My Journey With Weight Loss – Fluctuating Weight

I wanted to start this blog by giving a huge shout out to our support network. When word got around that my sister had been hospitalized so many people reached out and offered to give me some help. I can’t believe the number of offers I got for things from doing my shopping to just coming over to keep me company. Reminds me that there are some really nice people out there and I know a lot of them.

I’ve come to realize that my weight tends to fluctuate throughout the week. Normally it is the highest at the beginning of the week and lowest on Saturday. I weight myself at the same time each day, I don’t change my eating habits during the week and my exercise on Tuesdays is actually more than on Saturday. As an example, Tuesday I weighed in at 120.6 lbs and today it was 118.6 lbs. 2 lbs in only 2 days? Why does this happen?

I did some research on this a few weeks ago after I got on the scale and it appeared I had gained 4 lbs in 2 days. During that time I had done all my normal exercise and had eaten the same as always. Turns out, this is actually really normal. Apparently, throughout a single day your weight can fluctuate up to 5 lbs. I was a bit shocked as that seems like a lot of weight to me but I read that as long as you are in the 5 lb swing then there is nothing to worry about.

So what causes this? There is a variety of things that impact these minor weight fluctuations. It could be caused by a change in hormones (i.e. women having their menstrual cycle), what you ate (salty foods cause you to retain water as do high carb foods), bowel regularity, heat and humidity level just to name a few. When you start to think about it, it kind of makes sense that since your body has various levels of fluids and waste in it at any given time that your weight can’t always be consistent.

I also found a couple of good suggestions about monitoring your true weight. The first was to only use the scale 1 day a week and always on the same day. Now I have written about this before and there are several schools of thought on the best number of times to weigh yourself each week so if this one works for you go for it. The second is to weight yourself at the same time each and every day and then do an average to calculate your weight and see if that average stays consistent. Not for me, I weigh in 3 times a week but the averaging still seems to work, I am a consistent 120 lbs which is right where I want to be.

The bottom line, fluctuating weight within that 5 lb mark is perfectly normal. Don’t obsess about those lbs that are jumping up and down. Be consistent in what you eat and remember to keep moving.