saying - without some prior individual evidence - that "you will become a slave to the scale" or "you need to see the daily fluctuations" is inappropriate. "I become a slave to the scale" or "I need to see the daily fluctuations"? No problem.