I never weigh myself anymore

I never weigh myself anymore besides the yearly physical at the doctor’s office. I gave up on the scale years ago because I kept getting different numbers every-time I weighed myself, mainly because the scale that I had was broken and I noticed fluctuations every day. I have always put more concern into how my clothes fit anyways, so throwing the scale in the trash wasn’t that big of a deal to me.

Your weight will fluctuate daily due to many different factors. Including but not limited to; water retention, sodium intake, carbohydrate intake, bowel movements, urination, menstrual cycle, water absorption in your skin, perspiration, hormones and many other reasons.

One thing that I recently learned is that when you consume foods with a lot of salt and bread your body will naturally store more water. Sodium and carbohydrates require extra water stored in the body. When you consume more sodium, you drink more water because you are thirsty. For every gram of Glycogen (unused Carbohydrates are converted to Glycogen and stored) your body stores 3-4 grams of water. This makes a lot of sense to me because I have noticed after eating fast food or eating at restaurants where the food has a lot of salt and bread, I looked puffier the next day. It’s not because I gained weight from the food that I ate, it’s because I consumed a lot of sodium and carbohydrates, therefore my body stored more water making me look puffier. Eventually your body will release the water and the scale will go back down.

In my opinion the best indicator of progress is how you feel and how your clothes fit. Measurements are also a great tool, but there is a lot of room for error when taking measurements. Moving the tape measure one inch up or down on your arm can make your measurements fluctuate. Another error you can make when taking measurements is how tightly you pull on the measuring tape. You can easily be off by an inch depending on how you pull on the tape. If you are measuring once a week or every other week, chances of you remembering the exact spot on your body that you measured and how tight you pulled on the tape is next to impossible. It’s very possible for you to make progress but the scale doesn’t move, or your measurements fluctuate.