Academic Question: Sleep Adds Weight?
 

A couple of times now, I've noticed something weird on the scale. Yesterday, I kept track of what happened. I am not stressing about this at all, but I'm a curious sort who likes to solve mysteries.

So, like many here, I generally weigh myself every morning just after going to the bathroom and with no clothes. That's the weight I track. Yes, it goes up and down sometimes by day, but, as long as the trend is down, I'm happy. I do use an ancient analog scale.

So, for the past week, I've been 183 pounds. Yesterday I drank a good amount of water during the day, but drank even more in the evening - such that I went to the bathroom once an hour or more. So, I was very well hydrated by late evening. (I always drink lots of water, so I didn't start yesterday dehydrated or anything!) At about 9:00, I happened to be near my scale while changing clothes and weighed myself with just my undies on. I was 181 - down two pounds. After that, I realized I was low on calories for the day and drank a 190-calorie, 12(?) ounce Slim Fast. I also drank 40 ounces of water before turning in. So, assuming the SlimFast weighs about the same as water, I consumed 3.4 pounds of liquid. I didn't take in any more liquid until after my morning weigh-in. So, there was an eight hour period where I consumed no liquid. I went to the bathroom a total of four times before my morning weigh-in and nursed my baby maybe three times. Yet, this morning, the scale was back at 183 pounds! What's happening here? Am I really retaining two pounds of that late night water? Is my ancient scale feeling bogged down in the morning?

I'm not sure of the scientific answer, but the easy answer is that weighing yourself multiple times a day is never going to produce results that make sense. Your body fluctuates SO much with water, food, how it's metabolizing, etc, that I don't think you could ever account for every little bit of weight.

I think most people here tend to weigh in first thing in the morning after using the bathroom - that seems to be the best barometer while controlling for outside factors. I weigh daily, which isn't really recommended because of the fluctuations, so I just have to learn to recognize that and not pay attention to the little changes, but look at the daily weights as a trend. For that reason, I only record my weight once/week, and use the daily weights just to make sure I know if my weigh-in day is actually off (i.e. I officially weigh in every Monday, but weigh myself all the other days just so I can see if Monday is way off).

Don't obsess about the scale weight. Many things can change your scale weight. Did your body fat % go up 1%? Did your waist measurement go up 1"? Did you have to buy bigger clothes today?:dizzy:

I don't think so concentrate on your health and the rest will follow.

My thoughts are - - - you're a person who's nursing! Hormones play a key role in everything. Maybe it had nothing to do w/the liquid you consumed as much as it had to do w/your body and what it's producing. Don't have any scientifical type answers for ya, just MHO. :D

Just a thought -- instead of the Slim Fast, a cheese stick and a serving of whole grain crackers or whole wheat bread w/pbutter might be a better nutritional option. Slim Fast is chock-full of sugar.

Make friends with your hormones. They're what make you colorful and unpredictable.

Folks, I'm not obsessing about this. I'm not freaking out that I gained two pounds overnight. This is not a question about my weight LOSS. It's an academic question of "why". I'm the sort who reads (lots of) non-fiction for fun. I'm the sort who ponders the mysteries of the universe. I'm the sort who wins nerdy games. I'm the sort who can spend hours discussing what most would consider boring stuff. I love to learn new things. DH and I can spend all day in an historical site most folks would pass by and others would spend one hour at, including potty breaks. I just want to learn why this happens. I'm a geek!

So, anyhow, mass is neither created nor destroyed. Whatever my body produced couldn't weigh more than the products supplied. Now, whatever was produced could have captured the water weight for sure and the SlimFast provided other stuff that could be used for creating. But, I did go to the bathroom four times and probably fed the baby at least 12 ounces of milk.

Funny, (Simply Jif) peanut butter on (homemade) whole wheat is my usual hunger-satisfying snack. But, I have a fondness for chocolate milk and figured I'd be getting nutrients with the Slim Fast. But, maybe homemade chocolate milk would be a better choice?

LessEveryDay: You could just be seeing the inaccuracies (sp?) of your scale. Do you ever step off your scale and then step rigth back on? I have done this - with my digital scale, I sometimes have to do that to get it to zero out when I step off. When I had a dial scale, I found that I could step on it three times and get three different weights. Also, if weigh yourself on different scales, you won't get the same number.

They are imperfect. But they do tell us which direction we are heading in!!
:goodscale:

SCraver - Yes, every day! I always take the lowest weight I can con out of it every day. I need to be consistent, right? :) I do have to move the scale to weigh myself. So, maybe, the floor is slightly different. It can't be too different because the only hard surface in my bathroom is right by the toilet, so we're only talking a few square feet here. But, I've seen this exact same behavior - a couple of pounds less before bed - once, maybe twice before. If the scale was being cantankerous, I'd expect to sometimes weigh more before bed.

I asked DH about this and he said maybe the bacteria in my body went shopping overnight and brought back a lot of junk. :)

Lol!!
Well... If you ask me, I don't exactly understand WHY we weigh ourselves in the morning as opposed to at night - shouldn't I weigh the same? Except for whatever I pee out in the morning? It's not like the tooth fairy comes and magically makes me weight less when I wake up... I am certainly not exercising in my sleep!!

Hey- I'm almost a nursing expert! I did it for way so long, and obsessively research anything I do.

Your body and lactating hormones produce the most milk in the morning, whittling down the amounts throughout the day. Your milk glands are constantly refilling, as you know, but the bulk of the fluid is produced in the morning hours. So, while you're sleeping you are also 'refilling'.

If you're anything like I was, they're absolutely full in the morning (ouch) so of course you'd weigh more.

But it isn't "refilling" from the air but from substances already existing in your body. You cannot "absorb" water or gasses from the air, so there is no way you can weigh more in the morning than you did before going to bed unless you got up in the middle of the night to eat and drink.

You could weigh a little less, even if you didn't pee during that time, as you can sweat out and breathe out quite a bit of water that evaporates into the air.

If you weigh yourself before going to bed, and do not eat or drink until morning, and then weigh yourself, a gain isn't possible, because in order for a gain to occur, you would have had to absorb fluids from the air, and the human body just doesn't do that (otherwise, instead of drinking water, we'd only have to bathe in it).

True 'dat kaplods. I didn't think of it that way, the fluids in your body being transformed into milk, the fluids would already be there. But as the baby nurses during the day I guess it could take some ounces off of your weight in the evening.

Yes, without eating or drinking, you really only can lose weight, not gain it.
You also cannot gain a pound of fat from a 2 oz candy bar (I've actually argued this point with a friend). In fact the most you can gain from one pound of food (over and above your caloric requirements), is one pound and only if that pound is pure fat (because 1 lb of pure fat has 3500 calories).

That being said, home scales and even doctor's scales are rarely as accurate as they seem. I've noticed that some digital scales seem to have a function that makes them seem more reliable than they are. For example, the one I have now has four buttons, so it can record up to 4 people's weights. My button is #1, and my husband's is #2... if I weigh myself and weigh again within a few seconds, it gives me the exact same weight. However, if I wait a few minutes, or weigh in under an "assumed" button (3 or 4, so as not to confuse my husband when he weighs in), it will weigh up to 1 lb off. So, I've deduced that my digital scale has been programmed to give me the same reading it did a few seconds before, so that I don't think the scale is a piece of crap.

Actually, I consider a 1 lb discrepancy, fairly inconseqential at my weight. As I figure that makes the scale about 99.7% accurate.

There are numerous reasons why the scale will fluctuate. The fact is, however, that it isn't fat and muscle that is fluctuating over that time. Part of it is water (not just in your bladder and stomach, but what is being held/not held in your muscles through the day) the amount of food in your intestinal tract (if you weigh in before you have a bowel movement at afterwards-there will be a change) and so on and so forth.

Basically-don't weigh 10 times a day! :lol:

I weigh about twice a week, in the morning.

Greetings from another nerd! :wave:

Some water is lost when we breathe, and also we are losing some mass when we breathe. Food generally contains carbon (among other things), and that's where carbon dioxide comes from, which we breathe out. Breaking down the food requires oxygen, which we take in when we breathe. So it's not so simple as adding up what you eat or drink and then what comes out through excretion.

I agree with the others that there is just no predicting what you will weigh at any particular time of day. That's why it's best to always weigh at the same time, under the same conditions, to try to reduce the variables.

What I don't quite understand... is the 40 ounces of water before bed! :yikes: :lol:

Jay

Hey, nerd!

Well, the 40 ounces was before bed, but I drank the last of it an hour or so before turning in. :) I like water and, especially as a nursing mom, I gotta be hydrated.