How Often Should You Weigh Yourself When Trying To Lose Weight?
You stepped on the scale to weigh yourself. Apart from immediately stepping on the scale again to make sure the number’s right, when’s the next time you should step on the scale again?
If research is any indication, then the answer is probably tomorrow.
Based on the findings of various studies, daily weighing is preferable to weekly scale readings, as subjects who weighed themselves every day have routinely been found to experience greater weight loss than those who didn’t weigh themselves as often.1For example, freshmen college students in a Cornell study who weighed themselves every morning didn’t put on any weight from the beginning to the end of the semester. Students in the treatment group who didn’t weigh themselves with as much regularity gained an average of 5 lbs.
In another study, 1042 adults were tracked over a year. Those who weighed themselves once a week or less didn’t achieve significant weight loss while the average weight loss of those who weighed themselves daily was 1.7 percent.
Why the difference?
Why people lose more weight when they weigh themselves daily as opposed to less often has to do with self-monitoring, or the ability to observe and evaluate your own behavior. How it works is like this: stepping on the scale every day and seeing your weight provides a constant record of what you are or aren’t doing, which is feedback that can either help hold you accountable or provide motivation, if not both.
So yeah, weigh yourself every day!2NOTE: That’s every day at the same time in similar clothing on the same scale, of course! Click the link for more instructions on how to weigh yourself on a scale!
…but on the other hand, you might not want to do what was just suggested.
Although studies haven’t found harmful psychological effects with daily weighing, you probably shouldn’t do it if you’ve suffered or are suffering from an eating disorder, a negative body image, low self-esteem, depression, or anxiety about your weight. Instead, weigh yourself weekly, as should be done by someone who’s at their goal weight and is only looking to maintain it.
Now, what if I told you that when efforting to lose weight, it’s not necessary to ever weigh yourself? Would you want to bet me a million dollars that it’s not true?
Well, you not needing to weigh yourself when you’re losing weight is exactly what I’m telling you and you now owe me a million smackeroos because that factoid is true!
There are a number of ways to track progress apart from stepping on a scale, the method that people automatically resort to as if it’s part of the default programming humans are hardwired with in this Sims video game we call “reality”.
Some of these ways of checking weight loss without a scale include measuring tape, old clothes and how they fit, progress pics, and calipers, DEXA scans, and other body fat assessments. Those are just a few options for you to consider, most of which should be implemented weekly, if not more infrequently, to monitor change, something that takes longer to become observable with the given methods.
But if you do fall back on using the old standby, the scale, then it’s best to weigh yourself every day for the much more immediate feedback and quicker ability to notice a trend and respond to it, a luxury not afforded by less frequent weigh-ins and, for example, circumference measurements.
