[jess jp]

I weigh in every Friday at home. Yesterday I weighed 179.6 and I was so excited, because I finally seemed to have gotten out of the 180's. I weighed 3 times and then took a few minutes to get ready to make a bottle for my baby. I got back on the scale (who knows why) within 3 minutes of the first time and weighed in at 180.4 several times. Why? Anyone have any insight? I didn't drink water or anything.
This morning I weighed in at 179.6 3 times in a row and tested this out again-went back to the scale after a few minutes and was 180.4-Ugh.
I think this bothers me so much because I was really looking forward to that 179 and now I feel like it's taunting me. LOL

[atreyyena]

I have found that changing the spot on the floor where the scale is can make a difference. I've also had scales that I can get on multiple times and give (all within a half pound) different responses each time I get on it. It drove me crazy. What I've done, is try using hand weights on it and see if the weight is accurate and it does the same thing. For all I know it's weighting microscopic foot sweat or something and weighs slightly off. I don't know.

[TooManyDimples]

Mine does stuff like that too. What really annoys me is if I weight myself and get one thing, and then shortly later I have to go to the bathroom. I figure hey the number should have gone down, so I'll check again, and somehow the number is higher. I try to put the scale in the same place everytime and I try to make sure I'm standing on it the same spot by lining my toes up with the bottom of the screen.

[TheBunneh]

I've heard something about the longer you are awake and moving around the more you'll weigh. It doesn't make any sense to me but I know it's true. I can weigh up to almost a pound higher if I weigh myself after an hour of being up and about (without eating or drinking anything), but if I go back to bed for an hour I will still be the same (and sometimes less, even without going to the bathroom) as the first weighing. *shrug* I don't understand it. I just make sure I weigh in at about the same time of day each time.

[WinterJinx]

My scale is whacky too. I'll weigh myself in the morning and will be 140 but when I weigh myself at night I go up 3 pounds. I just record the morning weight for my own sanity.

[carter]

(ETA: oops, just realized this is in the 20-something section, and I am not. Please forgive the intrusion, and I hope the comments are helpful anyhow.)

All of this is why I use a scale that only reads three digits, and why I just don't fret that much about fluctuations of a pound in either direction. I do weigh every day, but I don't really consider it a "gain" if I read a pound higher today than yesterday, or a pound higher now than an hour ago. I don't look for progress day-to-day - the time scale for meaningful weight change is longer than that. It just is.

0.2 or 0.4 pounds is a really meaninglessly small amount - I can take off my glasses and change my weight by that much - and it's not really a huge surprise to me that the cheap gauges that they put in inexpensive household scales don't return repeatable measurements at that level.

So, I know it's hard, but try not to let the scale ruin your mood at the level of changes of less than a pound or so. Get used to your measurements being really a bit less precise than the digital readout makes it seem. Look at long term trends - not a day, not even a week, but weeks and months - as your gauges of success.

[KenzideRhae]

Scales are wonky like that. I can weigh myself, hop off the scale, and weigh myself immediately after and get a different weight. You also tend to weigh more as you get further away from the time you woke up, and that's totally normal. As long as your weight isn't going up consistently over a period of weeks/months, you're fine, and you shouldn't worry about it.

[jess jp]

thanks girls! all comments are totally helpful. i think the first number i see on the scale is what i will go with and not question it and weigh again later-even if it's just minutes. i do like to weigh in a couple times immediately after (one after another) the first one just to 'solidify it' lol
thanks girls! i love this forum.

[ShellydeFlores]

The different scale measurements--as well as the weighing an hour after your first weigh in and weighing more--actually have a different explanation. You see, we see our weight measurement as the number of pounds within us--which is what we have always known it as. HOWEVER think of it this way: our weight is a measurement that tells us how much force is keeping us toward what we know of as the ground. Its really confusing and definitely dificult to explain but think of it as the little things that are changing around us like the weather, the time of day or season (the tilt of the axis or where we are facing) can all have an effect on our weight. Miniscule effects but enough to drive us crazy. So if you weigh first thing when you get out of bed and then weigh again an hour later, you may not be heavier just that at the point in time the Earth is requiring a different amount of pressure-in other words it may be needing more of your force to keep you ground. The same goes for when we lose weight-there is less pressure or woopity woopity magic needed to keep you to the ground so our measurement, aka pounds, is less.

Anyway, my point is any given moment during the day we will be a different weight because of the changes that our surroundings are going through. Now the scale will demonstrate these changes with numbers because they are much more sensitive to them.

Well a good rule of thumb--weigh three times, best out of 3 wins.
Does this make sense?

[GypsyQueen]

I've done this and after a week of immediate different readings I figured out that it was where I placed it on the floor! If I placed it on one floor tile Id weigh a pound less, another tile and a pound more. Weird huh. I guess the tiles are uneven or the marble has a natural tilt here and there. Now I weigh on a hard wood floor in my other bathroom.