The Fluctuations in Your Daily Weight
When I first started blogging about losing weight, I wasn’t planning on weighing myself daily. But after reading some comments, I decided that I should make it a routine. Plus, it’s easy to keep track over with my Fiday.com profile.
I find it amazing at how much my weight has fluctuated over the past two weeks. The jumps haven’t been huge (usually less than 3 lb difference), but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Here’s a neat chart that FitDay provided for my weight:
Even though it goes up and down, I do see the overall trend for my weight going down, and that is the most important thing.
Now, why does your daily weight fluctuate so much? I did some searching and here’s what I found to be some key factors that cause daily weight swings.
1.) Eating and Drinking - you eat a pound of beef and you are going to weigh a pound heavier temporarily until your body can process the food and excrete it. Same with water and other drinks.
2.) Salt - I’ve never been in the habit of using salt while cooking, although I know many of the processed foods I eat contain a lot of salt. That salt causes you to retain water.
3.) Exercise - Exercising makes you sweat and you are losing water when that happens. While you technically lose weight this way (some boxers lose weight fast this way to meet a lower weight class), it is not a way to lose weight long term.
4.) Menstruation - Right before your period, you retain water which causes some weight gain. Add to that the food cravings that some of us women experience and you might see some expected weight fluctuation with your monthly cycle.
5.) Glycogen - Glycogen? I have never heard of that. It turns out that glycogen is stored energy in your body. If you do not eat many carbs for a while, your body will turn to that glycogen for energy. They glycogen storage will replenish itself when you eat carbs again so that can cause some fluctuations.
While I wasn’t going to weight myself daily, I’m glad I started doing it. I do enjoy seeing how my weight naturally fluctuates. If I happen to weigh a little more come a weekly weigh-in, I now know that it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not losing weight. The increase could due to one of the above things I mentioned above.
Sources:
azcentral.com
medicinenet.com
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Comments
When I first started working out and eating healthier, I would weigh in every day. I would quickly get discouraged by seeing my weight go up even on days when I thought I did well. I learned that it makes more sense to weight in over longer periods of time. That way you get a real sense of your weight trend. These days I weight myself once a month or so.
[...] personal fitness blog like mine (tracking one woman’s journey to a healthy weight) This helpful post explains why our weight fluctuates from day to [...]
Trend lines are great; one of the software packages I use to track my training shows me a trend line for my weight. I’ve been weighing myself almost every day for the past couple of years, so it is interesting to see it move up and down slightly but generally move along as a straight line despite all the activity jumping up and below it.
Actually, studies have shown that dieters who weight themselves daily are more inclined to stick with a program and keep the weight off.
I like to weigh myself first thing in the morning, after I’ve emptied out my bladder (sorry for the graphic description, but it’s true!), and before I eat or drink anything. It avoids the major fluctuations one may experience throughout the day from the factors you’ve listed above. It seems like the most accurate and consistent way to figure out your weight.
All I can say is, good for you Trish! I’ve always enjoyed reading your debt blog, and now I can’t wait to follow your progress on losing weight (which, given the way you’ve attacked your debt, I’m certain will happen).
[...] using FitDay.com, I am able to run some reports. A few weeks ago, I discussed the fluctuations in my daily weight. Right underneath that chart is a table where you can see your average weight lost and I took a [...]
[...] scale out of the window if something like this happened. But I don’t. I’ve learned that weight does fluctuate a [...]
I have been weighing myself daily for years. There is an online book called, The Hacker’s Diet and it tells you how to calculate your weight trend from your daily weight which smooths out the daily fluctuations so you can tell if you are really losing or not. This helps to eliminate the anxiety that comes from putting on weight which might not be a true gain.
By the way, I have been reading Blogging away debt for months now, you are one of my favourite bloggers because you tell the personal side of personal finance. I really enjoy reading your story! I am a fellow member of the ncnnetwork, I am known as Weight Money Life there.
Cheers
lowincomelady