Love/Hate/Love your weight scale? Here's why

Hello Steemians,

Ever think your scale lies to you? Maybe it's not on a flat surface? Or that certain spot by the window always seems to provide a better number? I'd like to share with you that your weight will fluctuate on average from one day to the next by as much as 4-5 pounds! You ARE NOT gaining or loosing 4 to 5 pounds of fat every day! What's worse, this variance can be made worse when you're putting in the hard work of diet and exercise. How disheartening!

So please, don't blame the scale, or feel too bad (or too excited for that matter).

Why does this happen?

• Waste & Water - An average range of poop in your body at any one point is 0.3 to 3.3 pounds. If you are on the heavier side, and you eat more, you'll naturally also have a larger amount of waste in your body. It's even more dramatic for urine, you're looking at 1.3 to 5.7 pounds depending on how hydrated you are. As you can tell, from this alone there can be the source of a lot of change. But with this said, you yourself won't be fluctuating all that much, it is secondary to the next point.
• Glycogen & Water - This is the biggest contributor to daily variance, and the least well known. Glycogen is a core protein bound to tens of thousands of glucose molecules. It makes up 2% of your muscle weight (and ~7% of your Liver weight), which in turn is bound to water. So if you low-carb it for a day or two, you could easily see a drop of a couple pounds on the scale.....then when you crash out on your carb diet, and eat a loaf of bread to compensate, you could gain that weight back and more.......but note, it is NOT FAT loss/gain being reflected in the scale.

How to minimize the variance?

• Keep your carb count, and water intake consistent.
• Weigh yourself in the morning only after you've used the restroom.
• Keep your meal size and timing the same. I'd advise, big breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner....and stop eating/drinking by 9pm (or earlier).
• Weigh yourself at the same time each morning, but before breakfast or your morning coffee/tea/elixir.

These tips will help, but if you're exercising along with your diet, you'll need to be even more OK with the variance in the scale. Exercise will

• Drive down your glycogen store, but drive up your desire to eat carbs.
• Ditto for water
• Will increase muscle mass, which will increase the glycogen in your system.

When looking at my recordings for the past six weeks, I have several drops or gains of ~3 pounds. But I intentionally alternate high fat, or high carb periods to control glycogen content, and optimize fat burn. So I'm a good example of how the scale could theoretically make you feel bad or good on any given day. Especially if you've been putting in the effort with diet and exercise.

Please don't get disheartened, weigh yourself at least every few days, and watch for macro trends. What is the average weight the first week of the month compared to the last? That's where you'll likely see actual fat loss or gain. The fastest most anyone should lose fat is ~1 pound a week. That 1 pound for week is lost in the crazy world of water, waste, and glycogen changes. So you have to stand back and look at your true weight being revealed over a larger time scale.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any questions!