The FastDay Forum

I normally weigh myself once a week on Saturday morning. I do it after getting up and going to the loo, but before eating or drinking. Saturday's weigh-in (after a fast day on Friday) was 93.2kg.

Just for fun I thought I'd see how my body weight fluctuates through the week.
Saturday was a feed day
Sunday morning: 93.7kg
Sunday was a feed day
Monday Morning: 93.4kg
Monday was a fast day
Tuesday Morning; 93.0kg
Tuesday was a feed day
Wednesday morning: 94.1 kg (!)
Wednesday was a feed day
Thursday Morning: 93.4 kg

You can see how wildly this fluctuates. It's clearly not only down to my body creating and getting rid of fat. I certainly didn't skimp on food on any feed day but yet my weight shoots up and down. This is obviously down to the amount of food and fluid in my system at the weigh-in time more than any accumulation or loss of fat.

From this I conclude that you should in no way think that weighing yourself daily will do any good at all. Even if like me you weigh yourself weekly, you shouldn't be upset if one week you don't appear to lose weight or even gain a little. This could very easily be down to fluctuations in the amount of fluid in your system and not to you actually accumulating fat.

I realise that this is the type of advice that Carorees and others routinely give out, but I thought it worth repeating: You need to look to your pattern of weight loss over a period of months not days or even weeks. There's just too much "noise" in the data to see it any other way...

Nice to see someone in the same weight band as myself. I'm not into the weightloss thing but a couple of weeks ago I weighed myself at the end of a fast (24hrs), 92.9kg on a tues morning and on a friday evening after eating normally 96.2Kg. I was amazed that the difference could be so large. Also made me wonder what I should consider as my true weight?

I do not own a set of scales.
I weigh myself at the gym every Friday morning after my swim and before yoga on the same scales in the same clothes.

Weight loss is over months not days.
On the other forum I told lots of posters to lock their scales in the boot of their other halves cars!

I guess the closest thing to a "true weight" would be after a fast with the least food possible in your system. Even then it'll still only be a rough approximation and not something to put too much faith in.

I weigh daily and use maths to sort out the noise with a weighted moving average (well my tablet uses the maths, I sue the tablet).

I weigh myself every day find even allowing for fluctuations seeing an increase can motivate me to be careful on that day. I appreciate it doesn't work for everyone, but it helps me keep my weight in check.

I weigh daily and use maths to sort out the noise with a weighted moving average (well my tablet uses the maths, I sue the tablet).

What did the tablet do to you?

Seriously if you're using the data to plot a long-term statistical trend, then I can see the point. That's not going to be the case for most people, though.

I weigh daily too - yes, it fluctuates wildly like you say YourFunnyUncle - but I find it really interesting and also use it to plot long-term statistical trends (which are steadily downwards). Guess it's whatever "floats your boat"

I've weighed myself daily, sometimes multiple times a day, since i left high school. I need to weigh myself to keep track of how what im eating is effecting my weight. If i put on too much then i know i have to eat less to get back down again.
I have had periods where i haven't weighed myself for weeks and my weight has shot right up. I need to keep track of my weight or my eating gets out of control.
If i see myself going down too that makes me really happy and motivates me to keep going.