Each month, we host a group coaching session within our Facebook Group and post the notes here for your reference. You can check out the video here.
This month we are chatting about weight fluctuations – whether or not you should track your weight, the patterns you will notice and why it is very normal for your weight to fluctuate!
First and foremost, I want to highlight that it is not always a great idea to weigh yourself. If you have a history of dieting, weighing yourself frequently, a poor relationship with food or poor body image, it may not be the best thing for you to do.
If you have no interest in knowing your weight, there is no need to start doing it either!
However, education is key when it comes to all things nutrition related and this is the purpose of this article – to give some more information about what is normal in terms of weight fluctuations.
Collecting data
Your weight is just one piece of data that will give some information about your progress towards your goals. It is not the whole story and should not be the only thing that you use to reflect back on!
It is best to collect data over time if this is something that you are interested in. Your weight will fluctuate over time and over that time, you will start to notice some patterns.
Reasons why your weight will fluctuate
There a number of reasons that your weight will fluctuate up and down each day. Some of these include:
Salt – when you consume more salt than normal, you body will hold more water than usual
Carbohydrates – similarly, when you consume more carbs than normal, your body will store more water. In the same way, if you eat less carbs than normal your body will hold less water than normal and your weight will go down
Volume of food – if you have a larger volume of food, or if you weigh yourself at a different time to normal, your weight may fluctuate
Toilet – your weight can definitely go up if you need to go to the toilet!
Look for trends
What we are looking for, over time, is the trends that are showing in your data. If fat loss is your goal, then we are just looking to see if those low points with your weight are gradually getting lower. This may happen each week, or over a few weeks and even months.
Similarly, if you goal is to increase your muscle mass, you are looking for small increases in your high points over time.
You can also use the data to notice pattern which can help you trouble shoot if things are not progressing the way you would like. For example, if your weight has been stable for a few months, you can look at when it is going up (perhaps over the weekend) and possibly address this area of you diet.
Common things you will see happen with your weight:
Drops – you will see your weight drop but it may not be regular or even often. That is OK and perfectly normal.
Plateau – this can happen for days or weeks at a time.
Increase – there will inevitably be increases in your weight from time to time – again this is normal!
Removing your emotions from the number on the scale can be very powerful in helping you to improve your relationship with food, your body and your weight. Whether you weigh yourself or not, I hope that having more information about the process gives you some insight (and possible some relief) that you are on the right track!
If you need help navigating this area of weight management, contact us and we can help you out!