Could the Scale Lie?

Don't be discouraged if your weight fluctuates day by day. Shifts in water weight, constipation, and even the food you just ate can cause the daily changes reflected on the scale. To avoid confusion and disappointment, weigh yourself only once a week. Let how much healthier you feel and how your clothes are fitting be your "scale."

These daily weight changes are particularly common during Phase 1, when your body is adjusting to the new way of eating. You may also notice that you weigh more immediately after a meal. This is due to the actual weight of the food and not to any fat weight you've gained. Remember that it takes time for your body to digest food, and it can take a couple of days for weight loss or weight gain to register on the scale.

Good advice, Bamie... thanks, girl! It's easy to become discouraged with a "false" gain.

Hey... aren't you a once-a-day weigher like me?

I understand all this. The only problem I have with the once a week weigh-in is that it could be the day your weight is UP! I weigh daily and average.

Your right Ruth! It was the Daily Dish today. I figure it would give some beach babes a sigh of relief if they see the scale up during the week. I try to stay off the scale everyday but I can't! lol I usually weigh every morning! lol

I don't even try to avoid weighing daily. I just don't get stressed out if it is up. I look to see if I could be retaining water and examine whether I have been eating enough veggies or too many grains.

I'm a technophile, so I use a program on my palm pilot that I got free online at www.hackersdiet.com. It takes your daily weight measurements and adds them into an "exponentially weighted moving average" - basically a statistical analysis of numbers that gives more importance to the most recent figures. There's a description at that site that tells why it's worth using. Anyhow - the crux of it is that every day, I put in my weight. The program gives me a trend number every day (and prints graphs if I want...but I digress) and if my daily weight is lower than the trend, I'm still losing weight. So that makes it easy to do, and keeps me from freaking out if I'm up a pound or three - as long as I'm not over my trend more than one day in a row, I know I'm on track. But if I AM over trend for a few days, I know I need to look hard at the last few days' eating and activity patterns.

Just my 2... Solarmama