To weigh or not to weigh every day

It is common advice: Weigh yourself once a week. Dieters are commonly told, "Just stick to the plan, and the weight will come off."

Then they step on the scale, and nothing has changed. This frustration is blamed on slow metabolism, hormone dysfunction, or some other discrepancy in weight loss that doesn't correlate to reality. Read further to discover how, and why, the scale may be a helpful daily tracker to weight loss efforts. 

In a registry of people who have lost significant amounts of weight, those who kept the weight off were daily weighers. They build this practice into daily life as a measure of how they're doing. Perhaps it's just the type of people they are, but regardless, it is successful. Another study found that the more frequently a person weighed, the more weight they lost. 

While some reading this have been down this road before, let's discuss the mechanisms that might fool our scale-standing friends into weighing more or less. First, dietary carbohydrate: carbohydrates in particular are a good way to pack on water weight: 1g of stored muscle glycogen carries 3g of water. Since our body can store up to 500g in the muscles and 100g in the liver, that's around 4 pounds of water and 1.5l pounds of glycogen. Anyone who has started a low-carb diet knows this as the first week of the diet is shedding this weight (and probably not very much fat).

A high-sodium diet can influence the saturation of our cells and cause water retention. This can also amount to several pounds. The mechanism behind this is the equilibrium of fluids in our body needs to be maintained on a pH level. Therefore, the high sodium needs to be balanced with more fluids until the sodium is excreted. 

Another way to make for a distorted scale weight is bingeing on foods the day or night before the weigh-in. This is not actually getting "fatter" overnight but rather the slow process of digestion. It takes up to 72 hours to eliminate a large meal. Keep this in mind, as there are times when out-of-normal eating (especially a lot of meat) can keep a few pounds pending in the large intestine for a day or two. 

Compromised sleep leads to an increase in cortisol (the body's stress marker) which in turn down-regulates satiety (feeling of satisfaction with food) and up-regulates fat storage. In one study, participants did two trials, sleeping for 8 hours or 5 hours while trying to lose weight. The result: 3.3 vs. 1.3 pounds of fat loss.

With all these problems, the scale, which is an accurate measure of absolute weight, might actually become a grey area regarding how much you are losing. The argument for the scale is that stepping on daily brings the matter forth in your mind. It's a primer for the day. You recognize where you're at and can reason out why the weight is were it is. Once a databank is created over several weeks, a trend emerges. Look at weekly average or bi-weekly averages as a valid measure. 

If you are weight training or using vigorous exercise as a weight-loss mode, you may experience gained muscles mass (and decreased fat mass) as well as the body storing more carbohydrates. This ought to be considered as well. A body-fat measurement after a month would be applicable - and you would then be able to correlate the scale with body fat proportions. 

Some people who possess a defeating mindset might discourage themselves with weighing every day. This is a major concern, one that must not be overlooked. The anxious, perfectionist mindset which will only obsess over their weight. In this situation, it only makes things worse to weigh every day. Dissociate the weigh-in from self-worth. Imagine all the other benefits healthy eating and exercise are providing. If it doesn't get better over time, discontinue weight loss until the anxiety or self deprecation subsides. Others can help and a support team is often necessary to lose weight and keep it off. 

The scale is an excellent tool, but it has to be used consistently. With weight constantly fluctuating, weighing once or twice a week will not give a good data set. Knowing how the body reacts to different dietary inputs and exercises it is important to recognize a trend, not an absolute value. A pound or two is easily lost or held onto. Once the trend is set in the right direction, it will be a long journey. Know this and use the scale as the guiding compass.