Ok so I had a bad dinner last night - I had done incredibly well all day fasting and was going to cook a Keto dinner! But then I got taken out for dinner and to cut a story short I had chips ahhhhh and onion rings with sweet corn and a chicken breast with barbecue sauce and cheese on top!!
I was so annoyed today that I actually went for a run 🏃♀️ However I have not ran since beginning of November!!! But you know I did it I ran 5k whoop
Then I had a Keto late lunch.
Weighed tonight and I’ve put on 3lb this morning after my run I had lost lol
Maybe I think I should stick to weighing once a week and not at all different times. I will be so disappointed if tomm after a week of fasting and Keto I haven’t lost anything! Thanks and sorry I’m whittling on 😬
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Newbeginnings20
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Thanks sooooo much Mike for not making me feel worse than I do and for actually making me feel positive! I will weigh once a week. If though ......I haven’t lost tomm then what - coz aside from last night I’ve done brilliant.
Definitely don’t weigh yourself everyday. And if you enjoyed your meal take some satisfaction from it. Today is another day.
What I generally do if I know in advance I fast if I don’t know I’m being invited to eat out then the day after, I either have a late breakfast and a moderate evening meal, or agin fast. Depending how I feel I may skip breakfast for a couple of days.
Don’t become too obsessed, I tried it and it doesn’t work, neither does starving yourself, tried that too.
Everyone says only weigh yourself once a week, but then everyone says "it's just calories in/calories out" and "drink 8 glasses of water a day"
When I googled to really find out if there was any data, I found a lot of people repeating the truism, but the only actual data I found seems to show that weighing yourself daily is correlates to more success in weight loss.
That's a small cohort, and they were told to weigh daily and 94% did it at least 5 days a week, but they found a huge difference in weight loss between those that did it every day and those that skipped a few. I don't think it necessarily means the daily weighing helped with the weight loss, it could be the sort of diligence that makes sure you get on the scales each morning was reflected in how well they followed the plans. Also, the weighing was on e-scales the study provided, so the ones who weighed themselves every day for 6 months either never travelled or brought the scales with them. But whatever the factors were, it meant 6kg (stone) difference in weight loss. For me, that's evidence enough for daily weighing.
It sounds like it's making you crazy Newbeginnings20 so I think the advice to do it once a week is right for you. I just think the study is interesting and relevant to your question.
I weigh myself daily. Last night I found out I can over eat keto food, and the scale is up 900g to confirm it, and I am up from the Friday weigh in. That's ok. Today is a new day.
I'd say there are three problems with weighing yourself too frequently:
a) There is very strong evidence that, on a calorie-restricted diet, it's linked to obsessive behaviour. I suspect the underlying reason is that, because caloric restriction doesn't actually work, people are always on the lookout for some tiny movement on the scales to validate their actions. It's the intermittent-reinforcement thing. Very powerful, and very dangerous:
b) Most people don't realise that their bodyweight fluctuates by a pound or so over the course of a day. That's in the same ballpark as your actual weekly weightloss - possibly more. In other words, the actual reading is obscured by measurement noise. So unless you're plotting out your readings and watching the trend, there's a risk of (a) happening. Of course, if you do plot your results out, then it doesn't really matter how often you weigh yourself, because you've understood that the ups-and-downs are random, and that you're only interested in the long-term trend.
c) It gets people too focused on the idea of weight loss. Weight loss is not the goal. Training yourself to eat healthy meals, for the rest of your life, is the goal. Weightloss happens simply as a side-effect, and you can't really alter how quickly it happens - so what's the point in measuring it?
Do you have link to that? Just because people obsessed weigh themselves often, doesn't necessarily mean it causes obsession. Just because people with OCD wash their hands a lot, doesn't mean washing your hands risks OCD.
I'm not sure what your point is about intermittent reinforcement. That seems a positive mechanism to reinforce your new habits, and daily weighing is only down 1 day in 2 or 3, so it's perfect.
b)"Most people don't realise that their bodyweight fluctuates by a pound or so over the course of a day."
If they don't know it before they start daily weighing, they will learn it before the end of the week. Do you think the people who weighed themselves in the study 168 days in a row didn't learn their weight fluctuates?
My weight fluctuates by a kg some days. If I was losing 1/2 kg/week, if I chose the wrong days to weigh myself I could mistake that for STS or even a gain, and that could undo my resolve. Alternatively if I am gaining, I would rather find that out after a few days, rather than the two weeks or more it would take with weekly weighing. Eg, if I ignore a kilo and half gain because it's probably just "normal" fluctuations, it's only when it's 3kg the next week I realise I have undone a lot of hard work.
c) That's seem moot. If weight isn't a good metric, why measure it at all?
Anyway, this area is obsessed with weight. It's in the name, in all the daily weighings, in the badges, in the bizarre targets to lose by Easter (that concept mystifies me). If it's no good, then daily weighing or weekly are equally bad and we are in the wrong place.
If it were truly all about losing weight, we would have a haircut, shave, donate blood or an organ and call it a win.
It's fascinating that really the diet industry and forums should all be dubbed 'inch loss" or perhaps even "specific, aesthetic inch loss" communities. But strangely it is often focused neo-surgical procedures which use this phraseology.
Obsessive weighing is actually just the thin end of the wedge. It's not "research", but there's a brief overview of how caloric restriction messes with your head here:
I'll try to find something a bit more substantial later. However if you hang around in the NHS thread for a while, you'll see it first hand. People going slowly craaaazy as they wind their calories down and down, with little or no fat loss. Staring at the scales willing the needle to move, celebrating when it does, and being plunged into the depths of despair when it goes "the wrong way" are all part of the misery.
>> I'm not sure what your point is about intermittent reinforcement.
(1) it's reinforcing the wrong thing (ie., eating less food) and (2) there isn't any actual weight loss. People are wishing away the upswings and receiving a reinforcement buzz from the (meaningless) reductions. They're observing nothing but noise, but drawing the wrong conclusions. It's the same as people looking at stock charts (which are just Brownian motion) and getting drawn into gambling on them because they think they've spotted a pattern.
>> they will learn it before the end of the week.
You'd think so, but that's precisely what doesn't happen in practice. People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't want to see. I'm not saying this happens to everyone, but it happens often enough to be a serious problem.
>> If weight isn't a good metric, why measure it at all?
Well, quite! Hence my point about just eating healthy food and ignoring the scales. I think the general advice is "if you have to weigh yourself, do it infrequently".
I think we are conflating too many things here. Yes, some people go a bit crazy trying to lose weight, and they probably weigh themselves daily and would probably be helped by not doing so; and there is the question of whether weight is a good metric at all.
But the question for this thread "is weighing yourself daily harmful compared to doing it once a week?" Studies I found say no. I'd be interested in any studies to the contrary.
(speculating on the psychology of unspecified people seems no more helpful than "fat makes you fat, it's just common sense")
Part of the issue Toad, is there’s quite a bit to take on trust with LCHF. It’s new, there’s not that much research. Or if there is, it’s not written in nice manageable books but in incomprehensible articles by people with endocrinology PhDs. Or it’s such superficial fluff on dietdoctor.com it tells you nothing more than hold the potatoes. While your logic is great, and makes perfect sense (love a neat model myself), there’s always the question, is this LCHF stuff true? And SO the numbers dropping on the scales help us LCHF newbies to believe.
(My cleaner told me today I looked thinner - and then rushed to tell me I hadn’t been REALLY big before. (Cheers. Thanks. Maybe say nothing next time...)
I'm inclined to agree with Subtle_badger: if someone has an obsessive personality then weighing in every day might be stress-inducing. But the everyday weigh-ins don't cause the obsession.
I believe that weighing in every day gives you knowledge that helps you to avoid the stress. It's usually the folks who weigh in only once a week that report stress over a 3lb gain. A weight tracking app that reports a trend line helps a lot.
My advice is to try weighing everyday for a while. If you find it helps, keep doing it. If it doesn't, then stop.
Dieting, defined as caloric restriction with the goal of weight loss, is a risk factor for both obesity and EDs.
You can't get much more explicit than that: attempting to lose weight in the traditional way may lead to obesity and EDs in teenagers and children. The rest of the paragraph explains why: kids try to eat fewer calories (by vomiting or starving themselves) or by exercising obsessively. Well, of course they do. According to the experts, that's how you lose weight. But because that's precisely how you don't lose weight, a lot of people think they haven't cut their calories enough, or done enough exercise; and that way madness lies. Because the advice can't possibly be wrong, can it?
The underlying problem, IMO, is the widespread acceptance of this idea that (a) there is such a thing as "weight loss" and (b) that you achieve it by "eating less and moving more". I get really upset when I hear about kids torturing themselves like this, just because some boneheaded adult has been preaching nonsense at them.
Weight loss isn't even a thing. You can eat a healthy diet, or not. If you eat a healthy diet, you'll maintain a healthy weight. If you're getting fat, it's because your diet is not healthy. Your body is attempting to protect itself in the only way it can.
I'm not saying that weighing yourself, in and of itself, is going to drive you crazy. Especially if you understand the nuances of what you're measuring (which you guys clearly do). But if it's part of the cargo-cult ritual of "dieting" and "weight loss", there's a good chance it will.
I'm totally with you on calorie restriction, TheAwfulToad, but I'm going to quibble a little with the idea of eliminating the idea of weight loss.
Until I was 35, I didn't even own any scales and I ate whatever I liked. If I noticed my belt was a bit tight, I'd tell myself that I needed to lose weight and, as if by magic, I'd be back to normal in few days.
As I approached 40, the magic stopped working. With no conscious change in eating or exercise habits, I started gaining weight. I bought my first scales when my knees started hurting. I was borderline obese.
I decided to do something about it and just resolved to eat mindfully. I lost all the weight and was back to normal weight in about a year. I stopped weighing myself and gained most of the weight back by the time I reached 50.
I have no understanding of the weight problems that children or adolescents have—and no advice for them. I was always skinny. My kids are too. But I know that, as a middle aged man, if I don't pay attention to my weight it will go up.
I don't calorie count or consciously restrict my calorie intake. I did resolve to eliminate the stupid calories: I don't need two spoons of sugar in my tea, for example, and a bottle of water after football is just as thirst-quenching as a bottle of Gatorade. I don't each chips any more and I realized that I was only eating cake to make the person who baked the cake happy. I don't do that any more.
I got back to a healthy weight about 18 months ago and I've been fairly stable since but I do need to weigh myself regularly or my weight will go up.
Interesting ... and I know what you mean about "the magic not working". Same thing happened to me, in my 20s.
But I'm completely baffled as to how the weighing helped. What I mean is, it must have compelled you to take some action if you saw your weight creeping up ... but what was the action? Was it merely a reminder to be more focused on not eating cake?
Incidentally, you experience doesn't really surprise me. I've seen a lot of people on the NHS weight loss group who achieved a similar result just by doing what you did - eliminating sugar, soft drinks, and pointless desserts.
I had to ratchet up my concept of Stupid Calories as I got older. Frequent weigh-ins gave me feedback on whether I was on track.
Chips, crisps, nachos (I was living in California), burritos, cake, biscuits — these have all fallen away over the years. I cut down on rice, bread and pasta. I found that I didn't need to finish the enormous portions that they give you in American restaurants.
I'd never heard of LCHF until I joined this group a few months ago but LCHF was essentially what I was doing.
It doesn't mention what dietary advice was given, though there are hints of the eat less fat move more ideas.
Are the sort of people committed to weigh everyday the same sort of people who will put in the effort? As you say - diligence.
Was there any follow up as to keeping the weight off?
I liked the idea of the escales and being able to track your progress on line, with feedback and emails sent to you. (I like a nice chart).
Bit like being here isn't it!
Weighing everyday, with the fluctuations that occur, can lead to obsessive behavior in some people and there was mention that those who weighed more than once a day only had one figure recorded. How many of them?
I don't know the answers. You know everything I know.
I found another study! Much bigger numbers, and I don't think they told them what to do. This one has daily weighers losing 1.7% of bodyweight, and weekly 0.2%.
It's interesting that the weigh-every-day people sustained their weigh-every-day habit for a long period while the weigh-once-a-week lost the habit over time.
I believe that knowledge is power and more knowledge is more power.
From weighing myself everyday for the last five years, I have learned several things.
- My weight fluctuates by +/- 2 pounds during a typical week. A gain of 5lbs over a weekend is not unusual for me. It's usually gone by Tuesday.
- My trend line, calculated as a moving average in the app I use - Slimming with Strangers - has barely gone up or down by a pound over the last year.
Several folks in this conversation have shared a concern that the shock of a 3lb gain causes unnecessary stress and that you should avoid that stress by weighing in just once per week. I find that the opposite is true.
My experience of paying attention to the trend line rather than the daily fluctuations helps me realize that a big number on the scales on one morning doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things. Knowledge is power.
Other things I've learned from tracking my weight every day:
- If I eat pasta or pizza, my weight will definitely go up by 3lbs the next day. I try to avoid pizza and pasta but sometimes I lose the family vote. The knowledge that the gain is temporary (it's water retention related to storage of glycogen) allows me to eat my lasagna without stress. If pizza night was the day before my weekly weigh in, I'd be reporting a 3lb gain for the week. Instead, my trend line reports that my weight has barely changed.
- I weigh myself every morning but I sometimes weigh myself before I go to bed just because I'm curious. I can report that I reliably lose about 2lbs every night. It's magic!
Slimming with Strangers colour-codes your weigh-ins to highlight daily gains and losses. Some folks who are on a serious weight-loss drive have green dot after green dot for months on end. I'm close to my target weight and no long trying to lose weight so I have a mix of red and green dots. If I get a red dot one day, it serves as a gentle reminder to avoid the carbs the next day.
SwS also computes a "Daily Deficit" from your trend line. A daily deficit of 500 calories translates to a weight loss of 1lb per week — no calorie counting required. If you have a green daily deficit number, you are losing weight and can relax about the daily ups and downs.
If the app that you use doesn't report a trend line, I recommend finding one that does. I like Slimming with Strangers because it lets me compare my progress with my friends and family without telling them how much I weigh.
Two observations.
You fasted then you made sub-optimal food choices. Maybe if you had eaten lunch, you'd have been in a better position to say no to the chips, onion rings and barbeque sauce. I know everyone goes mad for fasting here, but it seems to be something that you can do WHEN you are fat adapted, when you have been doing lchf for a few months. Assuming from your username that you have not been eating this way in 2019!
Weighing. Yes, the ultimate goal is that our body finds a happy balance of body fat, and it can only do this if we do not shovel a load of sugar and other carbs in to disrupt that balance. I think that's Toad's message about how much we weigh should not be a goal. We can be confident that our body's happy balance is not going to leave us tubby. BUT we are human, and we have grown up believing a number on the scale is important. Therefore weighing ourselves and seeing the number go down OVER A MONTH OR SO (not day to day or even week to week) is really encouraging and helps us to keep going with good food choices. I have myself regretfully concluded that there is no point in setting a target weight, my body must decide that for itself - have dropped out of the Easter Challenge as a result. BUT I am weighing myself a couple of times a week as its spurring me on. I am also using a sticker chart for the days I eat LCHF and that is spurring me on too. Every body is different, but my experience was that I lost a pound the first week of LCHF, and 3 pounds the second. My weight may go up again before tomorrow's weigh in, but that's ok, having seeing the lower number once, I'll see it again, when my body is ready.
I have weird blood sugar stuff so expecting it to be a while / months before I am fat adapted myself. The wee sticks show I am producing ketones though. Woo hoo (of course I didn’t know what ketones were 3 weeks ago...) I’ve felt hungry all afternoon so eaten Stilton all afternoon. 😀
Lol I was up and till a week ago doing the DDD Lifestyle - this means you can eat whatever you like in your window within reason! Fats and carbs and all yes - you are just delaying what you would like until you open your window!
I've been known to weigh myself straight out of bed and again after visiting the bathroom. Not for any health related reason, but because my inner 8 year old wants to know how much my pee weighs. 🤭
There’s a woman on HU who has weighed her boobs for a laugh & to see how they are distorting her bmi number. I confine myself to taking out my earrings & replacing glasses with contact lenses to get a more favourable number.
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