1,000 Health and Fitness Tips #0021: Weigh In Daily...But Don’t Focus On Daily Weights
One Framework For Tracking Bodyweight
Contrary to the opinion that daily weigh-ins are a bad idea, I think it’s useful to weigh yourself daily when trying to gain or lose weight because it gives you data to go off of when deciding to adjust or maintain your current caloric intake and physical activity.
And, I think it’s better than weighing yourself weekly or monthly because you may get an inaccurate weight when doing so due to the normal fluctuations in weight on any given day.
For example, if you happen to have picked a day where your weight swung up or down a few pounds you could miss that you have been losing, maintaining, or gaining weight on average for the past MONTH or two.
One big caveat I keep in mind for daily weighing is that these daily fluctuations in weight are the same reason I think you shouldn’t make decisions on what or how much to eat/move based on what you weighed in at on any single day or even handful of consecutive days.
Instead, if you are trying to change or maintain your body weight, I think it’s useful to look at many consecutive daily weigh-ins from a zoomed-out perspective to identify the trend in your weight over time–I’m talking over several weeks or even months. Then, I think you can get a more accurate and useful picture of whether what you have been doing to change or maintain your weight is working.