Your thoughts on not weighing daily....

I am just curious if any of you have converted from daily weigh-ins to weekly or longer?

I never had a scale until the beginning of February. I actually would weigh myself several times a day for a few weeks because I was unfamiliar with the fluctuations and trying to get to know my body. It didn't really affect my motivation because I know that there are a lot of factors during the day that change your weight.

However, I have since lost 20lbs (from 192 to 172, 5'8). I have been plateaued for the past 3 weeks and it is driving me crazy every morning seeing my weight hover around 173.1-172.2 .  I can't seem to get past it and am finding myself laxing a bit on the diet. Primary cheat is alcohol..... I have been so great about limiting to once a week or none at all but it is slowly creeping in for various social events. 

I was wondering if I should stop weighing daily? My diet has been good, not great. I track on another site around 1600-1900. And I just ran my first 5k, so I feel my exercise is good. How do I get past this plateau? Or, Is it just a matter of time before I lose again and I should ignore the scale for a while? How do you break this habit?

Original Post by wiggleit:

I am just curious if any of you have converted from daily weigh-ins to weekly or longer?

I never had a scale until the beginning of February. I actually would weigh myself several times a day for a few weeks because I was unfamiliar with the fluctuations and trying to get to know my body. It didn't really affect my motivation because I know that there are a lot of factors during the day that change your weight.

However, I have since lost 20lbs (from 192 to 172, 5'8). I have been plateaued for the past 3 weeks and it is driving me crazy every morning seeing my weight hover around 173.1-172.2 .  I can't seem to get past it and am finding myself laxing a bit on the diet. Primary cheat is alcohol..... I have been so great about limiting to once a week or none at all but it is slowly creeping in for various social events. 

I was wondering if I should stop weighing daily? My diet has been good, not great. I track on another site around 1600-1900. And I just ran my first 5k, so I feel my exercise is good. How do I get past this plateau? Or, Is it just a matter of time before I lose again and I should ignore the scale for a while? How do you break this habit?

I did a similar thing once I got a scale I did just that.

I too started about 190ish and am 5'8", I have lost about 40-45lbs and want to lose 10-15lbs more. I have really cut alcohol: a wedding, a 50th bday, new years and 1-2 days in winter a warm liquor beverage, since my weight loss journey (Sept 2011), I believe it is a big help in weight loss to cut it/reduce it greatly.

I feel I have to weigh daily on a plateau just cause, I am annoyed I am plateauing. I have easily skipped days I know TOM weight or high intakes of sodium days, when water weight is on.

But I have been thinking, since I am so close to my goal weight (10-15lbs to go, so it will take longer), going weekly, unless I am plateauing. 

Any-who how I break plateaus: drink lots of water, have a maintenance day, have a week of smaller deficits/higher intake days (for me 250-500 deficits and zig zag in that range), if you have higher sodium days try to have 1500 and under days for a while. But usually they are 2-3 weeks regardless :P 

If the plateau persists 4-6+ weeks you may have to do a change up: change your workout, try calorie cycling/zig zaging/cut alcohol, make sure you not over eating or under eating/recalculate the number etc. 

I'm a daily morning weigh-er and I can't give it up right now. I had a two week plateau this month and when I got fed up I just ate like crazy for a day or two and I felt better. This was over 2000 calories with no real exercise, and in all honesty I had a lot of junk with my healthy food. I dropped 2 pounds after that and went back to my normal habits.

Sometimes an increase in calories is enough to jump start things. Doing something different and crazy can be fun and relaxing.In my case I knew the worst that would happen was a small bit of water weight. It's hard to think about, but easy once you've done it and seen results.

If you think you can avoid getting frustrated, you may want to keep weighing. Seeing the sudden drop gave me relief, if I had avoided the scale I may have freaked out even more (but that's me). Either way good luck in making your decisions and congrats on the loss so far!

I weigh myself on the 1st and 16th of every month, so about every 2 weeks. I started this from the get go and lost 60lbs so far. I wasn't weighing myself before so i thought that weighing myself everyday is a bit harsh. I don't want to be controlled by the scale because this is a lifestyle choice not a diet and i couldn't see myself getting weighed everyday for life, but every two weeks is great, keeps me accountable and it's not over bearing day in day out wondering if you lost weight. Should be how your clothes are fitting and how great you feel above all and not an obsessive number on a scale.

I weighed on Saturday mornings.  Now I just do it occasionally.  Never daily.  Too many fluctuations, too many temptations to freak out.

I am the same as odysseygurl.  In how I weigh daily and how I break really long plateaus too. And the importance of weighing yourself during those higher calorie days to see what happens with your weight trend - water weight gain then drop but no real lasting effects to your weight loss graph.

But hey to each her own - I know people who are very successful weighing every week or two weeks and the scale drives them nuts.  I just have an incredibly strong correlation between letting my weighing slip then my logging slip and then not being accountable. And then gaining 10 to 20 pounds!

Original Post by ootek:

I weighed on Saturday mornings.  Now I just do it occasionally.  Never daily.  Too many fluctuations, too many temptations to freak out.

I weighed every day and had the freak outs often. I switched to once a week, then once every two weeks when I was maintaining. Now that I am losing again, I weigh daily again. Plus, my triathlon coach requires a weight every day in our training logs. But I still deal with the freakouts.