General Diet Plans and Questions General diet questions, support for various diet plans other than those listed below.

View Poll Results: How often do you weigh in ?
I weigh in every day 33 60.00%
I weigh in every week 17 30.91%
I weigh in monthly 4 7.27%
I don't weigh in/other 1 1.82%
Voters: 55. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 03-04-2012, 01:36 PM   #1  
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Arrow How often do you weigh in ?

I think that I maintain my focus better with daily weigh-ins; now that I realize that I can vary by a pound or two without having actually gained fat. I was just wondering what other 3FC members do.

thanks !
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Old 03-04-2012, 01:43 PM   #2  
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I weigh in daily... Just because I can't break the habit.
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Old 03-04-2012, 01:58 PM   #3  
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Yipes, I'm the only one who weighs in monthly so far.

I find that if I do it too often I become obsessed with all of the small changes my body goes through on a regular basis. When I space it out I don't obsess over every movement I make and feel down on myself.
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Old 03-04-2012, 03:27 PM   #4  
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You know Nadya, I read somewhere the suggestion that daily weighers average out the week's weight at the end of the week. I tried it and it was interesting to see that although I bobbled up and down on the weight on a daily basis, my average weekly weight was creeping downward. I'm not trying to change your habits, just FYI.

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Old 03-04-2012, 03:43 PM   #5  
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I weigh ALMOST every day ... it's an addiction.

But - I only "count" my Friday weigh-ins in my log (yes. I have a log. lol).
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Old 03-04-2012, 04:08 PM   #6  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SanityNow View Post
You know Nadya, I read somewhere the suggestion that daily weighers average out the week's weight at the end of the week. I tried it and it was interesting to see that although I bobbled up and down on the weight on a daily basis, my average weekly weight was creeping downward. I'm not trying to change your habits, just FYI.
If it works for you that's fine but I don't like the daily fluctuations that you mentioned. Even if you average your weight out every week, I've still seen a number of people get stuck on those fluctuations. I lost 14 pounds before even weighing myself, I skipped the 170's entirely, and not checking every day didn't negatively impact that at all. I'm still not stuck and I have so few downer moments that it's amazing. It makes me happy to see my weight drop rather than go up and down and I don't think I'd care much about an average. I'm much more content not logging every aspect of my body's behavior, for now I just track my exercise and my food and that's because it's easy and encouraging.
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Old 03-04-2012, 04:08 PM   #7  
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I weigh every time I'm at the gym, but only take an official weight weekly.
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Old 03-04-2012, 04:10 PM   #8  
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Weekley, I used to have an obsession with the scale so I joined WW tosses the bathroom scale in the garbage now I weigh every Saturday! I see much bigger successes!
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Old 03-04-2012, 05:31 PM   #9  
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Im with Nadya and Samanthia on this one. I would get obsessed too if I weighed in everyday. I wouldnt handle the fluctuations very well either.
It would be interesting and see how different it is everyday. But like I said, I dont think it would be good for me. So why ruin what Im doing now, since its working so well
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Old 03-04-2012, 05:36 PM   #10  
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Hi Eurus! Thanks to you and everyone else for your posts
You know, I am amazed and made happy to see how many different approaches - to food, exercise, etc, work for different people. It gives me hope that I'll find the equation that will get me where I'm going!

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Old 03-04-2012, 05:52 PM   #11  
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I weigh in everyday...it's become a bit of an addiction since I got a new scale. Sometimes I get on more than once a day. I have learned that I flucuate ALOT in one day, up to 6 lbs! But...my monday WW weigh in day is the only number I track...even if I had a lower number show up at home.
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Old 03-04-2012, 06:39 PM   #12  
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I also focus better with daily weigh-ins. I get a little too obsessed with weighing, which I know isn't too emotionally healthy, but I can't help it! I always weigh in the morning, sometimes twice if I wake up to let my dog out and then go back to sleep. And I almost always weigh at night, too, so I have an idea of where I'll be in the morning. If I don't weigh daily, it's too easy for me to ignore when I'm gaining or not losing.
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Old 03-04-2012, 07:15 PM   #13  
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If you brush your teeth three or four times a day, or wash your hands even six or more times a day, no one tells you that you aren't emotionally healthy or that you're obsessed. Weighing yourself takes less time than either, and yet if you do it more than once a week, our culture calls you obsessed.

Even the warning that you'll get discouraged makes a false assumption (that you're going to expect a loss every time, and that you're going to be upset, frustrated, and discouraged if you don't get it).

And if you believe that, it will be true. For decades I believed it, so when I weighed myself (even if only once a week) I always got upset, frustrated, and discouraged when I didn't see a loss - and it had to be a loss that I was taught to find acceptable. Tenth of a pound? Not acceptable. Half a pound? Not acceptable. One pound? Barely acceptable unless it was the first month of a new food plan, then it was unacceptable.

We believe, teach, and learn so much nonsense with weight loss. Learning to be successful required me to unlearn a lot of that nonsense, and one of the most important lessons I had to learn was that the scale cannot make me feel anything. I get to choose how to use and how to interpret the scale.

When I first decided to weigh whenever I wanted to, I started writing down the time I weighed, what was going on at the time, and the weight. I paid attention and I learned about all those fluctuations that were supposed to upset me (and they did upset me, because I believed they were supposed to). When I understood the fluctuations, I stopped being upset by them. In the long-run, it dramatically (and that's not dramatically enough a word for it) reduced the amount of thought, stress, and worry I had about my weight. I understood the fluctuations so they didn't concern me.

By weighing before and after going to the bathroom. Before and after getting dressed. During my period (and the days before). Before and after meals. When I was sick....

I learned all the ways my weight fluctuates, and a great deal of the reasons why. Now when I gain, when I stay the same, and when I lose I have a better understanding of why.

When I see a gain after increasing my exercise, I realize it's normal and temporary and I don't jump to the conclusion that I should stop exercising.

If I see a gain, but also haven't (well, um, pooped) and/or know I have eaten quite a loate a lot of low-calorie high fiber foods that wouldn't have digested yet, I know there's a good chance that the gain isn't "real" and is just the weight of the food in my digestive tract.

Whether you weigh daily, weekly, or monthly you can let frustration ruine your weight loss. If you weigh less frequently whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly and still don't see a loss, it can make the negative emotions even more powerful.

As a result, no matter how often you weigh, I think it's extremely important to understand that the feelings are entirely optional. You can learn to reframe the situation (choose to think and feel a different way).

How I reframed was to use the scale to celebrate not-gaining. In fact, I didn't just reframe my thoughs on the scale, I reframed the purpose for my changes. I stopped seeing weight loss as the main goal, because when I didn't see loss, I felt like I was failing, and if my efforts had been intese I felt "cheated" as well. If I did everything right I was supposed to be rewarded with weight loss." Also if weight loss seemed impossible, my efforts seemed futile (it's a logical conclusion).

Now, my first, foremost, and most celebrated success is "not gaining," and the second goal (which I remind myself is a far distant second) is to maybe lose just one more pound.

Now that "not gaining" is my "real" goal, and I no longer see the goal weight as the only goal that matters (which we're also taught to do. We're taught that if the ultimate goal seems to become impossible, the proper thing to do is to quit. Not to work to maintain the lowest weight we've managed to acheive, but to give up entirely. Because "everyone does it" we decide to give up when the ultimate goal seems impossible. We tell ourselves "I'll never be thin. This is pointless, I'll never reach my goal weight, so I might as well at least get to eat what I want."

Now that "not gaining" is my first goal, I NEVER feel tempted to give up. I finally realize that every pound, every bite is important, but my health is even more important. Not backsliding is a lot more important to me than not losing.

Since not-gaining is so important to me, the scale is just (if not more) important than it was when weight loss was most important to me.

If my goal was only weight loss, I wouldn't weigh daily, because there's no possible way for me to lose weight every day. However, I can gain weight much more easily and quickly. I know from experience that I can gain weight in one day (real weight, not just water retention or the weight of the food in my digestive system because I can take in enough calories in a single binge to gain several pounds).

So with "not gaining" being my main goal, it helps to weigh more frequently. It also helps me feel successful, because unless I weigh right after a meal or large glass of water, or right before having to go to the bathroom, the weight on the scale usually is the same. I get to celebrate "not gaining" as many times as I would like to in a day.

And to be honest, if I'm having a really bad day, I may weigh more often, because I do get to feel very successful when I get on that scale and don't see a gain, or even if I see a gain that is easily explained (if I weigh right after drinking a large glass of water and haven't peed yet, I can mentall subtract the weight of the water - and usualy it comes out to a no-gain).

Feeling successful is very important motivation for continued effort, but we're taught to feel a lot more failure than success. Our culture teaches pessimistic methods for weight loss. We don't see one pound per month as success, even though it's very rare for anyone of any size to lose and maintain a monthly loss of one pound. So the person who loses that slow, decides that they're failing and gives up.

My weight loss average for the whole 105 lbs has been less than one pound per month. If I had continued to see that as failure, I wouldn't be here. And I wouldn't have seen it as success if my doctor hadn't rather angrily told me that it was success. He was the one who reminded me that even people thinner and heavier than I was (and I was nearly 400 lbs at the time) did not normally lose one pound per month. He said almost no one loses one pound per month, for a lot of reasons, but chief of which is that when weight loss slows people get discouraged, give up and regain. Just by "sticking with it" that one pound per month was not failure, it was extraordinary results.

You don't have to weigh daily to succeed at weight loss and healthy changes, but you do have to rethink and unlearn much of what we've been taught about how we're "supposed to feel."
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Old 03-04-2012, 07:19 PM   #14  
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I used to weigh daily, but then became too obsessed with the fluctuations (namely when it was my TOM) so I've kind of slowed down with it. Now I weigh every 2-3 days, but only really input the numbers weekly. So in essence, I'm going to say that I actually weigh weekly, but check the scale every few days.
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Old 03-04-2012, 08:01 PM   #15  
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I go daily. I'm ok seeing the 3-5 lb flux. It doesn't bother me or upset me. I know everyone is different on this.

Me? I've experimented with only weight at doc appts. Or monthly but noooo...
I need to keep a close watch because with PCOS/IR weight gain "creep" has happened to me too many times and got me unawares.

I have to suck it up and accept that close daily monitoring is needed or else the "creep" will be bigger than it has to be. If I see it getting wacky and I have other symptoms along with it, I know to sched a doc visit. A few times it's been my thyroid medicine needing adjustment. So it's helped me to catch that.

I let it go through my kid's babyhood and early childhood and regained a LOT where I thought I was maintaining. It took years and it was slow and subtle. I don't want to have to lose this much again if I have creep happen again. I'd rather nip it in the bud sooner!

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