Weight fluctuation

[Richard Evans]

Hi all

Am at last eating clean!! Albeitnot for long now.
My weight is fluctuating every day... Is this normal??

E.g.

215
218
215
214
217

Or... Are my scales poor quality?

[Katherine Derbyshire]

Yes, fluctuation is normal. You can minimize it by weighing yourself at about the same time every day.

Katherine

[Eric Montgomery]

All the more reason to quit weighing yourself every day. Weight can fluctuate due to hydration, when you last ate or went to the bathroom, or simply by time of day.

[Dan Silva]

I was weighing myself once a week, wednesday morning before my workout. I stopped jumping on the scale with any regular basis when my weight went up a few pounds but I needed to go to the next hole on my belt buckle to keep my pants up. The mirror is the best scale of all.

[Brendan McNamar]

I'm not against weighting yourself as a reminder to continue to eat clean. This is what I suggest:

1) Wake up, use rest room, weight yourself. This will reduce a fair amount of the fluctuation.

2) Keep what is called a 7 day moving average. Weight yourself according to #1, 7 days in a row. On the 7th day add them all up and divide by 7. On the 8th day you drop your first days weight and include your 8th days weight and divide by 7. Every day you drop the oldest and add the newest. This will show you a fairly accurate average weight and if it is going up, down or staying the same.

Combine this with a tape measure of hips and waist and you should have a good idea what is going on.

[Mark E. Wallace]

Originally Posted by Dan Silva

The mirror is the best scale of all.

I guess opinions differ on this, but personally I think the best scale of all is performance. All other things being equal (technique, strategy, etc...), if I can do something better today than I did a month ago, to me it means that I am more fit and conditioned.

I am heavier than I was a year ago and have an increased BF %. This would bother some folks, but it doesn't bother me. I am stronger, faster, and more skilled in most regards than I was a year ago, and areas where I have slipped a bit haven't slipped so far that they bother me much.

If all that I did to measure my progress was step on a scale or look in the mirror, I would (and *have* in the past) make bad decisions about what to eat and how to workout. For me, that has meant not eating enough, not eating the right things, and obsessing about weight/body-comp to the point where I overtrain, get injured, or lose muscle mass that I have worked hard to gain.

- Mark

[Dan Silva]

Originally Posted by Mark E. Wallace

I guess opinions differ on this, but personally I think the best scale of all is performance. All other things being equal (technique, strategy, etc...), if I can do something better today than I did a month ago, to me it means that I am more fit and conditioned.

I am heavier than I was a year ago and have an increased BF %. This would bother some folks, but it doesn't bother me. I am stronger, faster, and more skilled in most regards than I was a year ago, and areas where I have slipped a bit haven't slipped so far that they bother me much.


- Mark

I hear you...it's all relative to where you start. If I was heavier than a year ago then something would be wrong. But if you are trim already than adding the right weight is a great thing.
Performance is a great scale because it's the truth and looks can be deceiving. But they go hand in hand for the most part, the better my performance gets, the kinder the mirror is.

[Russ Hillis]

Originally Posted by Katherine Derbyshire

Yes, fluctuation is normal. You can minimize it by weighing yourself at about the same time every day.

Katherine

And even then it can move up and down as much as 2-4 lbs. Better to weigh less frequently IMHO.

[Hollie Jacobs]

That's pretty normal. It happens.