Crazy weight fluctuations

Einhard

So I had lost about 2 stone in the 6 months until Christmas '10, and anticipating putting a bit on over the festive period by being a gluttonous pig, I wasn't surprised to see my weight had crept up slightly by the start of January. I put myself to rights though, and started working out again, and eating healthily. And cut out drink completely. I expected to lose about 2lbs a week, and perhaps half a stone by the end of the month. The following Monday though, the scales revealed I had lost approx 8lbs. In a week. And without a huge degree of exertion. I have a second scales, so I checked on that, and it confirmed the weight loss. I was a tad suspicious of this, and didn't get my hopes up. That same week, I kept up the general gym/healthy eating combo, and ne'er a dram of alcohol passed my lips, only to find, on hopping on the scales after 7 days that I had put on 6lbs!! And this has happened me before. It's the reason i have two scales. So what bloody gives? It's really annoying because it's hard to keep a proper account of the weight loss, and worse it's a kick in the teeth to see weight going up dramatically after slogging through the week. Any ideas? I have to weigh myself tomorrow again, and if there's another massive fluctuation I think I'll kick the scales to death!

EDIT: This might be in the wrong place. I'd move it to Fitness but I don't want to eb clogging the place up with duplicates. Feel free to move it though mods...

El_Dangeroso

It's water.

Check out this graph of what you lose on a complete fast over 30 days:



I am NOT recommend anyone try and replicate this experiment but it gives us a good idea of what happens on any reduced calorie diet if you stretch out the graph temporally, which I think is a reasonable assumption to make.

Look at all that water in the first few days, only a small proportion is fat. In fact more fat is lost in subsequent days, this to me suggests that the first week of fat loss is about half of subsequent weeks.

Some of the energy loss is made up of stored carbohydrate and this is true on any diet (lose some muscle and you lose some glycogen and more water too).

Bottom line is don't focus too much on the first week. It's not a fair representation of weight loss. The key is consistency.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Completely agree with el D

I think a huge problem with weight loss in general is the use of measuring with weighing scales. It doesn't take into account body composition so it is oh so basic. Given you're exercising it is even more difficult to rely on

Checking your bodyfat percentage would make much more sense it just isn't as practical.

Going by how your clothes fit you is probaby a happy medium.

Einhard

Thanks for that graph. It's very interesting...not to mention reassuring! Who says one can't learn new things on boards?!:p