article on how often to weigh in...and how often do you?

trooworld · 08-18-2007, 10:43 AM

On Yahoo today, in the health section, there was a blog entry by a registered dietition saying that there is some evidence that weighing in every day is associated with a lower body weight. Here's a link to the article:

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/nutr...weigh-yourself

For me, I weigh in a couple of times a week. Sometimes I go as long as a week. Sometimes it is more than a couple of times a week. In some ways, when I weigh in every day, it makes me more consciously aware that I am trying to lose weight.

How often do you weigh in? If you are a maintainer, how often did you weigh in when you were in the process of losing weight?

modkittn · 08-18-2007, 10:49 AM

I weigh once a day at home, and once a week at WW. The first time I did WW, I only weighed once a week. I think weighing myself once a day keeps me in check better!

aliceINonederland · 08-18-2007, 11:34 AM

Well, it varies. I started with about once a week...recently though, it has been a few times a week.

settie · 08-18-2007, 11:43 AM

Once a day but I only record it once a week.

Luminous · 08-18-2007, 11:43 AM

These Yahoo "experts" crack me up.

From the article:

Quote:

Research has shown that daily weighing is associated with a lower body weight, is helpful for those trying to lose weight, and is not linked to depression in women.

Then she spends the rest of the article saying "OMG if you weigh yourself every day you might see fluctuations so don't do it!!!!"

Or, translated, "Research has shown that this practice is useful and helpful, but I still think for anecdotal reasons that you shouldn't do it. Why shouldn't you? It is teh scary!!11one"

(All that said, I just hope people do what works for them, be it once daily, once weekly, once monthly, or whatever.)

Belly Buster · 08-18-2007, 11:54 AM

Mostly everyday/every other day.... I only document once a week though. I feel like I am in more control when I know what I am "looking" at. I know that the weight will fluctuate from day to day... and I always take that into consideration.

MAMA2CHUNKEYMONKEY · 08-18-2007, 11:57 AM

I weigh every morning, but only count my weight on Saturdays. I think it's helpful to weigh more often, you learn how your weight fluctuates and why.. whereas otherwise, you could do your official weigh in and have not lost or even gained and not 'know' that it's because you ate too late or too much sodium the day before (etc) and get frustrated and lose sight of your goal.

PinkyPie · 08-18-2007, 12:09 PM

Well, personally... I think that when you are in the process of losing weight you should only weigh once a week. I'll tell you why I think so... there are SO many people out there who get obsessed with the scale. They start with once a day and then it comes to a few times every day and soon that mechanical instrument is actually laughing at us and telling us how to feel. This is very much so in people who have problems with binging. If you know that you've binged, or you KNOW that you had a whole pizza the night before, why check? Then you spend the next day trying to either make things "right" again, checking a few times during the day. Then you think, well, I already screwed up and you go ahead and eat things you probably wouldn't have if you had spent the time just getting back to your plan and moving on.

I'm not saying everyone does this, I'm saying though that it DOES happen and most of us don't actually KNOW the reasons that our weight has fluctuated on that particular day. We spend more time analyising/fretting/feeling guilty/going completely off the wagon when we could be spending that time just focusing on the new day and the new chance.

I'm very much against weighing every day unless you are a maintainer. W/I's should be limited if you have even the slightest chance of letting the scale dictate how you are going to feel that day. Obviously it's a person's right to choose what they do and when, but I personally suggest NOT to do it.

I weigh myself generally once a week - I am one of those people who get obsessed so I HAVE done it more often. Now that I'm going back to WW meetings I will only weigh on Tuesdays.

gina1221 · 08-18-2007, 12:22 PM

I weigh every morning but consider Saturday my "official" weigh day. I have learned that my weight can fluctuate up to 1.5 lbs from day to day and this has helped to keep me on plan. If I weighed once a week (which I have done in the past), I wouldn't know about the variation in my weight and would be more likely to give up because I didn't see the result that I expected. Now that I understand my fluctuation it is easier to keep moving forward.

emilyk · 08-18-2007, 06:04 PM

I weigh in every morning and once a week in the evening at TOPS meeting. It's my TOPS weight that I count as "official" (even though sometimes it kills me since my morning weight is a few pounds less!).

need2loseinGA · 08-18-2007, 06:39 PM

I weigh twice a day everyday. 1 in the morning after a potty break and 1 before going to bed. The only weigh in that truly counts for me is the Sunday morning weigh in. Thats my official day for that.

I do like weighing everyday though so I can see my natural fluctuations.

lavidasofa · 08-18-2007, 06:52 PM

I need to weigh myself everyday or else I creep up. It's like my daily kick in the shins of reality

JayEll · 08-18-2007, 07:21 PM

I used to weigh at the gym, so it was every time I went (5-6 times a week). Now I have a scale at home, and I weigh about every day. I enter it into my tracker so I can see the trend over a week's time. My weight varies 3 pounds up and down in the course of a week. From July 5 to today, the highest was 154.0 and the lowest was 150.8. My target maintenance weight is 152, and I've stayed pretty close. This morning it was 152.8. (This is on my new scale--my ticker below shows the gym scale.)

Jay

kaplods · 08-18-2007, 07:47 PM

I weigh daily, but only count my Monday weigh-in (and since I joined TOPS with my hubby last week, I will only count the weigh-in there on Monday evenings).

I've been hearing the advice to only weigh-in once a week for years. Yes daily weigh-ins can feed an obsession, but in some ways, it's like telling an obsessive hand washer to only wash their hands once a week, or even once a day. There isn't anything magical about one day or one week. For me it was a better learning experience to learn NOT to get upset by daily fluctuations.

Assuming that we can't "handle" seeing weight fluctuations, feeds into the belief that fat/weight is something inherently evil and traumatizing, and we should spare ourselves the pain of seeing our weights go up a few ounces while dieting. I think most women (and men) are smarter and stronger than that, and can see a fluctuation as merely that.

ZedAus · 08-18-2007, 08:22 PM

When I was losing I weighed every day (first thing in the morning) and I am still weighing every day. I like to 'understand' the fluctuations. I feel that a GREAT deal of my success has been learning what my body needs, how it reacts to certain things and what that does to my weight. For example, I had NO idea that I gained weight during ovulation before I started weighing every day. Therefore, if I only weighed once a week, and all of a sudden my weight was up 5lbs one week (yes, it CAN go up by at LEAST that much during ovulation) I would go into an immediate panic and not have any idea what I had done 'wrong'. Now, I EXPECT my weight to go up at that time and I just record it and get on with my life.

Some people are perfectly happy weighing less often, and that certainly doesn't affect me in the least, so I often wonder why it bothers people that I weigh every day, but I do have people telling me that it isn't good for me. It has worked so far, so I don't plan on stopping any time soon.

Zelma