The other day, when I asked you all about your vacation habits, a couple of people perceived the anecdotal mentions of two one day weigh-ins as the main point of my post. The post was supposed to be about how I believe you should let yourself take breaks from the stresses that sometimes come along with trying to lose weight. But some people missed my point.JD wrote the following:
Mackenzie: One-day weights are meaningless! [The exclamation point briefly ticked me off] The 167 when you left and the 172 when you returned mean nothing without additional context. Do you really think you lost seven pounds after four days of clean eating? There are so many variables that go into a daily weight that only extended averages matter in any way. I think you know this, but you keep building blog entries around one-day anomalies
Shortly after, fit36.com left this comment. With all that “heavy day” and “light day” talk, for a second, I thought I was being spammed by a tampon manufacturer.
But then I got to thinking about their comments and I came to the conclusion that they are wrong! [The exclamation point might briefly tick JD off] I truly believe that one day weigh-ins, even WITH all the flaws (dehydration, water retention etc.) that come with them can truly have meaning for those of us who are watching our weight. Let me explain my thinking.
One Day Weigh-Ins Provide Motivation to get us to our Goals
How many times have we stepped on the scale, expecting to see a certain number, and been totally deflated by what we’ve seen? Some of us are able to shrug it off. The salt from last night’s dinner or the 5 extra glasses of water yesterday afternoon are to blame for why we weigh more today than we did yesterday. We remind ourselves that the trend is what matters. Let’s calculate the moving average to see where we really are.
But some of us get pissed off and take one of two courses: we either give up and go back to being fat, or we work harder that day to make sure the next weigh in is better than the last. I recommend choosing the latter option, by the way.
It doesn’t matter which of those two courses we choose, for the sake of this argument, the one day weigh-in has meaning.
One Day Weigh-Ins are the Keystones of a Weight-Loss Trend
I’m pretty sure that the people who discourage the use of one day weigh-ins use some type of moving average when determining their “weight.” And I’m not against this at all. In fact, before I got my scale and started using the dailyburn, I logged my weight into physicsdiet every day. Moving averages ARE good ways to filter out the noise of “off” weigh ins. But let’s be clear. ALL of the data used to calculate their moving averages are…wait for it…ONE DAY WEIGH-INS! Without those one day weigh-ins holding up them up, those moving averages would crumble to the ground. So again, for the sake of this argument, the one day weigh-in has meaning.
I said earlier that I think JD and fit36.com are wrong when they say that one day weigh-ins are “meaningless.” And Ted, has previously written about the dangers of judging fitness by the numbers on a scale. But I don’t want you to think that I believe that your one day numbers are the single most important factor you should look at when you’re analyzing the progress you’re making to get to your goals. The general direction you are headed, either towards your goal or away from it, is more important than where you are at any current instant. In this aspect, all of the aforementioned people are correct. But don’t forget, that the string of daily numbers is what determines the direction you are headed.
Here’s to achieving that string of one day weigh-ins that you are hoping for!
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Daily weigh ins are meaningful when you are analyzing the data properly. Do a google search for The Hackers Diet. I’ve been following it for several months now. It has the formulas for calculating your weight as a moving average. So if I step on the scale today and my weight is less than my moving average from yesterday I know I’m making progress. I also like the The Hackers Diet because it gives you the tools to calculate your daily calorie goals.
Mac – I TOTALLY agree with you!!! (extra exclamation points) Because weight fluctuates I use near-daily weigh-ins to show if the trend is moving up or moving down. If I just did a (random) weekly weigh-in, because the fluctuation, I wouldn’t know if what I was doing was really working in the right direction I wanted to go. The moving average is the best indicator for me and for that, I need the near-daily weigh-ins.
Mac, I agree with you! [exclamation point to tick somebody off - I'm not sure who yet
]
BUT, the key is it has to use the number as part of the moving average (as RC mentioned – and you too
), not a daily measure of your behavior the day before. I think that is where many of us get tripped up (myself at times included) mentally, and thus why it can be a “dangerous” method since you can easily get discouraged.
Beyond the danger of discouragement, I don’t understand the reasoning that to make a more accurate moving average you want less data points by eliminating daily weigh-ins. To me, for moving averages, more data is better…But I’m far from a scientist here.
Thanks Mac – and great way to polarize a post
My .02:
I weigh in weekly because daily weigh-in’s cause me stress. Now, if I could weigh-in daily and not see the number until it was averaged at the end of the week, I’d do it.
I can’t, though, so it’s weekly for me.
Phil
I completely agree with you about daily weigh-ins! So what if your weight is up today because of too much salt yesterday. What matters is that you are getting a reminder to watch your salt intake more carefully today! I find daily weigh-ins to be motivational.
People are confusing daily weigh-ins with “one day weights” (JD’s term). In my view, daily weigh-ins are fantastic for providing data for tracking trends. I do them myself. But if you look at at a “one day weight” in isolation, you’ll often be misled, and you might end up discouraged.
In fact, daily weigh-ins themselves show the fallacy of the one day weight as you’ll see huge and often seemingly random fluctuations from one day to the next. While this can be useful for spotting things like the effects of a salty diet, they don’t really speak to “real” changes in body weight.
As RC points out, this is where things like the Hacker’s Diet come in, as the smoothing of the daily weights gives you a picture of your “true” weight and allows you to see meaningful changes.
Amen!
I find daily weigh-ins essential for keeping me on track.
To be clear, I think that people that are interested in losing (or maintaining) weight *should* weigh themselves daily. This is an incredibly useful habit. The only problem I have is when people attach too much meaning to one or two of those weigh-ins rather than viewing the overall pattern that emerges.
Very good points, but after 10 years of keeping my weight in check (and it’s a fight) I have to say, at least for me, anything more than 1x per week will do more harm than good.
I still think JD owes you an apology for that exclamation point, there’s no room in online friendships for yelling
I weigh everyday for tracking purposes (and to satisfy my OCD curiosity…I have a spreadsheet to fill damnit!). I only post my weight once a week though for blog purposes.
I know the topic is more the drop-in, what is the weight today top post. I think there is value in that both up and down. I feel good when my weight is down. However, I am totally in the weigh yourself every day category and look at the moving average. In fact, I have getfitslowly scale envy. One of these days I’ll pick up one of those wifi scales.
I find that daily weigh ins allow me to immediately address a bad gain in weight, and to immediately see my progress. I track my weight on DailyBurn.com so that I can get a nice graph. It’s the only thing I really use DailyBurn for, but I like to see the fruits of my labor over time.
Nickel’s right. I’m not against daily weigh-ins. I weight myself promptly when I wake up every morning! I’m all for the daily weigh in. What I’m warning against is reading too much into one-day weights. I stand by my statement that one-day weights are meaningless. It’s like looking looking at your current pace while running. Maybe you’re doing a 12minute mile, or maybe you’re doing a 4minute mile. But that pace means nothing isolated from everything else, and you can’t make decisions based on just that one reading. That’s what I’m trying to say, because sometimes it seems like my pal Macdaddy lets one-day weights bug him too much. And he shouldn’t do that.
To clarify @jdroth’s comment: Nickel = fit36.com