The Best Way to Weigh Yourself
Throughout the day, our body weight can fluctuate by approximately 1-2% because of how fluid shifts in our body.
There are a lot of things that affect the way this fluid shifts throughout the day, but some of the most common are:
The salt content of the food we eat.
How much insulin our body releases in response to the amount of carbs in our food.
The types of medications we take.
The menstrual cycle.
To get an accurate weight that minimizes those fluctuations, the ideal way to weigh yourself is to:
Weigh yourself first thing in the morning, in a fasted state, and after you’ve emptied your bowels and bladder, in either your pajamas or your “birthday suit.” Then, record the daily weights. If you can’t empty your bowels first thing in the morning, that’s ok. Just weigh yourself before that happens and be as consistent as possible with future weigh-ins.
The changes in our daily weights reflect changes in fluid in our body, not the changes in the amount of fat we have. Weighing yourself in the way described above helps minimize the daily variability of those fluid shifts.
To see how much fat you’re losing, you’ll want to monitor the change in your weekly weights, which you can get from averaging the weights you record daily.
For example, for week one, let’s take the daily recorded weights of:
330
327
328
326
328
326
324
That total is 2,289 lb. Divide that by 7 days and you have 327 pounds for your weekly average. Compare this number (327) to day one of week one (330), and you’ll see that you’ve lost a total of 3 pounds of fat.
Repeat recorded weights in a consistent way for week 2 and so on.
You can now compare each weekly average to day one of each week, or you can compare the current weekly average to day one of week one to see your overall progress!
To better explain this, think of your weight like the stock market…the number on the scale is going to fluctuate throughout the day because of a lot of different factors (just like how the prices of stocks change a lot throughout the day). Looking at the weekly changes will show you the pattern of change of what your weight (the stock) is actually doing.
Just remember:
The number on the scale isn’t there to define you…it’s there to help give you data!
I hope knowing how to weigh yourself helps you along your weight loss journey by allowing you to get the most accurate data possible!