Your weekly weigh in may be the thing that's making you fat. Although strictly speaking it's the excess food you're eating if you're weighing weekly then you're not helping the situation.
Every day your weight will fluctuate because of
- food in your body
- water changes
- glycogen stores in your liver and muscles
You’ll also get weekly or monthly variations due to fat stores and muscle being increased or lost.
While fat stores are what we want to get lower, this happens typically very slowly unless you have a LOT of fat to lose.
Even then you are limited by 1kg per every 8000 kcal deficit that you create. Even at your best efforts that’s going to be a maximum of 1-2kg per week of body fat burnt.
Yet we look at our weigh ins and immediately think that it’s fat that we’ve lost or gained when there’s a 1-2kg variance.
More data points give you more knowledge about your weight and body
Weighing daily will very quickly show you that you are fluctuating during the week but weighing only once a week will only give you that one data point to compare.
If that day is the day that you’ve held a bit more water and you’re still processing the weekend’s food, which tends to be higher, then you’ll always be getting the result that you don’t want.
This immediately means that you’ll think your efforts have been wasted and you’ll be more inclined to jack in the diet and give up.
Getting sucked into extreme diets by gurus who promise rapid fat loss
If you think the diet is not working then you’ll be more likely to go on an extreme type of diet which restricts food massively and gives you what you want – rapid weight loss.
However if you’ve ever done these types of diets you’ll know that you’ll be rebounding after you come off and be back to your starting weight again or worse still, heavier.
This is a common thing that I see with clients and until you start to understand the reasoning why a daily weigh in is HELPFUL not a hindrance you’ll always be stuck in the cycle of diet-binge-repeat.
When daily weigh ins are NOT helpful
Of course there are some times when weigh ins are not helpful. I work with a number of PCOS clients whose weight is very stubborn and therefore we look at changes in the body not the scales. But we are measuring something consistently, that is the key.
Other Links Related to this Article
- Why a weekly weigh in isn’t helpful – Podcast, Article and Longer video
- Calorie Calculator for Fat Loss
- Lean Body Eating Plan – Get a tailored diet plan with a free choice of foods
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