How often should I weight myself?

[AnneK]

I am just getting started on this. Any advice on how often I should weigh myself--I understand the loss will be slow, so I don't want to get discouraged. On the other hand, I feel like its important to sort of monitor the situation.

Also, if you were going to weigh yourself, say, once a week, should it be on Monday morning, after the two 'S' days, or Saturday morning, after a week of 'N' days?

Gracias!

[wosnes]

I'd say don't weigh more often than monthly. It doesn't matter when you weigh yourself as long as you're consistent, because you're looking at trends.

[sophiasapientia]

It really depends on what feels right for you. Some folks have difficult histories with the scale and do best to weigh themselves infrequently, like once a month. Others prefer to check-in daily or weekly so that they can become tuned in with normal body fluctuations, nip any potential problems in the bud, etc. I weigh myself near daily and graph my weight.

If I were to weigh myself once a week, I'd do it on Saturday morning, following my N Days. For me, anyway, the scale usually shows a temporary gain immediately following S Days and then drops back down again within a day or so. I've discovered over time that fluctuations on the scale -- following S days, due to hormones or excess sodium, etc, etc -- are quite normal and feel that more frequent weigh-ins give me a broader, more realistic view of what is going on. Certainly such frequent weigh-ins aren't the best plan for everyone, however.

[oolala53]

I weigh daily and average it once a week. I don't usually get freaked out by the fluctuations. I can go up and down 2-3 lbs. in a day. Got to be water weight.

[Sienna]

I'm with the it depends on your personality crowd.

I weigh every day, so that I have a record and so I can have a better idea of my actual weight without the confusion of fluctuations, but I don't actually look at it every day. I do try to be consistent in how/when I weigh. Always first thing in the morning, always wearing the same-ish clothing (shorts and exercise top). I figure even if it's off, it will always be off the same direction, so I still will get the gist of the trend.

I use my WiiFit to track my weight. It's nice because it keeps a log, but I don't have to look at it if I don't want to. Sure it pops up on the screen, but it pops up in BMI (so you have to tell it to show you weight) and it's really easy to click past the screen without looking at it (which I do if I'm in a hurry). For me this is the best of both worlds, I don't get bogged down focusing on a number, but I also have a nice record and can get an idea about how food affects me.

Of course, I'm also a pretty science-minded person. So I'm used to ignoring individual data points and looking at trends and averages.

For me, if I was not going to weigh daily, I actually think I would do monthly instead of weekly. I feel like weekly is too infrequent to notice where the fluctuations are and establish trends and too frequent to notice large drops in weight - and I think that I'd be more likely to get lost in the numbers. For example, my first week noSing I started at 226.4 pounds. Day 7 I was up to 228.2! But day 6 was 226.2 and day 8 was 224.7. If I had only seen the nearly 2 pound gain, I think I would have freaked out and possibly even (stupidly) quit or tried to add a zillion mods. But since I was weighing daily, I knew there was no way I had actually gained 2 pounds of true weight overnight, figured it was a fluctuation and moved on. So in a bizarre way, weighing in more often helps me obsess LESS over the numbers.

As with everything else in diets and life, it's about reflecting on what works best for you (which I know is an awful non-answer, but I still think it's true)

[AnneK]

Thanks for the input everybody. I think i'll weigh myself when my clothes feel looser

[kccc]

As with everything else in diets and life, it's about reflecting on what works best for you (which I know is an awful non-answer, but I still think it's true)

Agreed - well said!

There's a thread on here somewhere about weighing, which was very good. As I recall, folks tend to fall into two main categories:
1) Weigh often so you learn to ignore blips
2) Weigh infrequently so trends show clearly

[DaveMc]

There's a thread on here somewhere about weighing, which was very good. As I recall, folks tend to fall into two main categories:
1) Weigh often so you learn to ignore blips
2) Weigh infrequently so trends show clearly

I found the thread:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=84226

KCCC's comment, there, is an extended version of her wise words above.

[jellybeans01]

I weigh myself once a week. It is from my weight watcher days. If I am on my period or about to start, I wait another week.