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Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

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Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#11

Post by jadence »

char wrote: post #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.

Weighing yourself hourly to see how quickly you're burning energy is misguiding. When you burn carbs/fat you're not expelling them from the body. You're converting them to another form in a process that releases energy that your body can use. E=mc^2 considerations aside, as you wouldn't be able to detect those differences anyway, your weight is still the same. The waste products later get expelled when you go to the bathroom, sweat, etc.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#12

Post by ekanes »

mmastrac wrote: post #3

This is one of the tips espoused by the Hacker's Diet. I used this more than a decade ago to drop 20lbs: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html The concept should be familiar to those in startup land, though: "You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure"

Since your day-to-day weight fluctuates, daily weighing wouldn't show you accurate day-to-day improvements properly. My guess is that weighing yourself daily is more about staying focused and engaged; you're constantly checking-in with what you're doing, and more likely to think about it and stick with it.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#13

Post by ebiester »

johnswamps wrote: post #10
char wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The excel graph will take into account those little things. As long as the direction continues downward, the daily numbers don't matter.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#14

Post by joshstaiger »

ekanes wrote: post #12
mmastrac wrote: post #3

This is one of the tips espoused by the Hacker's Diet. I used this more than a decade ago to drop 20lbs: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html The concept should be familiar to those in startup land, though: "You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure"

Since your day-to-day weight fluctuates, daily weighing wouldn't show you accurate day-to-day improvements properly. My guess is that weighing yourself daily is more about staying focused and engaged; you're constantly checking-in with what you're doing, and more likely to think about it and stick with it.

The Hacker's Diet accounts for this by encouraging you to look at a moving average of your daily weight, rather than the number itself:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/signalnoise.html#Fa73

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#15

Post by 3fiddyz »

Weight lose is super simple, I am down 25kg since Jan 2010 following the primal blueprint guidelines: http://www.marksdailyapple.com

No gimmicks, no hours of pounding the pavement, no stupid exercise machines, no processed crap food, just eat the right healthy and natural foods and your body will naturally drop down to the right body fat percentage. Plus I can eat heaps of bacon and steak and not feel guilty about it anymore.

This video is fantastic, well worth the 90 minutes to watch it, explains in detail what happens to carbs in your body: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=playe...

This is a fantastic movie also, highly recommend you get a copy: http://www.fathead-movie.com

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#17

Post by jamesbritt »

When I was actively trying to lose weight, I was checking it every day. What I found was that I might lose a pound every day or so, then next day I'm up 3 pounds. But over time I was noticing a new, lower, upper limit to the down/up cycle.

At first it was 205, then 200, then 197, and now I'm surprised if I go over 180.

Yeah, checking it helped me keep u running and not eating crap, because it gave me some sense of accomplishment and further motivation.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#18

Post by Evgeny »

As a personal anecdote, daily weigh-in was crucial for my (rather humble) weight loss - from 82 to 75 kg in about 12 weeks. I would weigh myself in at the same time - in the morning, before taking in any food or drink, but after taking care of the bodily needs. I never had the need to count the calories, so I have absolutely no idea what my calorie intake was while losing weight compared to normal diet. I do, however, keep a fairly consistent eating regime. So, the daily weigh in results were just used to adjust the size of portions a little bit here and there. It definitely helped.

Re: Daily Weigh-In May Help Dieters Lose

#19

Post by Evgeny »

johnswamps wrote: post #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 2…

I found that weighing myself in the morning, after going to the bathroom but before eating or drinking anything gave the most consistent results.

Seems logical to me, the body has been given enough time to process / eliminate the results of your latest food / drink intake, so there would be the least amount of 'fluctuation'.

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