As I sit here on a snow day (yay!) I want to address a question I have received COUNTLESS times in my nearly 2 decades in the fitness industry.
“Should I weigh myself every day?”
The answer is…. maybe.
The first thing you need to ask yourself, and answer honestly is:
“Does the scale provide me with data that I can objectively use to tweak my behavior? Or, does it flood me with emotions, depending on what it says on any given day?“
If you answered “floods me with emotions,” then you are probably better off NOT weighing yourself and using other metrics to measure progress, such as:
- changes in how clothes fit
- changes in energy
- changes in mood
- changes in training strength and/or endurance [you can lift more, or do more reps with the same weight]
- changes in libido
There are lots of great ways to measure progress that have nothing to do with the scale… and if your relationship with the bathroom scale is a contentious one, TRUST ME when I say its not worth it.
Ok, now for those of you who are able to use the reading on the scale as an objective data point, it’s still imperative that you weigh yourself properly…. so you don’t get a skewed understanding of your progress.
Here are the steps you should take:
1) weigh yourself every single morning, when you first get up & after you’ve used the bathroom.
2) write down each day’s weigh in… but DO NOT take any 1 weigh in as a sign of your progress (or lack thereof)
3) add up the weigh ins for the week and get a weekly average weight
4) track this week over week, and look at the way your averages are going…. in 4 – 6 weeks you’ll see a trend line, which will give you solid information about your progress.
The reasons for this are many, but most importantly you should know that YOUR WEIGHT WILL FLUCTUATE from day to day and over the course of weeks…. this is why you should NEVER look at a single day’s weigh in and think you’re “good” or “bad.”
Look at the averages and see where the bigger picture is going… even with small blips along the way, you will absolutely be able to lose weight in a sustainable way over time.
