When should you weigh yourself when you are on a diet and planning to lose weight? There are many tips for when a how to weigh yourself but the key factor is consistency.
Get a decent set of scales: If you are looking for accurate weight readings week after week, it is important to have a decent set of scales. Now I don’t mean expensive, fancy talking scales or anything like that. But try to avoid something super cheap because chances are they will not be totally accurate and more importantly, consistent, from one measurement to the next.
How often should you weigh yourself: Our weight fluctuates naturally during the day and from one day to the next. It would be easy to starve yourself and weigh yourself the next day and see a decrease. But for people wanting to lose weight gradually, as part of a diet or a lifestyle change, weighing and recording your weight once a week is plenty. Record your weight in a spreadsheet week by week, along with the date, and if you create a graph our of the readings you should see a trend start to appear after a couple of weeks (hopefully downward!).
Pick a day and stick to it: Resist the tempation to weigh yourself every day. While it can give you a boost that yesterday was a great diet day, it can also make you feel bad if you have put on a pound since 24 hours ago. If you think you have lost weight and want to give yourself a well done, then by all means weigh yourself. But only write down or record your weight once a week.
Personally I weigh myself on a Monday. My fast days are through the week, so in theory I am weighing myself on my heaviest day of the week. But if the weight is coming down regularly and even at my heaviest I am seeing a loss, that that’s a great sign. I think it is quite false to weigh yourself directly after one or two fast days. Yes the number might look good, but that’s also the lightest you are going to be all week. So if you weighed yourself a couple of days later you might get a nasty shock when you were a bit heavier. So why not avoid that risk and weigh yourself on your heaviest day and give yourself a well done that you are almost definitely lighter than that for most of the week.
When to weigh yourself: When you think about when in the day to weigh yourself, try to remember the consistency factor that we are aiming for every time. You want your weight measurement to be as comparable as possible to other measurements you made. During the day your weight can go up and down as you eat, drink, expel waste, exercise, etc.
I think the most consistent approach is to weigh yourself first thing in the morning. And I mean first thing. Get up, go to the loo and then stand on the scales. Do this before you have anything to eat or drink in the morning.
By following these suggestions you should be able to produce the most consistent weigh in measurements week after week. After that, the dieting part is up to you!