You should step on the scale first thing in the morning. That's when you'll get your most accurate weight because your body has had the overnight hours to digest and process whatever you ate and drank the day before. And you should try to turn that step into a regular part of your routine.
Your lowest weight of the day will be after you wake up and empty your bladder. You may choose to weigh yourself at another time of day, but you must continue to weigh yourself at that time on the same scale for an accurate measurement.
Under normal conditions, we're all heavier at the end of the day. Not fatter, heavier. Natural variability means that somebody like me can easily weigh 3-4 kilos (6.6-8.8lbs) more at night time. Which is why it's best for us to step on the scales at the same time of day each time.
In the morning, when we get up, we get rid of this extra fluid by peeing. That's why, when people weigh themselves after using the bathroom in the morning, they're generally at their lowest weight of the day.
Why Does My Weight Fluctuate So Much? Since many people can't eat enough in a day or two to actually gain 5 or 10 pounds, if you notice a dramatic increase on the scale, chances are it's due to water, says Anita Petruzzelli, M.D., owner and medical director of BodyLogicMD.
"We can weigh 5, 6, 7 pounds more at night than we do first thing in the morning," Hunnes says. Part of that is thanks to all the salt we consume throughout the day; the other part is that we may not have fully digested (and excreted) everything we at and drank that day yet.
“Your weight won't be consistent if you weigh yourself on Friday and Monday,” she says. “Many people have a different routine on the weekends. They might eat out more, drink alcohol or snack more. Compare that to Friday, if you've been eating consistently for five days, and you'll see a big difference.”
“Your skin is the largest organ in the body and absorbs fluid easily,” says Dr. Keith Kantor, a leading nutritionist and CEO of the Nutritional Addiction Mitigation Eating and Drinking (NAMED) program. “After a swim or a shower, your body can absorb 1 to 3 cups of water, increasing your true weight by a few pounds.”
Why does my weight fluctuate so much? “Everyone's weight fluctuates throughout the day, and especially from morning to night,” says dietitian Anne Danahy, MS, RDN. “The average change is 2 to 5 pounds, and it's due to fluid shifts throughout the day.” If you see fluctuations of less than 5 pounds, you needn't worry.
In some people, especially those who have been dieting or fasting, a meal high in carbohydrates, such as pasta or rice, can be stored as glycogen. Glycogen is stored with water, which causes an individual to gain water weight very quickly – as much as 2 pounds overnight.
It's impossible to gain five pounds of fat in a day – to do this, you'd have to eat over 20,000 calories in 24 hours. When your scale shows a higher number, it's usually water weight. Here are 10 reasons why you might be surprised by the number on your scale in the morning.
The balance between energy in (eating) and energy out (burning off those calories) is why your weight goes up and down. If you take in more than you burn, you gain weight -- sometimes right away.
Since you're not eating or drinking during the night (unless you get the midnight munchies), your body has a chance to remove extra fluids (that's why you pee so much in the morning when you wake up). So weigh yourself in the morning ... after you pee. 2.
As soon as you bend down, the muscles in your body that do the bending also act to pull up the lower half of your body. So this reduces the pressure your body places on the scales, and make you appear to weigh less.
You may think you weigh a certain number, but the truth is that hardly anyone weighs the same day after day. "In general, weight fluctuates up to 3-4 pounds daily due to water weight or lack of moving bowels, so I don't feel weighing oneself daily is necessary or a good measure of true weight loss," says Kessler.
For example, one hair alone can withstand a strain of 3.5 ounces — almost 1/4 pound. Water can affect some properties of your hair. For example, your hair can weigh 12 to 18 percent more when it's wet. Wet hair can also stretch 30 percent longer without damage.
Urination may also cause other minor changes in body weight. For example, when you drink a large amount of water, you may notice that the number on the scale increases slightly. Contrarily, when you urinate, it decreases slightly.
Weigh yourself before you have anything to drink or eat: Weigh yourself ONLY before munching on the first meal of the day, however small it may be. Also remember to not drink any fluids before you hop on the scale. The empty stomach number on the scale is what your true weight is.
Muscle is denser than fat, and as it is more compact within your body, as you gain muscle mass, you end up looking thinner, no matter your physical weight. So, if you've been doing a lot of strength training lately, it's likely this is the reason that you're looking fantastic but not dropping those numbers.
Clinically underweight or dangerously skinny for the average woman: A BMI of 15, 16, 17, 18. A weight under 100–110 pounds (50kg)
Men, it seems, prefer to swathe themselves in heavier garments while women tend to adorn themselves more lightly. Men can lop off nearly 2.5 lbs to account for their clothing while women can only subtract around 2.
A person can't actually gain or lose multiple pounds of body fat or muscle in a day, but it is possible to retain or shed a few pounds of liquid. Diet — especially salt consumption — plays a major role in how much water our bodies hold onto throughout the day.
If you weigh yourself at night, you're going to weigh more than you actually do, according to Discover Good Nutrition. Weigh yourself first thing the mornings, after your body has had a full night to digest your food. Otherwise, you'll be seeing higher numbers that don't correlate to all of your hard work.
The length of time that it takes to lose water weight depends on how much water you're retaining, the cause of the water weight gain, and the action taken to lose it. If you have one high-sodium meal and then return to normal, healthy dietary habits, you'll likely return to your normal weight in 1-2 days.