I Weighed Myself Every Hour And THIS Happened. Answering, “How Much Does Weight Fluctuate Within A Day?”
Starting on your weight loss journey, it can be exciting to step on the scale and look to see if you’ve made any progress. You might start off with weekly weigh-ins, but then find that you start weighing yourself daily, “just to see.” Next thing you know, you’re not just checking the scale daily — you’re checking it obsessively throughout the day.
This isn’t an uncommon experience on a fat loss journey. The scale can be incredibly powerful as a consistent tool for measuring progress, but the tool doesn’t tell all. Becoming obsessed with the scale and your weigh-ins can be detrimental to your progress and throw you off track. Today we’re going to dive into how often your weight actually fluctuates from hour-to-hour, and hopefully help you feel more relaxed around the scale.
why its easy to become obsessed with the scale
Weight fluctuation is un-avoidable. Its rare for anyone to find themselves sitting at exactly the same weight from day-to-day. If you’re not consistently weighing yourself, you would have no idea about this constant fluctuation.
Only weighing yourself once or twice a year at the doctor wouldn’t even give you this knowledge of how often your weight is actually fluctuating.
You really begin to become aware of this weight fluctuation when you enter your fitness or health journey. If you have goals of losing fat or building muscle, this will typically require weekly progress check-ins to make sure that you’re still on track. With this, usually the scale is involved.
Of course, you’re hoping to see progress in the right direction on the scale (whether it be up or down). But its also inevitable that there is going to be at least one week on this journey when you see the scale either stall or move in the opposite direction that you want it to.
It can feel like all of your efforts from the weeks prior were wasted and this mindset can get us to spiral. This mindset, if you allow it to consistently infiltrate your brain, can lead to self-sabotage with your goals.
This tends to then lead to more obsessive weigh-ins. Almost habitually, you may find yourself checking the scale daily. And then when it becomes really obsessive, it can be weigh-ins multiple times a day.
The reason this is self-sabotage is because your weight is always fluctuating up and down. Hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly. The goal of weigh-ins is so to make sure that your weight is fluctuating in the direction that you want it to. Even if it doesn’t appear that your weight has changed at all from the previous week, there can be so much more that goes into this. One week of the scale being “off” from the goal means absolutely nothing about your progress.
There is much more that goes into it.
What Causes Weight Fluctuation?
Bigger jumps or fluctuations in the scale can be caused by the following:
Eating larger portions of food
Drinking water
Drinking alcohol
Consuming too much or too little fiber
Digestive issues
High carb intake (leading to a temporary increase in water retention)
Sodium intake intake (leading to a temporary increase in water retention)
Menstrual cycle (typically you’ll see bigger jumps right before your period)
There are a variety of other reasons why you may see the scale fluctuate that DO NOT directly mean fat gain.
Just because the scale goes up does not mean that you’re gaining fat; it is completely normal for your body to fluctuate from 2-6 pounds within a day, sometimes more, depending on the day.
For example, if you’re generally healthy and decide to go on vacation and splurge on some mimoas (or Bailey’s if you’re me), some bomb local food with higher sodium and carb intake- then its likely you’ll see some bigger weight fluctuations.
Some of this may definitely be a slight amount of body fat (body fat fluctuates too, just not as much). Most of it will just be water weight and normal weight fluctuations.
A week back to your everyday life and you will see the scale fluctuate down a bit as your habits go back to normal.
Weighing Myself Every Hour
For this experiment, I’m eating, drinking, and continuing my everyday habits as usual, which tend to be relatively healthy.
To give you an idea:
My diet is mostly vegetarian-based
I drink 1 gallon of water / day
I walk 10,000 steps / day
I did not workout on this day (but if I did, my weight would fluctuate more from inflammation)
Most of my time is currently spent sitting while I work
The Weight / Scale Log
8:44 AM: 151.0 (20.6% body fat)
First weigh-in, first thing in the morning before using the bathroom
8:51: 150.60 (20.5% body fat)
Weigh-in immediately after using bathroom. I was also dehydrated this morning.
10:51 AM: 150.2 lbs (20.4% body fat)
After going on a long walk.
1:25 PM: 152.8 lbs (20.8% body fat)
After eating a meal.
1:35 PM: 151.20 (20.6% body fat)
After using the restroom.
4:33 PM: 150.4 (N/A)
During small break between clients. I was mostly sitting all day at this point.
6:41 PM: 150.4 (20.5% bf)
After a snack.
8:15 PM: 149.6 (20.3% bf)
After going for another walk, before bed.
As you can see, my weight fluctuated between 149 pounds and 153 pounds within a single day.
With a relatively healthy and consistent lifestyle, my weight could have easily fluctuated up to 5 or 6 pounds within a given day, especially had I lifted weights on this day.
While the scale is a great way to measure progress over time, weight alone is not something to obsess over.
A Better Way of Tracking Your Progress
I highly recommend using body fat measurements and levels to measure progress instead. I’ve been using this body fat measurement scale, which allows me to measure my body fat through bioelectrical impedance. These scales will typically be a little off from the numbers you’ll find on DEXA scans, but they can be helpful for having an additional piece of data for more context.
While my weight fluctuated throughout the day, my body fat levels stayed relatively consistent. Although our body fat also fluctuates throughout our day (less consistently and dramatically than weight). Ultimately, our body fat levels should be consistently going down, while the scale may have lots of reasons to go up that don’t impact your body fat levels whatsoever. The scale tells a lot, but it doesn’t tell everything.
Conclusion
Weight fluctuation is normal. Give yourself time to achieve your goal and allow yourself to fully trust the process, so that you can enjoy more and self-sabotage on your fitness journey less!
