Love it or hate it, the weight scale is the most used tool in gauging progress on your fitness journey. It tells you if you are on track to either losing or gaining weight. However, there is a “right” way to use the scale. Let’s dive in!
Bodyweight is fickle measurement. So many factors can cause your scale weight to fluctuate wildly from day to day! Water consumption, sodium intake, sleep, the types of foods you eat, the times you eat, and stress all have an affect on your weight. The first thing to understand when weighing yourself is that your weight will fluctuate! It’s 100% normal for most people to see fluctuations of 3-6lbs a day!
If your weight fluctuates so much, how do you know if you’re making progress? Simple, control all the variables you can.
Weigh yourself at the same time each day. Preferably in the morning after you go to the bathroom and at night before bed. This will give you a “low” and “high” weight for the day.
Do this every single day. The more data, the better. Here’s why.
You’re going to take the average of all your weigh-ins for the week! Add up all those numbers and divide them by 14 (2 weigh-ins per day for the week) or however many times you weighed yourself in the last 7 days. A smart scale will make this even easier and most apps will show you your weekly average weight.
Instead of stressing over your daily weight, which we know fluctuates, look at your week over week changes. A healthy fat loss goal is to drop 1-2lbs/week. If your weekly number is trending down, you’re on the right track! If week one your average was 215lbs and by week by week 4 your average is 210lbs, you’re moving the needle in the right direction! Now in between all those weigh ins, you might have seen 214, 216, 210, 211, 213, etc….. Use the average to see your actual progress week over weeK and don’t sweat the daily changes.
This is a much more accurate and psychologically healthy method to weigh yourself. Knowing your weight will fluctuate, when you jump on the scale, you wont be immediately deflated when your weight is up slightly. On top, of that you can see real progress which takes weeks and months, not days.
Give this method a shot and save your self the stress of getting on the scale!
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