Doubting friend scale

Sometimes i look down and see the numbers, which generally (hopefully) progress in a slow downward direction day by day, take a pretty big leap.  This leap is often a shocking 1 - 5 pounds, in a day.  The funny thing is, i dont doubt the leap at all when it jumps up.  I normally think "oh, i had a heavier dinner then normal" or "my salt intake was up, i must be retaining water" or even just "oh well, thats unfortunate, hopefully i can get back down soon"  A lot of the time i trust that number though, know its probably my own fault for what i ate, and that i'll get it back down soon.

Sometimes though, the scale jumps down.  Thats when the doubt creeps in.  When i see a jump of three pounds downward, then another two the next day i find myself looking at the scale and going "wait, what??? that cant be right!"  I mean, i want it to be right, being almost five pounds ahead of things would be awesome, but i cant really believe it.  If there are reasons why the scale jumps in that direction, i dont really know them, or none that apply at least.  I want to trust my scale, i do, but is this loss real?  Can i believe and put faith in good friend scale, or is this just a prelude to a upward jump tomorrow?

Anyone else have these problems, or possibly some good explanations for the downward jumps?

Depending on how large you are, your weight can be 2, 3 or 4lbs heavier or lighter on any given day... usually more for reasons of hydration rather than anything more fundamental.  So daily weighing doesn't really say all that much.

If you take your weight once a week, same place, same day, same time and clock that as your 'real' weight you'll be able to judge the long-term trend.  If you were to find that every week your body weight had dropped by a lot more than 1% you might ask yourself if you were eating the right amount.  If you found you were losing roughly 1% per week, no problem... that's a good average.

Good luck and maybe stay off the scales for a few days?

If it is the beginning of the diet you will often lose 5 to 7 or so pounds very quickly and then level out.  Also, I sometimes get these kind of losses during certain periods of the 28 day cycle as my body sheds water weight etc.  Of course during other phases, I may gain from 1 - 3 pounds in water weight back.

I'd say expect it to go back up the next day, and have a pleasant surprise if it doesn't.

Some reasons for a big drop - you drank a lot of water, and therefore got rid of a lot of retained water. You had a larger than normal bm. You just reached the point in your menstrual cycle where you get rid of the extra pounds of water weight. Other factors (retaining water, big dinner, etc) were masking a real loss.

My rule of thumb is treat a 2lb loss with as little emotion as a 2lb gain - either could be just a trick of the scale, and aren't worth getting excited over.

Thanks for the advice all of you!  I don't mind the fluctuations really, and believe pretty strongly in weighing daily cause it keeps me on track and i get to know my body a lot better. 

This isnt the begininng of my diet, though i do remember the nice be drop all the way back then.  This is actually the start of week 27, with just over 40 lbs down.  I actually usually gain at this point in my cycle, making this drop particularly weird.  I've had weird drops of a few pounds before too, i'm just curious about the why and all, and the if the weight will jump back up tomorrow.

I also see a fairly big drop once in awhile, usually after bouncing up and down a pound for a few weeks.  It usually "sticks" for me, leading me to believe that I had hormonal or water retention issues for a few weeks, then suddenly released a few pounds.  This is why I feel it is helpful to weigh every day, log the results, and forget about the actual number and only look at the trend line.  It seems to go down steadily enough, and if it stopped, I would reevaluate my program.

The scale isn't telling you that you weigh less than you do, unless it's malfunctioning or you're standing on the wrong spot or something. Just think of it as if you had already lost that weight, and were retaining water or whatever, so you thought you actually weighed more than you did.

I don't know anything about scales, but I think you should just toss the scale and rely solely on how your clothes are fitting you. I would even go as far as measuring yourself with a measuring tape and keep a weekly log. I hate scales, they can be very deceitful on really telling you the true information. You can gain muscle tone which can seem like you've gained weight, depending on what you are doing for your exercise regime. I would encourage everyone to get into weight training. Not only do you build lean muscle mass that can give you a shapely figure but it also shoots up your metabolism so that you can burn more fat. Weight training also increases bone density which is important, especially for woman getting older.

Good luck,

Cathlean ;-)

My old scale used to do that and so went to the store and tried different scales and relized my scale was definatly broken.  I would check your weight on other scales to see if your averaging the same weight, if you are it just might be normal weight fluctuations.

No one said it but it should be added that your clothes can weigh more than you think.  Make sure you wear the same thing (or nothing) every time you weigh in.