Weight question

Xavier736
Xavier736 Posts: 6 Member
edited December 2021 in Health and Weight Loss
I am a female, 44, and began an weight loss program of diet and exercise on August 6. I've lost 30 pounds so far and have 80 more to lose to reach my goal. I purchased an expensive scale when I began this and it is very accurate. My question is why some days do I gain a pound to a pound and a half back? I stay at same calorie deficit every day so it doesn't make sense. Don't have cheat days, etc. I weight myself at the same time each morning. Yes I know to focus instead on the overall downward trend but it is so frustrating. And no this is not happening during menstruation. Is it just hormones?

Replies

  • KNoceros
    KNoceros Posts: 326 Member
    First up: well done for the loss so far, and for realising that these upward “blips” are just that.
    They’re also totally normal and to be expected.
    They can can caused by loads of things including higher than “usual” salt intake, a carb heavy day, stress (which causes the body to release a hormone called cortisol), reproductive hormones, being a bit stiff after exercise or injury and many more. All these things lead the body to hang on to water, which will make the scales move up.
    Another big “culprit” is having more than usual erm, waste, in your system.

    There a great thread here somewhere called “why weight loss isn’t linear” or something like that. It’s well worth a read.

    Hope that answers some of your question without prompting too many more!
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,884 Member
    edited December 2021
    Because bodies are weird :wink:
    More than half of our body is made of water. And that water weight can fluctuate for many reasons: hot/cold weather, exercise (sweating and water retention for muscle repair), stress, hormones (not necessarily our period, but also ovulation...), illness, sodium intake...
    On top of that, the amount of food waste in our system can fluctuate too.
    This is my weight graph the past month. I went from an all time low of 60.9kg to 62.5kg in 9 days, so up 3.5lbs!
    hgzicch4vk9y.png
    Am I worried? Nope, I know how much I've been eating and this is not fat gain, it's just water retention. I've been weighing myself daily for over two years now and I trust the process.

    Another source saying pretty much what I said:
    https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
  • Xavier736
    Xavier736 Posts: 6 Member
    I should also add that I am low salt every day, low carb, no caffeine at all only drink water.
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,479 Member
    Xavier736 wrote: »
    I should also add that I am low salt every day, low carb, no caffeine at all only drink water.

    Yes, but (for example), your poo today may be smaller than your poo yesterday. Stress one day may be higher than another. Even if you are "low salt" and "low carb," are your intakes of each EXACTLY the same, down to the mg, daily? Is your water intake EXACTLY the same, down to the ounce, daily? No matter how hard you ATTEMPT to micromanage it, you're gonna see fluctuations.
  • Shreyadr
    Shreyadr Posts: 2 Member
    I track my weight everyday too and this is the norm rather than the exception. Weight fluctuates depending on the food eaten, bowel movements and also menstrual cycle for women. It also tends to increase after a day of heavy workout for me. Water retention has much to do with it. I have lots of ups and downs day to day. Overall the trend is decreasing.
  • NYPhotographer2021
    NYPhotographer2021 Posts: 510 Member
    It is totally normal. Like someone said up thread...our bodies are weird. I've lost 35 lbs since the end of August, and my graph is all over the place, but keeps trending downward, so I'm not worried. I know it can be frustrating to see a higher number when you know it should be the same or lower based on your intake and output! But it happens. Just keep with your program and you should be good!
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
    edited December 2021
    .
  • NYPhotographer2021
    NYPhotographer2021 Posts: 510 Member
    @Go_Deskercise That's awesome! That's Exactly how it is! LOL!
  • Xellercin
    Xellercin Posts: 924 Member
    I tracked my weight loss for 4 years. In the short term, my weights were all over the place, but over the longer term, the slope of my loss was always consistent as long as I stuck to consistent eating.

    The scale could go up for a day or for nearly 8 weeks. But over the longer timeline, the graph didn't lie, my weight loss was ALWAYS consistent with my eating as long as I stuck with it.

    Don't let day to day or even week to week scale fluctuations shake you. Sometimes you will be eating PERFECTLY for a few weeks straight and the scale will not budge or even go up.

    THAT IS NORMAL.

    There are a lot of apps that will take your daily weight values and average them out for you, so perhaps look into that.

    These scale fluctuations are a big reason why people get frustrated and give up. Don't let that happen to you.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,617 Member
    Xavier736 wrote: »
    I should also add that I am low salt every day, low carb, no caffeine at all only drink water.

    Read that link that @lietchi posted. So. Many. Things. can cause water retention. If you're not in menopause yet, hormone-related water retention cycles can be surprisingly dramatic, and happen at multiple times in the cycle. (If perimenopausal, they can be even more unpredictable.) Some women only see a new low weight once a month, though that's probably not the common thing.

    I don't even think I have a true "current weight". I think current weight is inherently a range (usually a few pounds) that will vary up and down over a day or few. Longer term, over weeks to months, I think I have a weight trend. That is, the range of weights I cycle up and down through moves gradually (and bumpily) downward when I'm losing, upward when I'm gaining, stays bumpily horizontal over time if I'm maintaining. That trend is what matters to me. Daily weight is just a snapshot of my body's momentary relationship with gravity, a single data point that's not very meaningful by itself.

    Don't let this stuff stress you out. What you're seeing is normal. The trend over time is the important thing. Give it 4-6 weeks to clarify (whole menstrual cycles if you have them, so you're comparing weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles).

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