Why is the scale saying I gained 5 lbs???
 

Check my ticker down below and you'll see how I've lost 5lbs and was 205, now am 200. Well the past couple of days I've been weighing myself and it says I'm back to 205 again. How can this be??? Sigh.

I know you're not supposed to weigh yourself all of the time, but everyone is different and I prefer to do so. That way if I've seen the numbers made a leap, I can cut back on fat and calories to keep my weight from creeping back up. It's something that works for me, individually. I know about water weight and all of that, so I weighed myself several times and then again today to see if I went back down to 200, but I didn't. Still, I refuse to change my ticker until I am absolutely sure I am 205 again.

I just don't understand it!

Ah well, today I have started phase one of the South Beach Diet. We'll see how it goes and how the scale changes over the next two weeks.

Does anyone have any idea why it changed?

Have you recently started lifting weights? I've heard (from Oprah's trainer, Bob Green) that weight lifting will cause you to gain water in the first two months, especially. You may also have gained muscle. You may have consumed a lot of sodium. You may have increased your carbs. Your scale might have moved it's mechanism (this has happened to me before). Are you weighing yourself first thing in the morning (empty stomach) at around the same time? Maybe your scale is evil? ;) I don't know, but this has happened to lots of people. The key is to not give up. I recommend keeping a food diary daily. I also recommend people calculate the Resting Metabolic Rate (do a google search) to see how many calories their bodies burn at rest. Then, you can eat those calories and workout or you can workout and decrease those calories a bit as well, for faster weight loss. Make sure you're not starving because that will slow down your metabolism. Be sure to do lots of weight lifting to increase that metabolism. Just hang in there! Weight loss can be a very frustrating process, but if you stick to it, you'll reach your goal. Some people are slow and steady and some lucky people have it melt of quickly. A year from now, it won't matter how fast it came off if it's off, right? I'm sure you'll do well w/ South Beach, so good luck to you!

I weigh daily, but I also write it down on a little chart I made every day. I only "count" my TOPS Monday-night weigh-in. I also can usually tell if it's water weight by how my wedding ring fits. The other night my wedding ring was so loose it fell off my finger in bed (frantic search in the morning). Yet today, I'm up three pounds and my ring is so tight it's barely budging. It only gets tight when I'm retaining water, so I'm drinking like mad today to try and get the water gone before tomorrow night's weigh-in.

I think writing the weight down every day helped me see patterns (especially if I'm also keeping a food diary that I can compare to the weight pattern, so I can see whether it's likely a true regain or a water retention gain).

Hi Melanie,

Make sure that you always weigh yourself at the same of the day (myself, I always weigh myself in the morning, AFTER I have had my coffee and had a BM, and BEFORE I had breakfast.

Weight tends to fluctuate a lot; are you perhaps close to your TOM? Watch your sodium intake, like luckymommy suggested, and drink lots of water. You know, my weight also went slightly up in my first month, in spite of my treadmill exercise and LOTS of snow shovelling, but probably also overcompensated for the burned calories.
Don't give up!

I can't tell from what you wrote - it's a little confusing. Are you weighing multiple times a day and using that to keep on track? If so, stop. :) Whether you prefer to do so or not, it's not an accurate way to track your weight.

Everyone's weight varies throughout the day and, yes, can vary by as much as 5 lbs - or more. I can weigh 164 in the morning, and after lunch (especially if I've drunk a lot of water) I can weigh as much as 169. The weight of food/water in your stomach, the clothing that you're wearing, the temperature and humidity in the air, the amount of salt you ate, whether you've worked out recently ... all of those things can contribute to a different number on the scale.

For that matter, how close are you to ovulating or starting your period? Either of those will also have an effect on your weight.

I do think it's highly unlikely that you gained 5lb of muscle in the last couple of days, so I'd push that idea right out.

I weigh myself once a day, in the morning, right after my shower, naked. And that's it. If I step back on the scale during the course of the rest of the day, it's only out of idle curiousity and I don't use that number or pay any attention to it. The only number that MEANS anything is the one first thing in the morning. And the only number I log is the one from Monday morning's weigh.

I think you probably need to back off the weighing a bit and give yourself a bit of a break. :)

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this is an awesome sight that deals with this issue and explains it very clearly.

I saw the link on the 300+ weekly thread thought I would share!

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspart...ight/scale.htm

Melanie, I suggest you cool it with the scales. It is unhealthy to be weighing yourself that much, especially when weight doesn't really matter, it's size that most of us are concerned about. Scales cannot measure your size, that's why they're pretty US when you're trying to measure your fat loss.

We have an EXCELLENT summary thread on all the reasons water weight can fluctuate...have you seen this thread?

Moderator, after coming back the next day after posting my thread about the scale thing, I then saw the sticky note about it. Sorry about that. I know it's annoying when people post the same old questions over and over again when it's right there in their face.

Well thanks for the replies chicks, I read all of them. Today I weighed myself in the morning and I'm back to minus 5lbs again. I figure I must have been retaining water. It's not muscle, I haven't been doing any strength training recently although I need to.

I decided to do like someone else said and weigh myself Mondays and count that. I am still going to weigh myself a million times a day though, I could lie and tell you all that I won't, but I will anyway, so there's no point in denying it. It's just something I feel compulsive about doing, however I will only count Monday's weigh ins.

Thanks for the replies.

Ya know .. that's ok! :) But only if it doesn't stress you out and make you worry about where you are. Like I said, I weigh myself sometimes multiple times a day out of idle curiosity ... it's interesting to me to see how my weight fluctuates during the day. But I make sure that the only "official" weight I worry about is the one first thing in the morning. Makes life much less stressful! :)

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