Fluctuators - speak up!

Not sure thats a word but its what I am and have been for a while now.  I used to be a steady loser, like clockwork a smooth one direction loser.

Then I became a zig-zagger.  This week small loss, next week bigger loss, back and forth over.

Now I just flucuate with a general direction but I can know that after earliest morning weighin, Im on my way up scale wise through the day.  Doesnt bother me yet Im lured onto the scale through the day.  Just hope that by the next morning Im back at prior morning or better and still flucuate their.  Usually it pans out after a week but have flucuated some there too.

Cant imagine now being concernd over a few lbs increase - it now comes with the territory. 

Any other 'flucuators'?

I step on the scale at least 5 times a day i don't know why though lol i am bound to be upset. I gained 4 pounds this morning and it ruined my day. Don't get me wrong i know weight flucuates (Mine does a lot) but somehow trying to tell the logical part of my mind this doesnt work i wish i was more like you. :)

My weight has fluctuated over the years...gone from slightly underweight to normal to underweight then back and forth...etc.

I seem to fluctuate week to week also...I'll gain like 3 or 4 pounds in a day!  One week I'll be up 4 pounds and the next week down like 6 pounds!  It sucks...but I just have to remind myself about the water I'm drinking, how much sodium or sugar I may have eaten, fizzy drinks, the density of my foods, PMS, etc.

I wish I didn't fluctuate like this though....it makes it sooo hard to stay motivated!

O man, I can fluctuate up to 7lbs in ONE DAY! If I step on the scale in the morning, I'll be 1 weight and then if I step on again in the eve, it'll be 5-7...maybe even 8lbs higher. I know I shouldn't step on the scale so much...I flutuate a lot in one day and during the week.....but I can't help it sometimes! LOL sometimes guilt can be good.

I just have to keep watching the green trend line in the log....as long as that keeps going down, I'm happy.

I fluctuate a lot as well (probably because I NEVER watch my sodium & I don't care). I tend to notice my weight loss in phases like "oh i've been weighing about 127 on a low day to 131 on a high day" versus recently i have ranged between 122 and 125 (yay!)

I fluctuate a lot like that too. In the mornings I'm around 142 and by the time I go to bed I'm closer to 145. I used to range from 145 to 147, so I know I've lost weight when my high weight is what my low weight used to be! I also weight myself 2 or 3 times a day because I get obsessive about it, I'm sure if I weighed myself only once a day it would be the same every day. I think we all fluctuate, some of us just notice it more because we probably weigh ourselves more.

Original Post by sarahc1984:

I step on the scale at least 5 times a day i don't know why though lol i am bound to be upset. I gained 4 pounds this morning and it ruined my day. Don't get me wrong i know weight flucuates (Mine does a lot) but somehow trying to tell the logical part of my mind this doesnt work i wish i was more like you. :)

aghh i do the same thing i look at the scale all the time and i know i shouldn't.  just out of curiosity, i weight myself in the morning but if i weigh myself later on im usually about 4-5 lbs. heavier, i mean i know its just fluctuation, water weight, etc.. but do you fluctuate about that much too? ha it makes me feel like my weight in the morning isn't my real weight haha idk sounds weird but w/e

[quote][b]Why The Scale Lies[/b]


by Renee Cloe,
ACE Certified Personal Trainer    

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale. [/quote]

I only weigh myself once a day and it fluctuates a lot,so I can imagine if I were to weigh myself throughout the day! I was 176.0 Sunday,Monday 176.6 today 174.8 UGH! I couldn't handle more than once a day! I'd go nuts!!!