My weight fluctuated 7 pounds!
Mahdi22
Posts: 229 Member
I don’t understand why my weight fluctuated 7 pounds up. It’s so frustrating. I’ve lost 10 pounds but with the fluctuations I really only lost 3 pounds. It’s like I’m wasting my time and getting no where.
5
Replies
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It's common. Stay the course.
Here are the possible explanation(s)
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p16 -
cmriverside wrote: »It's common. Stay the course.
Here are the possible explanation(s)
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1
It’s sucks tho…. It just reinforces bad thoughts into my brain like I can’t do it and I’m not good enough
☹️5 -
I don’t understand why my weight fluctuated 7 pounds up. It’s so frustrating. I’ve lost 10 pounds but with the fluctuations I really only lost 3 pounds. It’s like I’m wasting my time and getting no where.
Do you care about weight loss, or fat loss? Personally, I care about fat.
Once you read the very good article above, you'll (I hope) realize that fat loss plays peek-a-boo on the bodyweight scale with water fluctuations and waste-in-transit.
The typical human body is around 60% water, so the likelihood of multi-pound fluctuations is high. Full digestive transit takes up to 50+ hours, so non-absorbed food residue show up on the scale until it exits as waste, gases (about 80% of burned calories leave the body as exhaled gases), or sweat. Until digestion is mostly complete, food weighs as much inside my body as it did in my hand, regardless of the food's calorie level.
As a rough rule of thumb, and when calorie intake and activity levels are fairly consistent, any quick multi-pound change on the bodyweight scale over a day or few is primarily or entirely water/waste fluctuation. If the person is in a calorie deficit, the fat loss is a gradual, creeping process whose effects are hiding in the background a lot of the time, but will show up on the scale in trends over weeks to small numbers of months. (Muscle mass change, outside of a health crisis, is even slower, a thing of many months to years.)
Personally, I don't even think I have a true current weight, just a current range +/- a few pounds, and a longer term trend that's reflected in how that range changes over time. My daily weight this week has ranged randomly from 123.8 to 126.4, and that was when weighing under consistent conditions (AM, after bathroom, before eating/drinking). Those aren't the beginning/end weights, just the highs and lows in the midst of the 7 days. Same period last year, the high/low were 127.2 and 129.2. I'd say I've lost a couple of pounds of fat. (I've done nothing to gain or lose muscle.)
If you care about losing fat, don't let random bodyweight changes *that aren't fat* discourage you and make you give up. Adopt a sustainable routine that includes a sensible calorie deficit, follow it, watch the trend over *at least* 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for women of the age to have them). If you don't see a net downward trend on the scale over that kind of time period, then adjust intake. It'll be fine.
By contrast, you know what happens if you get discouraged and give up, amIrite? 😉10 -
Consider weighing yourself less frequently or never again.
What really matters is how you feel and making healthy choices.
If you are making healthy choices and feeling good, then the number on the scale doesn’t matter. Especially if you’re getting frustrated by it.4 -
mine has a bout a 5 pound range that is typical for me
ive seen it float in a 7 pound range if ive been eating out more/ change my exercise routine/ get in more activity than normal/ eat higher sodium or a lot more carbs than normal/ etc
bodies are weird, man
LOL
5 -
cmriverside wrote: »It's common. Stay the course.
Here are the possible explanation(s)
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1
It’s sucks tho…. It just reinforces bad thoughts into my brain like I can’t do it and I’m not good enough
☹️
But you can do it and you are good enough. You've lost three pounds!5 -
What helps my brain deal with the normal water weight fluctuations is to log every day into the Happy Scale app (iphone) and focus on the TREND, not today's weight.
Some weeks or months I've felt like I was making no progress, but I've lost almost 30 pounds this year.9 -
callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »mine has a bout a 5 pound range that is typical for me
ive seen it float in a 7 pound range if ive been eating out more/ change my exercise routine/ get in more activity than normal/ eat higher sodium or a lot more carbs than normal/ etc
bodies are weird, man
LOL
Tell me about it lmao4 -
Maybe pay attention to salt consumption, excessive amounts cause water retention. I ballooned 8 lbs one weekend after steady loss....all down to excessive salt intake. Beware Soy Sauce and many processed tinned and frozen foods and ready meals....They're loaded with it..... I make everything from scratch now2
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I'm Asian and soy sauce is a staple. You CAN have sodium in the diet. It's NOT bad as long as you don't have issues with high blood pressure or hypertension. Also most people don't balance sodium intake with it's counterpart potassium (which helps move water out of cells when in balance).Maybe pay attention to salt consumption, excessive amounts cause water retention. I ballooned 8 lbs one weekend after steady loss....all down to excessive salt intake. Beware Soy Sauce and many processed tinned and frozen foods and ready meals....They're loaded with it..... I make everything from scratch now
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
4 -
Also, and I hate to be that wet blanket, there are LOW fluctuations as well as high ones. So do not automatically take those low drops as the 'true' weight and anything above them as a high one. I seem to get about one abnormally low reading in a month.
Personally, I don't use my morning weight, or my high spikes or low spikes. I use the rough average of what I weigh, when dressed in my usual type of clothes, in the middle of the day as my 'actual weight'. I do the rest out of curiosity and to see what the normal variance is for me, and I'll even record it occasionally for education purposes (my education), but middle of the day, clothes on, what I'd weigh if I went to the Doctor's office is what I use as my real metric.
THAT still has variation but nothing like what happens first thing in the morning or last thing at night over the course of a month.5 -
I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
6 -
I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
That’s the spirit.
Whatever you do, don’t get discouraged, and don’t give up!6 -
I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
This is the way! Try not to get discouraged and you'll be fine. Something to consider, and the answer depends on how your mind works: weighing once per week or month could mean that you hit the scale on the day your water weight might be higher. Some people might feel that all the weeks/months work was for nothing then. But this might not be you.
You could also weigh daily and use a weight trending app like Libra or Happy Scale. it average out all those wildly fluctuating measurements and draws a line through it. And if this line points downwards after a while you're on the right track.5 -
You are in danger of making your happiness far too dependent on what you see on your scales, that's not a happy place to be.
Your weight will continue to fluctuate while you are losing weight and also when you are maintaining at goal weight, you really need to dial down the emotion if you can.
It's not the frequency of weighing that will fix your emotional reaction, you could have a big fluctuation the day of your weekly or fortnightly future weigh ins and then you will have an even bigger reaction unless you change how you think. It really is about thinking (logical brain taking in and assimilating information) rather than high emotion (Joy! Despair!).
You now know that you are someone who has big weight fluctuations, that's part of the data assimilation you need to do when you get a surprising result out of line with calories and expectations.8 -
I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
This is the way! Try not to get discouraged and you'll be fine. Something to consider, and the answer depends on how your mind works: weighing once per week or month could mean that you hit the scale on the day your water weight might be higher. Some people might feel that all the weeks/months work was for nothing then. But this might not be you.
You could also weigh daily and use a weight trending app like Libra or Happy Scale. it average out all those wildly fluctuating measurements and draws a line through it. And if this line points downwards after a while you're on the right track.
I’m going to download that app. A lot of people have mentioned it and I’ll give it a shot too. Thanks for the advice2 -
You are in danger of making your happiness far too dependent on what you see on your scales, that's not a happy place to be.
Your weight will continue to fluctuate while you are losing weight and also when you are maintaining at goal weight, you really need to dial down the emotion if you can.
It's not the frequency of weighing that will fix your emotional reaction, you could have a big fluctuation the day of your weekly or fortnightly future weigh ins and then you will have an even bigger reaction unless you change how you think. It really is about thinking (logical brain taking in and assimilating information) rather than high emotion (Joy! Despair!).
You now know that you are someone who has big weight fluctuations, that's part of the data assimilation you need to do when you get a surprising result out of line with calories and expectations.
I agree with everything you have said. For me, the mental and emotional part of this weight loss journey is very difficult especially when I am stressed out. I need to find ways to control my stress better.2 -
.I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
That's a reasonable thing to do, if you can't otherwise control your emotions about the number.
However . . .
Consider, that by doing so, you're giving up a learning opportunity. If you weigh daily, consistent conditions like first thing in AM after bathroom before eating/drinking, and can calmly note the number on the scale, you'll begin to learn what makes your own personal body fluctuate, by how much, and how long the fluctuation tends to last.
That's quite powerful information to have. For some of us, it even helps to take the emotion out of those numbers, because over time, we see that the random ups and downs of fluctuation are quite meaningless in the big picture.
Also, remember that one day's scale-weight number is just a momentary snapshot of your body's relationship with gravity at that moment, not a gauge of your value as a well-rounded human being. It's just data. It only has the power and meaning we give it, y'know?I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
This is the way! Try not to get discouraged and you'll be fine. Something to consider, and the answer depends on how your mind works: weighing once per week or month could mean that you hit the scale on the day your water weight might be higher. Some people might feel that all the weeks/months work was for nothing then. But this might not be you.
You could also weigh daily and use a weight trending app like Libra or Happy Scale. it average out all those wildly fluctuating measurements and draws a line through it. And if this line points downwards after a while you're on the right track.
I’m going to download that app. A lot of people have mentioned it and I’ll give it a shot too. Thanks for the advice
That's a good plan. Happy Scale is the standard app for Apple/iOS devices. Libra works on Android. Trendweight requires a free Fitbit account, but you don't need a Fitbit device to use it. There are also others, such as Weightgrapher, etc.
Any one of these can work, but remember: They're just doing statistical things, averages and projections . . . they're not a magical crystal ball. Even a weight trending app can mislead, sometimes.
Best wishes!4 -
.I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
That's a reasonable thing to do, if you can't otherwise control your emotions about the number.
However . . .
Consider, that by doing so, you're giving up a learning opportunity. If you weigh daily, consistent conditions like first thing in AM after bathroom before eating/drinking, and can calmly note the number on the scale, you'll begin to learn what makes your own personal body fluctuate, by how much, and how long the fluctuation tends to last.
That's quite powerful information to have. For some of us, it even helps to take the emotion out of those numbers, because over time, we see that the random ups and downs of fluctuation are quite meaningless in the big picture.
Also, remember that one day's scale-weight number is just a momentary snapshot of your body's relationship with gravity at that moment, not a gauge of your value as a well-rounded human being. It's just data. It only has the power and meaning we give it, y'know?I checked my weight today and my weight fluctuated down. So I’m happy about that. I went from 8 pounds up to 7 pounds down. What a roller Coaster experience. I think I’m going to only weigh myself once a week or twice a month.
This is the way! Try not to get discouraged and you'll be fine. Something to consider, and the answer depends on how your mind works: weighing once per week or month could mean that you hit the scale on the day your water weight might be higher. Some people might feel that all the weeks/months work was for nothing then. But this might not be you.
You could also weigh daily and use a weight trending app like Libra or Happy Scale. it average out all those wildly fluctuating measurements and draws a line through it. And if this line points downwards after a while you're on the right track.
I’m going to download that app. A lot of people have mentioned it and I’ll give it a shot too. Thanks for the advice
That's a good plan. Happy Scale is the standard app for Apple/iOS devices. Libra works on Android. Trendweight requires a free Fitbit account, but you don't need a Fitbit device to use it. There are also others, such as Weightgrapher, etc.
Any one of these can work, but remember: They're just doing statistical things, averages and projections . . . they're not a magical crystal ball. Even a weight trending app can mislead, sometimes.
Best wishes!
I never thought about it that way. Changing your perception and using the weight scale as data. That’s interesting. Thanks 😊2 -
Weight fluctuations can be super crazy, and there are so many variables that cause them. The standards being the female hormonal cycle, starting a new workout or intensifying one, or eating much more salt or carbs than usual.
But there are so many other reasons as well. I just came back from a 2 week vacation, being stuck in a heat wave. Stepped on the scale the next morning and I was up 2kg. That's a lot for me, but I didn't really measure my food intake. One week later and the weight is down again. It was, as I expected just water retention from the heat and the flight.2
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