Why Your Weekly Weigh-In At Slimming World/Weight Watchers SUCKS! (This Will Probably Surprise You….)
I can’t stand comparing weekly weighs ins. But I think weighing yourself daily is a problem, too.
Confused?
OK – weighing yourself is a useful part of getting healthier. When you lose fat, you get lighter. So we do need to track body weight.
(I also recommend you track waist measurement, how your clothes are fitting, and how you feel too – but that’s for another post!)
So how often should you weigh?
Monthly? No way. There’s just not enough information here. What if you weighed in one month when you were at your lightest that week. Then the next month you weighed in when you were bloated from food, or puffy from water retention? You’d think something had gone wrong. You might even think your diet or training was wrong. Panic!
Weekly? This is a better idea, but the above could still happen. Weekly weighs in are particularly problematic for women. Your weight (from water!) fluctuates so much during your cycle, weekly weighs in could really get you down. Some of my PT clients can fluctuate by as much as 7lbs between the luteal and follicular phases of their menstrual cycle. But it’s not fat!
This is why if you are comparing weekly weigh ins you should WAIT until you have 5 weeks worth of information until you start comparing.
Week 1 gets compared to Week 5
Week 2 gets compared to Week 6
Week 3 gets compared to Week 7
Week 4 gets compared to Week 8 and so on….
Daily weigh ins: this is the best option of the lot BUT it does carry risks for some people.
Here’s why I like daily weighs ins. You can track tiny fluctuations in your weight (which could be due to the food you ate yesterday, water retention, dehydration, lack of sleep, your cycle) and then see the trend happening over the month. You can take averages. You can see your weight moving as a trend – which is the only TRUE measure we have.
Its been shown that people who regularly weigh themselves often have lower BMI’s.
BUT! Daily weighs ins can be a problem for women who are emotionally invested in the number on the scale. If having to weigh yourself every day is going to make you feel nervous, full of dread, or if the number might affect the rest of your day, what can you do?
Work with a PT or coach to track your weight across the weeks and months. Over time, you’ll get to see that your weight does go up and down, but that the general trend is what we’re looking at. The daily number doesn’t really matter. It’s the average at the end of the week, or the trend over the months that’s important.
In fact, weighing every day can help you to take the emotion out of the number. It becomes just another number to track – like your steps, your sleep, the weight you lifted in the gym.
What do you think? Who here weighs every day? And who’s ever been freaked out by an unexplained “spike” in your weight?
(PS The way your menstrual cycle and its phases affects weight is REALLY interesting. Let me know if you want me to explain why it happens)