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Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

webmd.com

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Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#2
This is pretty obvious to me, made complicated by people who want super answers or miracle get rich quicks or anything like that. If you see your weight every day and seeing it going up, you eat less. If you see it going down, you get motivated and stay on the same track.

"I lost 20 pounds...How? I drank bear piss and took up fencing. How the fuck you think, son? I exercised."

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#4

This is pretty obvious to me, made complicated by people who want super answers or miracle get rich quicks or anything like that. If you see your weight every day and seeing it going up, you eat less. If you see it going down, you get motivated and stay on the same track. "I lost 20 pounds...How? I drank bear piss and took up fencing. How the fuck you think, son? I exercised."

People will probably bite back saying that exercise doesn't correlate with weight loss. That is true, but less important than the ultimate result: persistent weight loss. And exercise corresponds damned well with persistent weight loss. Cheers!

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#6
I can confirm this. I weighed myself every morning since the end of December 09 and I have dropped 53.2 pounds (240 lb to 186.8 lb).

Obviously the weighing in didn't make me the lose the weight, it was the reinforcement and the notice of a gradual change (or gradual increase day-over-day) that kept me going with my new eating habits.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#7
I have no idea if it works or not, but I want to point out two things. 1: It seems that this is a correlation study rather than a causality study. 2: Your weight can fluctuate on a day to day basis, especially depending on what you've eaten recently, how much water you've drank, the time of day, whether you've gone to the bathroom, etc. The overall trend over a larger period of time is what's important. Still, this 2nd argument may be irrelevant if the point is just to keep you motivated rather than to track your weight.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#8
This definitely works for me. I weigh myself each morning and night. I frequently weigh myself after drinking x glasses of water or eating a meal. Sometimes I'll even weigh myself hourly to learn how quickly I'm burning energy. After a few years, I've gotten a really good idea of what (and how much) I should be eating to lose or maintain my weight.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#9

I have no idea if it works or not, but I want to point out two things. 1: It seems that this is a correlation study rather than a causality study. 2: Your weight can fluctuate on a day to day basis, especially depending on what you've eaten recently, how much water you've drank, the time of day, whether you've gone to the bathroom, etc. The overall trend over a larger period of time is what's important. Still, this 2…

Yes, but if you keep track of it, you learn how much weight a glass of water adds, for example, and you can calibrate for that. I'd say you learn more about how to control your weight in the long run if you keep track of these daily fluctuations.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#10
post #9

I have no idea if it works or not, but I want to point out two things. 1: It seems that this is a correlation study rather than a causality study. 2: Your weight can fluctuate on a day to day basis, especially depending on what you've eaten recently, how much water you've drank, the time of day, whether you've gone to the bathroom, etc. The overall trend over a larger period of time is what's important. Still, this 2…

Yes, but if you keep track of it, you learn how much weight a glass of water adds, for example, and you can calibrate for that. I'd say you learn more about how to control your weight in the long run if you keep track of these daily fluctuations.

But these fluctuations are often just noise. Having a glass of water before you step on the scale isn't going to help you lose or gain weight, but it still shows up on the scale. You're just micro-managing things that don't matter on this point. And then are just some things you can't control. If you have bowel movements at the same time every day, then that's not an issue; but if you go at different times every day (or not even every day), you might register as having gained two pounds one morning, when in fact you ate at a caloric deficit the day before.

But if you are going to weigh yourself every morning, keep this in mind and try to keep the exact same conditions every morning. Do it at the same time every day, either eat breakfast before weighing yourself every time or after every time, etc., otherwise you'll be worrying about changes in weight that don't mean anything.

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