The FastDay Forum

Hi Kencc,
Regarding weekly v daily weigh-in I can only coment on my personal experience of this. I used to weigh myself every morning and the fluctuation from one day to the next could be 3lbs either way which can be very depressing depending on which way the scales go (up or down)so personaly I can see no valid reason to weigh every day as the readings are so inconsistant they mean nothing. I weigh myself once a week now Im even starting to think this is too much prehaps once every two-four weeks would give a better indication of true weight loss, that added to waist measurement and even something as simple as how you feel in your clothes but each to their own I suppose people will do what they find works best for them.

[carorees]

I would have thought it depends a lot on the mindset of the person doing the weighing. I did see something to the effect that frequent weighing helps with weight maintenance but I don't think they were talking about daily vs weekly, more likely weekly vs never!

It could be that once you weigh daily you expect things to vary a lot up and down, whereas if you weigh weekly you are expecting a loss and so if you don't see one it is more disappointing?

I would imagine that the Libra app you posted about would enable people to weigh daily without getting too depressed/ecstatic depending on the daily weight. Probably we should really be debating the merits of daily (with trend averaging) vs monthly weighing because as I mentioned, weekly weighing can still cause disappointment for those whose loss is slow. Monthly weighing should result in most people having lost something (I think only 2 of the 60 who joined in with the monthly weigh in did not lose any weight).

I would have thought it depends a lot on the mindset of the person doing the weighing.

Indeed, if someone eats the fridge every time the scale goes up they aren't going to be able to cope with daily weighing of something that is +/- 2 lbs in random variation, plus more for menstrual cycle where appropriate.

[Moogie]

To be honest I do weigh myself more than once a week (if only to make sure I've not gained massively!) but I only count the weight as my official weight once a week. I know if I stop weighing I am prone to gain weight, but I've learned that it doesn't really matter what the scales say on any random day of the week, as long as the trend overall is downwards

So yes I suppose in part at least it depends on how the person in question deals with what the scales tell them.

The problem I have is that unless (as some here are) you're conversant enough in statistics to be able use daily weigh-ins to plot a general change over time then all they will do is show you a load of noise due to how much food and drink happens to be in your system at the time. This effect is worse with 5:2 as the day after a fast you're bound to weigh a lot less than the day after a feed and it's not going to have much to do with your actual body weight.

I can see how with normal weight loss, seeing the weight rise one day might encourage you to eat less the next, but that's not the point of 5:2 at all. It's a completely different mind-set to weight loss than the usual daily calorie restriction. You're not supposed to be denying yourself treats and worrying about your calorie count every day until you give up due to the deprivation of it all.

Of course you shouldn't be eating nothing but junk food on feed days, but you shouldn't be beating yourself up about having a pizza every so often, and if you don't lose weight for a week or so, it shouldn't matter as you know that over time it's going to happen. You're not depriving yourself of your favourite foods for 5/7 of the time, so you can keep up 5:2 (Or 6:1 when you don't want to lose more weight) indefinitely. 5:2 is a long-term lifestyle change, not a quick way of dropping a load of weight only to put it straight back on.

For this reason I think that weekly weigh-ins at the same time every week is the best way to go. You can track your progress over time while minimising the noise due to fluctuations in weight on a day-to-day basis.

I have always weighed myself daily just to keep track of my weight. I know it naturally fluctuates within a few pounds and i don't worry about it too much. But if i see myself going up too much or staying up without coming back down within a day or so then i adjust how much im eating to compensate. I'v gone through periods of not weighing my self and i always put on weight when that happens as i'v no idea iv gone up so much and have not been able to do something about it early on.
I record my weight on the same day weekly and that's the one i count, but the daily weighing is just me keeping an eye on things in the mean time.

I'm not overweight but my weight fluctuates within the healthy range so i feel i have to keep an eye on it or I'll just keep going up and end up in the over weight category, which is something i really want to avoid.

I find it easier to weigh myself every day and can tell when I'm putting on weight due to the general trend. A half a kilo here or there is nothing, but when I get a new high weight I know immediately to do something about it.I lost 10kgs 3 years ago and managed to maintain my weight at 63kgs and I'm sure weighing daily helped. I now want to be 57kgs and will continue with the daily weigh ins. It helps me, but I appreciate it isn't for everyone.

I use an app called True Weight on the iPhone and weigh almost daily. The app works out a moving average and tells you your "true weight". It smooths out the daily fluctuations an shows a (hopefully downward) trend.

That's a fair point, ken, which is why I weigh myself not only weekly, but in the morning after a fast day after going to the loo but before eating. I'm trying to minimise the difference in conditions from week to week. Even so, I agree that it needs to be reinforced that a seeming weight gain or failure to lose weight from one week to the next or even for two weeks is not something to be to be worried about as it can still fall under the category of "noise" in the data.

I quite like your idea of a three-day average, too.

My empirical observation is that it's "a woman thing" - the world ends if the scale dare show an increase while she's striving for a decrease. Some people even quote to 0.1 of a pound

I should also say that by restricting the time and conditions of my weekly weigh-in in the manner I stated, although the amount I've seemingly lost has fluctuated from as little as 100g to around a kilo, I personally have never seen a weight gain from week to week in over 5 months of doing 5:2.

[carorees]

My empirical observation is that it's "a woman thing" - the world ends if the scale dare show an increase while she's striving for a decrease. Some people even quote to 0.1 of a pound

Ooh, you're skating on thin ice there Phil!

Though I do agree that some people put far to much emphasis on what the scales say and it is not good for their mental health. As to the proportion of each gender in said group, I shall not guess.

I think weighing should be daily (with the moving average) or monthly for peace of mind.

The nerd in me decided to initially record daily weigh-ins on a spreadsheet to determine what was the most realistic day of the week to input data for the progress tracker. Seven weeks later, I'm still at it! I find it quite interesting though to see how much the weight drops after a fast day and then creeps up a bit afterwards. I lose weight incredibly slowly (only 1 lb down over the past month) and it doesn't come off evenly, so I am grateful for my digital scales that measure to the nearest 1/8th lb to see any movement at all! As Caroline says, I think it depends on your mindset as to whether you can cope with frequent weigh-ins or not. Julie

Well, since I have daily weigh-in data, I decided to put kencc's suggestion to the test and take some weekly averages. It was quite interesting and may motivate those who think they've hit a plateau (as I thought I had). So, taking a one day/ week snapshot, it appeared that I lost 3lb first week, small amounts over the next 3 weeks, then nothing at all over the following 3 weeks. By taking weekly averages, the first week was a 2lb loss, followed by continual small losses over the following 6 weeks. Yes I would like to see bigger losses but I do feel more reassured that the system is working, albeit very slowly.

I use an app called True Weight on the iPhone and weigh almost daily. The app works out a moving average and tells you your "true weight". It smooths out the daily fluctuations an shows a (hopefully downward) trend.

That sounds handy. I am a daily weigher but I would love to have an easy way of seeing the trend. I will get me one of those!!