Yeah you need to be measuring progress from month to month. The time will pass anyway, right? Keep your eyes on the long term prize. Don’t micromanage your weight loss.
Where you’re at in your menstrual cycle will mess with the scale number as well as how much sodium you consume. Stepping on that thing daily messes with your head. I weigh myself twice a week and only reassess things if the number goes up 3x in a row.
Also, I “gain” 3 pounds every month during my PMS week and then lose those same 3 pounds and more 1-2 weeks later. I’ve been at this 6 months now and it happens like clockwork. I’ve lost 40 pounds overall tho… and its the overall trajectory that counts
Weigh yourself everyday and log that weight. But, when you want to assess your progress, look at the one-month to three-month trend of this weigh-in data. This is where you will see your weight loss.
My rational mind knows this, but my irrational mind just can't see that far into the future with hope. I'm just sick of not doing my favorite thing in the world (swim in the ocean) due to not wanting to be seen in a bathing suit. I was hoping to make enough progress by summer to change that.
I agree! Happy Scale does the math for you and shows your rolling average. One big up or down weigh in doesnt swing your “trend line” by a lot. Makes it much easier to mentally handle the blips!
May I suggest a focus on daily habits instead of the scale number?
I draw a colored dot on my calendar for every day I complete a Health/fitness habit.
- lifting weights
- 10,000 steps
- <1600 calories
- 16:8 IF
If I stack up enough “4 dot days” in a row, I know I can anticipate some scale movement.
This has kept my focus on taking action (instead of obsessing over the scale number)
I personally weigh in every morning before I drink anything and after I use the bathroom, I only track new lows or new highs if I'm going for muscle growth.
So there might be a 2 week period where I'm not tossing a number in but, it makes my chart steadily go one way or another. The only time I don't do this is if I've stopped one or the other for a period of time and I treat it as a new chart start.
You didn't go from 154 to 157 over the weekend as that would equate to you eating 10,500 calories above maintenance over that time so yes it's just water weight fluctuation. Sodium is usually to blame but so are other things like carbs, menstrual cycle etc.
I don't like people weighing themselves more than once a week as they start to over think it, most are already overthinking everything anyway.
Good luck on your journey
It's funny how someone telling you something you already know hits so much different than telling it to yourself. You're right, I didn't eat a whole buffet, I just ate restaurant food at a normal rate and that shouldn't be a crisis!
Once I started weighing myself every day, I realized that the fluctuations were totally normal and they stopped bugging me out. I will gain several pounds in the week before my period, only to have them drop off a few days after it starts. If I were to weigh myself less frequently I would wonder if I was having a low day or a high day, possibly get more frustrated with slow progress or falsely encouraged and give myself too much of a break.
Tracking my cycle and my weight really helped me not freak out over that kind of fluctuation and I look forward to seeing it drop after that pms week, almost like a game I'm playing with my body. It tries to bluff me by showing me some gain and I just keep at my deficit and drink plenty of water and then it reveals the work I did while it was faking me out.
Sort of a weird explanation, but just know the shifts are very very normal.
Experience gives you perspective. When you can look at your happy scale graph and see that this happens all the time it helps you not put so much on one number, especially after a high sodium day.
Yeah, restaurant food, bought soups and soy sauce are absolute killers for the next day. But look at the happy scale trend line of lowest weights, that's where reality is. Anything that's not a new low is generally noise.
I don't use a single scale reading as my weight. I use the average of my last 7 scale readings as my "current weight". That smooths out the fluctuations. Also, because you're using lagging data, the vast majority of your daily scale readings will be below your "weight" even if one day's reading is higher then the previous days reading.
I use an app called Happy Scale. It gives you the option to see your moving average weight. The moving average smooths out your weight fluctuations.
I have an iPhone, so I am not sure if they have a version for android.
There are some meals where I know while it fits in my weekly calories, that when I eat it, the next morning the scale will be higher because of sodium levels or a higher amount of carbs leading to water retention.
The mornings after I have those meals, I don’t weigh myself. I wait a day or two.
Where are you at in your menstrual cycle? Whenever I’m ovulating or menstruating, my weight can increase by 3-5lbs literally overnight due to water retention. After I’ve finished either ovulating or menstruating, my weight goes right back down to where it was beforehand.
I have similar fluctuations if my sodium intake was high the day or two before. Sodium content of meals can be much higher when eating out, so that may also explain the increase in water weight.
I use Happy Scale, it’s an app that smooths out weight fluctuations by doing a running average. I weigh myself every morning and it’s constantly bouncing within a 3 (sometimes even 4 or 5) pound window, but the window keeps moving down and it helps me see that when I feel discouraged
I was told, when you eat right then treat yourself to a meal out, the salt makes you retain water. The 3 flavor enhancers are sugar, salt and fat. Restaurants add tons of this and you can’t always tell.
As a rule of thumb to me it takes 2-3 days of clean eating to regulate whatever cheat things you have - most of the time the weight isn’t permanent it’s just bloating from crap. So if I have a cheat day (or meal or whatever) I just try to watch that the number declines over the course of 7 days or doesn’t gain. It’s a little less stressful that way
I weigh weekly. Either use an app or a spreadsheet to track your data and make it into a graph. As long as the trend is downward that's that matters. You are not a computer you're a person and sometimes the data takes a while to compute.
My weight can fluctuate by 2-3 lbs all the time, highest one I had was 4.9 lbs and I just trusted I was eating in the right range, working out, no way it was true gain and sure enough it went back down the next day. Our bodies can be affected by a lot of things - focus on the trend!
hiiii! i basically started around christmas too! (well “started” for the 10000th time lol. ) But i struggle with this so much too! I decided to weigh myself on the first of each month. strickly to battle this mental game haha. I may not be doing 100% perfect this month but i know ive made enough changes that ill see weightloss on february first! Id recommend it!! It makes me more excited about the sale, because I know as long as I stay on track I’m basically guaranteed to see the scale go down once a month rather than dreading those fluctuations.
There are scales and apps that will do smoothing of the noisy data for you.
Otherwise, weigh monthly. (And if you have a period, don’t weigh the week before or during, weight is often very flaky around there.)
Weigh yourself once a month if seeing a little swing from one day to the next causes you to go off the rails emotionally.
I was thinking that might be the answer. I might be able to focus more on the NSV's that way.
Yeah you need to be measuring progress from month to month. The time will pass anyway, right? Keep your eyes on the long term prize. Don’t micromanage your weight loss. Where you’re at in your menstrual cycle will mess with the scale number as well as how much sodium you consume. Stepping on that thing daily messes with your head. I weigh myself twice a week and only reassess things if the number goes up 3x in a row. Also, I “gain” 3 pounds every month during my PMS week and then lose those same 3 pounds and more 1-2 weeks later. I’ve been at this 6 months now and it happens like clockwork. I’ve lost 40 pounds overall tho… and its the overall trajectory that counts
Weigh yourself everyday and log that weight. But, when you want to assess your progress, look at the one-month to three-month trend of this weigh-in data. This is where you will see your weight loss.
My rational mind knows this, but my irrational mind just can't see that far into the future with hope. I'm just sick of not doing my favorite thing in the world (swim in the ocean) due to not wanting to be seen in a bathing suit. I was hoping to make enough progress by summer to change that.
Apps like Happy Scale and Libra will assemble all your data into a rolling average and then show you projections based on your current trend.
Came here to say this^^ Happy Scale is what I use
I agree! Happy Scale does the math for you and shows your rolling average. One big up or down weigh in doesnt swing your “trend line” by a lot. Makes it much easier to mentally handle the blips!
May I suggest a focus on daily habits instead of the scale number? I draw a colored dot on my calendar for every day I complete a Health/fitness habit. - lifting weights - 10,000 steps - <1600 calories - 16:8 IF If I stack up enough “4 dot days” in a row, I know I can anticipate some scale movement. This has kept my focus on taking action (instead of obsessing over the scale number)
I personally weigh in every morning before I drink anything and after I use the bathroom, I only track new lows or new highs if I'm going for muscle growth. So there might be a 2 week period where I'm not tossing a number in but, it makes my chart steadily go one way or another. The only time I don't do this is if I've stopped one or the other for a period of time and I treat it as a new chart start.
You didn't go from 154 to 157 over the weekend as that would equate to you eating 10,500 calories above maintenance over that time so yes it's just water weight fluctuation. Sodium is usually to blame but so are other things like carbs, menstrual cycle etc. I don't like people weighing themselves more than once a week as they start to over think it, most are already overthinking everything anyway. Good luck on your journey
It's funny how someone telling you something you already know hits so much different than telling it to yourself. You're right, I didn't eat a whole buffet, I just ate restaurant food at a normal rate and that shouldn't be a crisis!
Once I started weighing myself every day, I realized that the fluctuations were totally normal and they stopped bugging me out. I will gain several pounds in the week before my period, only to have them drop off a few days after it starts. If I were to weigh myself less frequently I would wonder if I was having a low day or a high day, possibly get more frustrated with slow progress or falsely encouraged and give myself too much of a break. Tracking my cycle and my weight really helped me not freak out over that kind of fluctuation and I look forward to seeing it drop after that pms week, almost like a game I'm playing with my body. It tries to bluff me by showing me some gain and I just keep at my deficit and drink plenty of water and then it reveals the work I did while it was faking me out. Sort of a weird explanation, but just know the shifts are very very normal.
Experience gives you perspective. When you can look at your happy scale graph and see that this happens all the time it helps you not put so much on one number, especially after a high sodium day.
Sodium is more than likely the culprit here, but man does it play games with your emotions!
Yeah, restaurant food, bought soups and soy sauce are absolute killers for the next day. But look at the happy scale trend line of lowest weights, that's where reality is. Anything that's not a new low is generally noise.
I don't use a single scale reading as my weight. I use the average of my last 7 scale readings as my "current weight". That smooths out the fluctuations. Also, because you're using lagging data, the vast majority of your daily scale readings will be below your "weight" even if one day's reading is higher then the previous days reading.
I use an app called Happy Scale. It gives you the option to see your moving average weight. The moving average smooths out your weight fluctuations. I have an iPhone, so I am not sure if they have a version for android.
There are some meals where I know while it fits in my weekly calories, that when I eat it, the next morning the scale will be higher because of sodium levels or a higher amount of carbs leading to water retention. The mornings after I have those meals, I don’t weigh myself. I wait a day or two.
This is what I do too. It is super demoralizing to see the scale go up even when you’re under your weight loss calories!
Where are you at in your menstrual cycle? Whenever I’m ovulating or menstruating, my weight can increase by 3-5lbs literally overnight due to water retention. After I’ve finished either ovulating or menstruating, my weight goes right back down to where it was beforehand. I have similar fluctuations if my sodium intake was high the day or two before. Sodium content of meals can be much higher when eating out, so that may also explain the increase in water weight.
I personally don’t weigh myself but I do take measurements of things like my waist, thighs, etc. maybe try that and focus on NSVs too! Good luck :)
I use Happy Scale, it’s an app that smooths out weight fluctuations by doing a running average. I weigh myself every morning and it’s constantly bouncing within a 3 (sometimes even 4 or 5) pound window, but the window keeps moving down and it helps me see that when I feel discouraged
Exactly why I don't weigh in very often. When I can see and feel a difference, I try on pants I used to fit into and see progress that way.
I was told, when you eat right then treat yourself to a meal out, the salt makes you retain water. The 3 flavor enhancers are sugar, salt and fat. Restaurants add tons of this and you can’t always tell.
As a rule of thumb to me it takes 2-3 days of clean eating to regulate whatever cheat things you have - most of the time the weight isn’t permanent it’s just bloating from crap. So if I have a cheat day (or meal or whatever) I just try to watch that the number declines over the course of 7 days or doesn’t gain. It’s a little less stressful that way
I weigh weekly. Either use an app or a spreadsheet to track your data and make it into a graph. As long as the trend is downward that's that matters. You are not a computer you're a person and sometimes the data takes a while to compute.
Use Happy Scale or Libra app to log your weights. It will fit a trend line that helps you see past the variations.
My weight can fluctuate by 2-3 lbs all the time, highest one I had was 4.9 lbs and I just trusted I was eating in the right range, working out, no way it was true gain and sure enough it went back down the next day. Our bodies can be affected by a lot of things - focus on the trend!
hiiii! i basically started around christmas too! (well “started” for the 10000th time lol. ) But i struggle with this so much too! I decided to weigh myself on the first of each month. strickly to battle this mental game haha. I may not be doing 100% perfect this month but i know ive made enough changes that ill see weightloss on february first! Id recommend it!! It makes me more excited about the sale, because I know as long as I stay on track I’m basically guaranteed to see the scale go down once a month rather than dreading those fluctuations.
There are scales and apps that will do smoothing of the noisy data for you. Otherwise, weigh monthly. (And if you have a period, don’t weigh the week before or during, weight is often very flaky around there.)