Weight Fluctuation! Ahhhhh!

OK, I know I have posted this before, but it is so dicouraging. On Sunday I weighed 114. Same exact routine this morning and I weighed 116.5. Same scale and everything. PMS is at least two and a half weeks away! I drank about 5 liters of water yesterday and a light dinner. I worked out this morning. Nothing in my stomach. And a 2 and a half pound weight gain!!!!!!!! Can anyone relate??????

how about eating at maintenance level all weekend and being up 5lbs yesterday! :)

I feel your pain! :)

i can definitely relate. everytime i get on the scale it says something different. it usually varies about 2 pounds in either direction. it's making me crazy because i'm doing everything right and i haven't been cheating but yet i keep losing and gaining the same 2 pounds and haven't really gotten anywhere in about a month. people try to tell me it's  because it's getting close to "that time of the month" but that would mean that it's affecting me all month! i know that's not the reason. it's so frustrating when you're doing everything the way you're supposed to and still not getting anywhere or even gaining weight. 

Are you weighing in simlar weight clothes.  Like whenever I weigh myself, its always the same stuff.  Personally I like when the scale does that.  I weighed in at 202 last Saturday, 202.7 Sunday and Monday, 201.3 this morning.  It will probably go up again but its so encouraging.

I'd only be concerned over the long term.  It's tough, but I only weigh myself weekly (the scale tries so hard to get me to do it more often; I have to beat it with a broom sometimes).  Doing so allows you to smooth your weight trend out so you don't get caught up in fluctuations over a day or two--and I think there are too many factors that affect our weight for us to be able to control all of them, so you're going to fluctuate.

Now then, if you're stalled for a month (i.e. weigh yourself at the same time and day and you're only bouncing around within a 2 lb. range), that's a different story.  That's when I think most people on here would ask for your stats and diet and see what you need to do.

Your weight varies throughout the day, and even from day to day. That's normal. What you want to watch is trends.

Back in the fall, I went horseback riding, something I haven't done since I was a kid. Oh, geez, was I sore the next few days! Legs, arms, abs, and back. Ouch! And even though I'd had a deficit every day, I weighed about five pounds more a day or two after riding. Why? Probably had to do with muscle recovery -- more fluid in the muscles as they healed from what I'd done to the poor, underused flabby things. A few days after that bump up, the pounds fell off, overnight, and I ended up with a net loss.

I'm up this morning, after a 27-mile bikeride on Sunday. Yeah, I can feel it in my thighs a bit this morning. I expect these extra couple of pounds I saw on the scale this morning will fall off in a day or two, especially if I can get in a good, long sleep.

I have a 5 pound fluctuation, and it's taken some tracking to realize that this is just how I am. (I'm at maintenance currently, having lost 25-ish pounds.)

What I did to boost my confidence was keep an old pair of pants next to the scale. If the scale gave me a higher number than the day before, I'd put the pants on, and breathe a sigh of relief. As long as those pants remained too big for me, I was okay!

I only log my weight on Tuesdays, yet weigh myself everyday.  I swear to God, my weight is in a 5 lb. upwards range every day of the week except for Tuesday morning and then it is always down 1-3 pounds!  Its kinda frustrating, yet it makes me keep on track and stay within my limitations.

Scales like to mess with us.  A couple of days ago, mine randomly said 111 after it had been saying 107-109 for a few days in a row.  I knew I didn't gain that weight overnight, so I just ignored the reading and it went back down on its own like the next day.  *shrugs*

I was up a pound this morning after having a really good day yesterday, that made me depressed and I ate soo badly today I am already way over calorie limit. Im already at 2100 and Im going out for dinner. I hate this.

There's no reason to stress about normal fluctuations in weight.  Sodium levels, glycogen stores, and hydration all play a roll in daily (even hourly) weights.  They are all related and drinking too little water can cause some of the biggest fluctuations.  A simple google search will get you some good answers that give more detail than I just did.

Water weight =)

I agree with all the posts that say this is normal.  Because of daily variations some experts don't want people to weigh in every day, arguing dieters will get discouraged.  I say go a head and weigh in every day, just know if you see one of these mystery spikes, and you  have behaved, don't be concerned... it always corrects in a day or so.  Here's the thing, if you weigh in once a week, that may be the very day you have one of these mysterious gains, and so you think you are plateauing or gaining weight... when on previous days when you didn't weight in you might have had several lower weights that would have thrilled you. So for the most accurate picture, I weigh in the same time every monring, then average my weigh-ins for the week.

Totally can relate. It is enough to make you throw your hands up and binge on a carton of moose tracks ice cream (like I did last night!)

I had the exact thing happen to me and I wanted to cry. So I had the ice cream, and my husband was like "when you fall of the wagon, you leap, don't you?" and I laughed because it is so true. When I got on the scale this morning, I hadn't lost, but I hadn't gained. I think we rely too much on what the scale says, don't you? Bob Greene, Oprah's trainer, says NEVER get on the scale every day. He says to use your measuring tape and take those measurements instead. Remember, better to be 150 lbs and a size 8 (muscle weighs more than fat) than 150 lbs and a size 14!

Guess I need to take my own advice! LOL

I force myself to get on the scale, especially on a monday or after going out to dinner (the next morning) with friends.  It forces me to see what an extra drink, a few extra bites of dessert, or skipping my workout can do. 

Weight fluctuates, its not going to fall off all at once.

I say this on a good week, on a bad week i'm scrambling for answers.

Even a bad day now (after I have learned what I have learned in the last year) is MUCH better than my best day when I was really overweight.  I try to keep that perspective. 

I agree - the fluctuations are irritating.  The important thing to remember is that it's not your daily number which means anything - like it was said earlier, it's the trend. 

What I do, to stave off the disappointment, I measure myself around the arms, belly and thighs.  That number doesn't fluctuate (too much) and I think it's a better guage of how I am doing.  I could be losing fat and gaining water some days, or losing fat and gaining muscle mass, long term.  This, I think, is a better too to guage how much fat I am losing, as opposed to how much weight.  Cause who CARES what the weight is, just so long as you feel and look good, right??

hi

okay so about 3 days ago my period stopped and i also just got back from the philippines (i live in NC) from vaca 2 weeks ago and when i got back i clda sworn i was 138 but i weighed myself when i got home and i was 132  but the thing is, i look lik i wld when i weighed 138 or more. i don't understand what's going on with my body. this has NEVER happened to me before!

pls help

I weigh myself every morning, approximately the same time, after i have used the restroom. (#1 and #2)

I stay pretty consistent at the most .5 lb change. Maybe that could help.

i too fluctulate quite a lot and get disheartened - i used to weigh every day - at anytime between 0600 to 0700 am but now weigh only once or twice a week - around 0700am - scale in same position in kitchen - me wearing next to nothing.

if it goes up i will now log it - i never used to but i am kidding myself if i do not.

you can fluctulate depending on what you have eaten and drunk on a daily basis - i now drink more water to make sure that i do not retain a lot of sodium in my body which then in turn makes me retain water and therefore hold on to weight that  i do not want

It's probably water weight, 5 liters of water weighs 5 kg (~11 lbs), so a 2.5 pound change from day to day is not at all surprising if over 11 pounds (not even counting the actual food you eat) pass through your body everyday. Because of such large possible variations day to day weighing yourself everyday really doesn't make much since, espcially considering you should only be losing 1/7 to 2/7 of a pound a day of fat, and even if you binge terribly you won't gain more than half a pound of fat (3500 calories per pound, remember?). So just the water passing through provides fluctuations in weight much larger than any realistic change in fat weight. But, in the long run (one week, minimum) the water fluctuations average out to zero (you take in as much as you pass out) but the changes in fat (and possibly, but hopefully not, muscle) consistantly goes down (you're losing more fat than you're putting on), so you can observe a meaningful number on the scale.