How often should you weigh yourself?

In your fitness program, the scale can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Learn about how often you should weigh yourself and the factors that can cause minor weight fluctuations.

By Ensure Fitness staff

Weight loss can be frustrating and weighing in on a scale can be the most frustrating experience of all. Read how to get motivated by learning how often you should weight yourself while on a weight loss or fitness program.

How to use a scale in a fitness or weight loss program

Your fitness is important to you and you want to make sure the tools you use in your fitness program are high quality and accurate. To start, toss out that old bathroom scale you’ve had since college and invest in a high quality digital scale. You don’t have to break the bank to buy a high quality scale either. Just get one that does what you need it to do: provide you with accurate readings that are clear to read.

Now comes the actual weighing in. You should weigh yourself in the morning after voiding and while wearing nothing at all. That’s right, weight yourself in the nude to avoid any fluctuations due to what you are wearing at the time of each weigh in. This way you can be sure that the reading on your scale is your real weight.

What is a healthy weigh-in frequency?

The next question is how often you should weigh yourself. If you are just starting a fitness or weight loss program, weigh yourself before you begin the program and then weigh yourself at regular intervals throughout your program.

If you are the type who wants to see tiny, incremental results, you may be inclined to weight in every day, even keeping track of your weight on a daily basis. This can be a sure road to disappointment because there are several factors that make your weight fluctuate on a daily basis. Checking your weight daily can lead to an obsession with the numbers.

Ideally, you should weight yourself when you’ve done something significant to warrant checking your weight. Working out for a week is a good time as is after a week of dieting. In fact, many people will find that a weekly weigh-in is not only a part of the fitness ritual, it is a strong motivator for the upcoming week of diet and exercise.

If you are already fit and are just looking to maintain your health, twice a month or monthly can be appropriate times between weigh-ins. Whatever you choose, make sure you are keeping track of your weight in a journal so that you can check to see what is working for you and what is not.

What causes minor weight fluctuations?

There are three main factors that contribute to minor or daily weight fluctuations. Certainly your diet is one factor. It is not so much the number calories you ate the day before but the amount of food you ate and when you ate it. Late dinners and nighttime snacking can lead to undigested food still in your system when you weigh yourself.

Environment is another factor. A particularly hot day means more sweating which temporarily reduces the amount of water your body is carrying. At eight pounds per gallon, even a small reduction of the water in your body can show up on the scale the next morning.

The last major factor is activity level. If you were sedentary the day before your weigh-in, your body may not be digesting food the same way it would if you had been active. This is one reason why being consistently active from day to day contributes to even weight loss during any program.

The point of a weigh-in is to provide you with some data on your current fitness level. Getting obsessed with the numbers can lead to stress which can be a barrier to weight loss. Pick a weigh-in schedule and stick with it. You will be happier with the results if you are able to see progress between weigh-ins.