Many Americans get on the scale every morning, expecting it to tell them what they want to hear—that they are making progress and losing fat. Instead, they often watch the number fluctuate up and down by as much as three pounds in a day. This can demoralize you and cause many people to think they’ve done something wrong or their plan is not working. Yet, these temporary fluctuations whatever they are, they are rarely attributable to actual fat gain or loss.
In fact, the vast majority of your day to day weight changes have very little to do with body fat. They are mainly the result of momentary water, food weight and inflammation shifts. For instance, sodium consumption — particularly from restaurant or processed foods — can make you retain more water. Carbs have a role too: Stored carbs combine with water in muscle and liver. Beginning a new exercise regimen can lead to inflammation as muscles repair themselves, causing a short-term weight gain. Hormones, stress, sleep quality and travel can all greatly impact ones day to day fluid balance, and therefore can make the scale jump.
Fat loss itself is a much more gradual process. It generally takes weeks and months, not seconds, to subside, and it’s often buried beneath the everyday ‘noise” of the scale. Therefore, depending on a single weigh-in can skew your progress if you’re increasing.
Best ways to interpret progress include comparing weekly averages instead of daily numbers, since averages help smooth out fluctuations. Secondary positive signs you can look out for as well include how your clothes fit, your waist measurements, how strong you are, and how energetic you feel. Is it also normal to have plateaus in life changes like changing diet, training, sleeping — etc. Most importantly, decoupling emotional significance from data enables the scale to be approached objectively.
The scale is a tool, not a sentence. Knowing what it does (and doesn’t) measure can make a big difference in frustration — and in how well Americans stay the course for their long-term health goals.