I usually weigh myself each morning after I get up, before I eat.

After I altered my diet to my body weight x 10 with a 40/40/20 ratio of protein/carbs/fat and doing HIIT in the morning every other day with weight lifting in between (followed up with 13 minutes of HIIT), I was losing about .5 lbs a day. Went down from 217 (sunday) to 214 (saturday)!

Sunday was a cheat day of sorts since it was Easter. I had a few small pieces of candy in the morning (didn't eat breakfast), but snacked on veggies, shrimp, and cheese throughout the day.

Had a full plate for dinner: piece of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, carrots, and string beans. Way later had a piece of apple pie and 2 scoops of ice cream. Had about 3 bottles of beer throughout the day.

Weighed myself this morning, 220 lbs!! :d_mad:

I *know* I didn't eat THAT many calories to flat out gain 6 lbs.. I probably didn't even break 2200 (if I did, it wasn't much past it) and I don't THINK it's water weight (from retaining water), as I drank about a gallon of water yesterday.

What's up with that?

Did you use a lot of salt on you turkey? Ham is cured in salt (IIRC), etc etc. it sounds like mostly water weight gain, proabaly a pound or two of real weight, but try cutting your sodium for a day or two and still drink a ton of water and see if its not gone lickety-split!

Yes, it's water weight. It doesn't matter that you drank 1 gal of water, the excess sodium stored this.

Down to 217 again, where I started. Better than 220, I guess. Is there any way to speed up the process? I heard that by drinking ungodly amounts of water that you'll flush the excess sodium out of your system. Is there truth to this? I had somewhere around 2 gallons of water yesterday.

Other than the ham, I don't recall anything being with high salt content (I can't stand much salt).

This is screwed up... 217.5 lbs today and I had almost no sodium for the past 2 days.

How is it possible to go from losing .5 lbs a day to gaining 3 lbs and staying the same? This doesn't make any sense and is the most frustrating thing ever.

Body weight fluctuates throughout the day (5lbs sometimes for me)

Stop weighing yourself everyday. Pick a day once a week at the same time for a better judge of progress.

Even better, throw away the scale and use the mirror, or measuring tape to track inches lost.

Well this is my weight chart.
I have checked my weight every morning for almost 2 months now.
Especially notice the top on the 3rd of april. I was shocked back then but now I can see that it probably was just water.

(Dont mind the pink line - it has no meaning)

Body weight fluctuates throughout the day (5lbs sometimes for me)

Stop weighing yourself everyday. Pick a day once a week at the same time for a better judge of progress.

Even better, throw away the scale and use the mirror, or measuring tape to track inches lost.
Personally, I recommend weighing every day, if you are to track your weight at all (I kinda like the "throw away the scale" way, even though I wouldn't use it myself...). This will show your progress over time much better than once a week. During some points in my quest for lower body fat, my weights exactly two weeks apart have been showing a weight gain, but the overall curve of my daily weighings have shown a sloping line.

It can make you obsessed though, weighing many time each day just to make sure that you don't gain much during the day, so that you can be "light" the next day (I know I have those periods...), but if you can overcome that, I think every day is better than every week.

Personally, I recommend weighing every day, if you are to track your weight at all (I kinda like the "throw away the scale" way, even though I wouldn't use it myself...). This will show your progress over time much better than once a week. During some points in my quest for lower body fat, my weights exactly two weeks apart have been showing a weight gain, but the overall curve of my daily weighings have shown a sloping line.

It can make you obsessed though, weighing many time each day just to make sure that you don't gain much during the day, so that you can be "light" the next day (I know I have those periods...), but if you can overcome that, I think every day is better than every week.


I think it's obvious that that strategy is not boading too well for zerotime. Too many factors play a part in bodyweight. Water Retention, time of day, last meal, last bathroom trip. When you're measuring progress in terms of 1-2 pounds per week. Weighing yourself everday seems like overkill, and will lead you to obsessing over every fluctuation. Once a week, or ditch the scale.

Obsessing over weight period is a waste of time. Everyone's goal is for their body to feel and look a certain way-not for a scale to say a certain number of pounds.

Substitute the obsession for weight tracking with an obsession for exercise and eating good food.

I think the 'throw the scale away' theory is the best. The mistake to me of the daily weighing is that it makes the assumption that weight is significant over the short term.

Focus on what you're doing, not the result. Results come over time and will not come faster because of a spreadsheet or chart.

When you went down to 214 you were probably dehydrated from doing all that HIIT.

In response to your question about speeding up the process. The only way i know of speeding up the process is surgery. So if you don't want to do that then you just gotta have paitience. Keep at it, it WILL happen.

I'll try weighing just once a week. I weigh myself once each day which is in the morning right after I wake up and right before I eat/workout.

I'll assume it's just a random spike as shown in Detfunkar's chart. As for me being dehyrdated from HIIT... I drink about a gallon of water each day, probably more. It's not like I gorged myself beyond capacity on Easter or anything.

Also, I've seen a lot of people who went through transformations who weigh themselves once a day. Same time, before eating, etc.. and their weight ALWAYS seems to go down, never once showing any spike/increase.

Thanks for the replies.

Also, I've seen a lot of people who went through transformations who weigh themselves once a day. Same time, before eating, etc.. and their weight ALWAYS seems to go down, never once showing any spike/increase.

Thanks for the replies.

Thats because they've just begun their weight loss in a lot of cases, and it tends to go down fast when you first start, especially if you are way overweight. I didn't really have any big spikes till I got down to a more reasonable weight, and even now its more of a plateau than any spiking, but I'm still considered to be overweight for my height (172 lbs @ 5'9). I have seen jumps of up to 2.5 pounds in one day, but I don't consider them to be serious. They always come back down with exercise and proper nutrition.

Personally, I recommend weighing every day, if you are to track your weight at all (I kinda like the "throw away the scale" way, even though I wouldn't use it myself...).

I have to agree with Knubb. If you weigh yourself every day, you will not mistake a fluctuation for a real loss or weight gain.

Personally, I weigh myself in the morning after relieving myself, and the same at night before bed. This is averaged out to a daily average. Mentally, I assess my weight as the average of the last seven daily averages. This means that a weigh-in fluctuation only carries a statistical weight of one fourtheenth of that of a weekly weigher.

If you're planning on creating a 3500 calorie deficit per week, you're gonna want to micromonitor that, especially when you are first getting on track.

For information's sake, here is my generated graph of daily averages for 73 days.

EDIT: I wanted to point out that I'm a very analytical/technical person, and if your disposition doesn't work with this sort of effort, then ignore my advice. :) I'm stating what works best for me.

I think it's obvious that that strategy is not boading too well for zerotime. Too many factors play a part in bodyweight. Water Retention, time of day, last meal, last bathroom trip. When you're measuring progress in terms of 1-2 pounds per week. Weighing yourself everday seems like overkill, and will lead you to obsessing over every fluctuation. Once a week, or ditch the scale.
I'd like to look at the reason to why it's not looking good for zerotime, and why I feel it would not look better by weighing once a week. I will use a quote from my previous post to do this:

This will show your progress over time much better than once a week. During some points in my quest for lower body fat, my weights exactly two weeks apart have been showing a weight gain, but the overall curve of my daily weighings have shown a sloping line.
The key words here are "over time". The weights zerotime is talking about is over one week. If you ask me, one week is no time at all. If he had chosen the path of "once a week", the weights he would record would be 217 and 220. A gain of three pounds. Would he look at the scale then and say "oh, might just be a fluctuation"? Probably not. As a "once a day"-er he now recorded weight down to 214. He sees the weightloss, but whoops, a fluctuation. He, naturally, gets suspicious and tries to find the reason why this occurs here in the forum. Still, I believe the thought of that he actually DID lose weight is kind of an encouragement for him not to lose track...

If you live a "scheduled" life, going to work at the same time every day, having regular meals and stuff like that, weighing in the morning and just before bed time would generally not bring such huge fluctuations in weight. There are always exceptions though.

If you live a more chaotic life, sleeping and eating when you can, rather than when you should, it can be hard to find a time when your body is in the same state every day. I can agree that it would be better to choose once a week if you go like this.



I also would like to thank SLUDGE for the backup. :tu:

I'd like to look at the reason to why it's not looking good for zerotime, and why I feel it would not look better by weighing once a week. I will use a quote from my previous post to do this:


The key words here are "over time". The weights zerotime is talking about is over one week. If you ask me, one week is no time at all. If he had chosen the path of "once a week", the weights he would record would be 217 and 220. A gain of three pounds. Would he look at the scale then and say "oh, might just be a fluctuation"? Probably not. As a "once a day"-er he now recorded weight down to 214. He sees the weightloss, but whoops, a fluctuation. He, naturally, gets suspicious and tries to find the reason why this occurs here in the forum. Still, I believe the thought of that he actually DID lose weight is kind of an encouragement for him not to lose track...

If you live a "scheduled" life, going to work at the same time every day, having regular meals and stuff like that, weighing in the morning and just before bed time would generally not bring such huge fluctuations in weight. There are always exceptions though.

If you live a more chaotic life, sleeping and eating when you can, rather than when you should, it can be hard to find a time when your body is in the same state every day. I can agree that it would be better to choose once a week if you go like this.



I also would like to thank SLUDGE for the backup. :tu:

You're actually reinforcing my original post. If the key words are "over time", why would you weigh yourself everyday.

In regard to zerotime, I did not say that he/she was not doing "good", infact the progress is awesome. I said the strategy of weighing every day was obviously not working well. The very fact that zerotime is posting out of frustration shows that the scale weighing everyday is becoming a cornerstone, and focal point of his/her weight loss plan.

Finally, if you reread zerotimes original post you will see that it is not progress over one week that this fluctuation in weight occured. Sunday = 214 lbs, Monday = 220 lbs (after easter cheat) which is one day. Tuesday = 217 lbs again. Now I ask this, this is obviously a blip on the entire weight loss progress due to a cheat over easter. Why track this when it only proves to make you question your progress and your program as zerotime is doing in this post. Also, when I weight myself once a week, it certainly would not be a day after my cheat. In this scenario, Friday is an ideal day to record weight IMO.

I'm not saying either is right or wrong really, I think each strategy is dependant on the person.

You're actually reinforcing my original post. If the key words are "over time", why would you weigh yourself everyday.

In regard to zerotime, I did not say that he/she was not doing "good", infact the progress is awesome. I said the strategy of weighing every day was obviously not working well. The very fact that zerotime is posting out of frustration shows that the scale weighing everyday is becoming a cornerstone, and focal point of his/her weight loss plan.

Finally, if you reread zerotimes original post you will see that it is not progress over one week that this fluctuation in weight occured. Sunday = 214 lbs, Monday = 220 lbs (after easter cheat) which is one day. Tuesday = 217 lbs again. Now I ask this, this is obviously a blip on the entire weight loss progress due to a cheat over easter. Why track this when it only proves to make you question your progress and your program as zerotime is doing in this post. Also, when I weight myself once a week, it certainly would not be a day after my cheat. In this scenario, Friday is an ideal day to record weight IMO.

I'm not saying either is right or wrong really, I think each strategy is dependant on the person.
The trend is why, if you look at it over time. Even if you don't cheat, your weight can jump up or down (zerotime states that he didn't even eat that much during the cheat). If you can plot your weight in a graph, a fluctuation won't affect the trend much if you have many reference points. The fewer the points, the bigger the change in the trend is in case of a point not landing on the (hopefully) sloping line.

I think I may have been somewhat unclear. I didn't say that what zerotime is doing is not good (talking about just his weightloss), I was talking about the fact that he looks at the weights thinking he's doing something wrong. I apologize if I came of like saying that he was doing bad. That was not my intention.

Regarding the rest of that paragraph, we should keep in mind that even though weightloss might be a way of seeing that we're making progress, zerotime is probably doing just great, even though he didn't stay as low as he would've liked to.

I am aware of the fact that it is over one day that the fluctuation occurs, but IF he had tracked his weight each monday, he would not see this, he would see a weightgain of 3.5 lbs (from 216.5 (if he lost half a pound a day) to 220). He would not see a fluctuation at this point, but just the weight gain. I feel that would be more discouraging than seeing a high point one day out of 7 or more.

I do agree with your last sentence, totally. You should always go with what makes you feel good. I'm just giving you my views on why weighing often is better for me, and why I feel it would be better for all people as long as one can keep the hysteria over fluctuations down. If you can't, you are probably better off if you throw away the scale. I know I'm pretty close to that right now... :o

I think its pretty obvious he doenst know how much he ate during his cheat day, I dont see why he wouldnt chart it, but im pretty sure its real easy to snack all day and not know exactly how much he ate. Per the reason of weight flux'ing, thats nominal, wake up, go to the bathroom, weigh yourself, thers isnt going to be that much of a flux. If your weight is spiking take a harder look at your diet and be honest with yourself.

if you eat 2000 calories a day, and burn 2500 a day, probaly won't flux up that much. I weigh myself once a week, and average 1.78 lbs lost a week. I have 1 cheat meal a week, and i work that into my diet plan as well. The *only time i ever gained weight was after a cheat meal, and i was drinking, went up 2 lbs that night, dropped it off real quick.


Losing 1/2 a pound a day is too much to be losing, anything more than 2 lbs a week is pushing (minus when you fiirst week or so.) Thus is why i think your fluxxing, as you shouldnt be losing 1/2 a pound a day.

Still at 217. Been eating clean and working out hardcore for almost 3 (more like 2 1/2) weeks now and nothing to show for it :(

Still at 217. Been eating clean and working out hardcore for almost 3 (more like 2 1/2) weeks now and nothing to show for it :(


everyone makes there biggest gains the first week as their bodies arent used to it. your either cheating on your diet, need a *new* diet entirely, or are doing the wrong types of work outs. (or possibly 2 or 3 of those)

if you wanna lose weight, do cardio 5 days a week, you can still lift weights, i lift/cardio every day
started = 202 lbs
friday i weighed in at 164

i avg lose 1.75 lbs a week. im sure some one will want to argue that, and i should take 8 hours between cardio and lifting, maybe im just lucky. :whistle:

No cheating at all whatsoever except one day a week (from what I read, tons of people do this and isn't bad for your diet), I posted my diet a few days ago and from those who replied, there wasn't much wrong with it (it's in my post history somewhere, called 'Diet Critique'), and I workout 6 days a week. 23 mins HIIT every other day, and every day in between, I lift. After I lift, I usually do HIIT (except on leg days, when my legs are just dead).

I'm thinking about adding a mid-day cardio to the days I do 23 mins HIIT. Probably a 45 min steady 75% HR routine.

zerotime,

I'm not familiar with your history, but are you new to lifting weights, cardio, etc.

If so, then your body is probably responding positively to the lifting. You may be gaining LBM while shedding the fat. In which case the scale is once again lying to you.

You may need to take a real close look at your diet....is it really "clean", are you consuming any hidden calories (ie sugar, sweetners, sauces)? Are you truly doing HIIT? Are you workouts intense enough? If you've been doiing the same thing for the past 3 weeks, change it around completely and see what happens. Change is necessary to keep your body guessing. You can even try different dieting approaches to see what works for you. CKD/TKD, Zig-Zag, etc.

Many questions....but I'll say it again, throw away the scale (even if it's for a week or two) and use calipers, mirror, and measuring tape to track your progress.