Question

Hi. I'm a healthy 19 year old college student, and I recently lost 20 pounds over the summer. I've been maintaining and even losing while here at school, even though I'm not strictly counting anymore.

I have a question, though. I weighed myself on Tuesday this week and I was 149. Which was good, because my main goal is to maintain 150. But this morning when I weighed on the same scale, same time, same amount of clothing, I was 152. I keep going up and down even though my eating habits don't. I'm getting really frustrated and was wondering if anyone could help me by explaining this!

Thanks so much,
Kaylie

There are certainly people on here who could give better and more detailed explanations that I can, but just to give you a general idea, your weight fluctuates from day to day. This could be water weight, or possibly be caused by it being your time of the month. Most programs recommend that you weigh once a week, in the morning, after using the restroom but before eating or drinking anything.

 I wouldn't worry about it, hon.

Yes. You will never be the EXACT same weight over a long period of time. Also remember that even though you think you are controlling all variables, the water and food still in your body is being weighed, too.

You might want to set a 'range' that is okay for you to be in, just for peace of mind.

Check out this website for a little background knowledge on how the scales work.

 I think you're doing just fine

Ya, if you want to maintain 150 then 149 and 152 for all intentsive purposes is 150. There is basically no difference between those weights, because like feanor said you will NEVER be the same weight every day, you can be "at" that weight though at 149 or 148 or 152 for example. I think the issue for your post though was because it was 2 lbs higher, I don't believe you would have started a thread if you woke up and it said 147. The underlying reason for your post was probably because of the 2 or 3 lb weight increase, which you can't worry about if you don't understand how weight can fluctuate on a daily basis. Don't stress about it....

Lots of things make your weight fluctuate ESPECIALLY in maintenance, since your not constantly loosing.. yourr body is finding a happy medium. if it's less than a 5lbs difference, it's probably not fat weight.. it's salt, poop, water, etc..

Your weight will fluctuate EVERY DAY and it is usually due to what you ate the night before, if you are regular, if you just drank water or drank a lot the night before or consumed a lot of salt! I wouldn't worry about a 2-3 pound gain or loss....unless you stay 3 pounds or more above your goal weight, then I would start writing down what you are eating and evaulate the situation!Congrats on losing your weight though and being at your goal: that ROCKS!Oh and by the way I am a 20 year old college student, so if you want to talk one on one, just message me! :) 

If you're going to weigh yourself every day, then enter your weight here every day too, and pay attention to the green trend line instead of to the blue weight line.  The trend line is a moving 10-day average of your weights, and that's usually effective at "filtering out" random fluctuations due to all the factors others have mentioned (water weight, TTOM, ...).  So long as your trend line isn't going up, you're probably not gaining "real" weight.