A bit perplexed about weight loss.

[Hilary_W]

I've had my Fitbit Charge for a couple of years and shelved it because the wrist strap disintegrated. I started weighing myself on the 20th May and it is now 29th - and I've replaced the strap so I am back on the ball.  The query I have if anyone can help is that in that 9 days my scales tell me I have lost 9lbs; over the previous month I was having trouble losing 2 or 3lbs in that month.  I have been watching my diet - any more salad and I'll have to check whether my ears are growing long and furry, but 9lbs in 9 days?  Isn't that a bit alarming? or is it because I have got so much to start with that this is just a drop in the ocean?!  I'm 5ft tall and currently weigh 16st 2lbs.

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

The more data points you have, the easier it is to draw conclusions / see patterns and trends. If you only have two weigh-ins separated by one week, and irregular weigh-ins before that, it’s more difficult. Which makes the case for "smart scales" like the Fitbit Aria/Aria2 and others (no need to write anything down, or rely on your memory), and stepping on them often enough, no matter what.

9 pounds in 9 days certainly sounds like a lot, and cannot be fully explained by qualitive improvements of your diet, nor by calorie restrictions. It’s more likely water fluctuations, and/or measurement errors/inaccuracies.

[bikerhiker]

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@Hilary_W wrote:

I've had my Fitbit Charge for a couple of years and shelved it because the wrist strap disintegrated. I started weighing myself on the 20th May and it is now 29th - and I've replaced the strap so I am back on the ball.  The query I have if anyone can help is that in that 9 days my scales tell me I have lost 9lbs; over the previous month I was having trouble losing 2 or 3lbs in that month.  I have been watching my diet - any more salad and I'll have to check whether my ears are growing long and furry, but 9lbs in 9 days?  Isn't that a bit alarming? or is it because I have got so much to start with that this is just a drop in the ocean?!  I'm 5ft tall and currently weigh 16st 2lbs.

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When you weigh yourself, pick a time best in the morning to see your trend weight.  Make sure you don't wear any clothing except maybe your undie so they don't have any influence on the scale.  There is certainly a variation of water weight.  I had my scale measured me dropping 5 lb in a day and that was alarming, but that was after an exercise which can help shed water weight.

Whenever you are in a caloric deficit, your body will tap into your glycogen stores to normalize the deficient energy requirements the body needs.  In that process of depleting your glycogen stores, you will shed water.  Since storing excess glucose in your body requires water to be present, hence the first process of weight loss is usually accompanied by a significant water loss.  How much and how fast depends on your fast your body depletes the glycogen stores.  Only when your body depletes your glycogen stores will it then tap into the fat stores, which obviously will make weight loss much harder as the body does not naturally burn fat unless you have fulfilled certain requirements.  

[Hilary_W]

I'm pretty certain that I have lost SOME weight, but maybe not as much as 9lbs.  I have some WeightWatcher scales which look lovely in the bathroom, but I can't vouch for their reliability.  The old mechanical scales we had were probably more accurate, only I couldn't see the readout on them!  I think the answer probably lies in a mix of unreliable scales with a +/- fluctuation, a real change in diet, and water loss.  AND that I have so much to lose in the first place. 

[bikerhiker]

The number on the scale does not give a person a lot of information other than to track weight trends.  For instance, it does not tell you your body fat%, your lean muscle mass status as well as your bone density mass.  That is because, the number of the scale represents the sum of all of these variables.  It does not tell you that you are at risk of Osteoporosis and or you are at a much lower/higher body fat% than you should be, especially with women as 1 in 2 in North American woman suffers from this bone disease.  You probably hear often that malnutrition is very common in poor and underdeveloped countries, but malnutrition also happens in modern societies in North America and Europe.  This is self-induced malnutrition especially for people who are so fixated in getting down to a particular number they think they need to achieve while disregarding that number is just a number.  Sometimes that number means absolutely nothing more than to achieve a certain look while disregarding the health dangers achieving that particular body look, that number on the scale to achieve that certain body look. 

Our human body is a reflection and a feedback mechanism to our human psychology.  Meaning if a person is living in full stress and constantly in a fight or flight response then the body will respond and adapt accordingly to that condition.  The number on the scale reflects that condition.  On the other end of the scale is a person living in full peace and harmony with blissfulness and his and her body will reflect that state of emotional and psychological well-being and the number on the scale will reflect that condition as well.  Basically, the number on the scale is the byproduct of your well being of mind, body and spirit and a person who is healthy, at peace and in harmony are more likely to have a stable weight shown on the scale.