When people decide to lose weight, they often feel the urge to weigh themselves frequently. However, most people are unsure of the right time to use the scale. In this article, Saadnews will explain the best time to measure your weight. Stay with us!
When you make a commitment to lose weight, you may be tempted to weigh yourself every day, thinking it will help increase your effort. However, there are important considerations when it comes to weighing yourself. Many people are unsure whether they should weigh themselves daily or only once a week. Continue reading to find the answer to your question.
If your goal is to lose weight or maintain your current weight, there’s no specific rule that dictates how often you should weigh yourself. It all depends on what works best for you. As a general guideline, we recommend weighing yourself once or twice a week without clothes, ideally before breakfast or after having a small glass of water, when your stomach is empty. The next time you weigh yourself, recreate the same conditions to ensure consistency. Some people prefer to weigh themselves every day, which is fine as well. If you feel motivated and better when weighing yourself daily, feel free to do so; there’s no harm in it.
It can be motivating: If your goal is to lose weight and you exercise every day, stepping on the scale each day and noticing even a small decrease in weight can keep you motivated.
You track your progress: By weighing yourself every day, you can assess how well your exercise and diet plan is working. If you haven't seen progress, you'll know why and can adjust your approach.
It could demotivate you: Some people weigh themselves daily and notice no progress over the course of a week, or even see their weight increase due to factors like water retention. This can lead to demotivation and even abandoning exercise entirely.
It may lead to unhealthy behaviors: If you don’t see progress, it can cause mental distress, leading some to act out in unhealthy ways, like overeating or neglecting healthy habits, because they believe it doesn’t matter. In these cases, we recommend not weighing yourself every day.
There are several reasons for a slowdown in weight loss, from voluntary personal decisions to psychological and physiological factors. Naturally, the first few days, when there is more body fat, tend to see faster weight loss. The second reason is a physiological effect: when a person eats less than their usual caloric intake, their body enters what’s called a “starvation mode,” slowing down metabolism so that weight loss becomes harder even though food intake is reduced. The third reason is related to our own diminishing enthusiasm.
"Many people show more eagerness to follow a diet plan when the weight loss is significant. But the real question is: why does the weight loss slow down over time for some people?" This slowdown is not true for everyone. Along with physiological adjustments to a low-calorie diet, one of the biggest obstacles comes from how we behave ourselves: our commitment to following the diet is less than it was at the start.
Many of us delay starting a diet until our weight or size becomes noticeably uncomfortable. Once this threshold is crossed, we start following any diet—no matter how hard or easy—and see great results in the first two or three weeks. However, the interesting thing is that instead of this early success increasing our enthusiasm to continue until we reach our desired weight, we become complacent. The few kilos we've lost make us feel secure enough to relax our adherence to the diet. As a result, either we give up on the diet or we blame its failure on the diet itself. Disheartened, we consult new doctors, repeating the cycle. Our body becomes so resistant that when we finally realize the mistake, it may be too late. A heart surgery, for example, shouldn’t be abandoned halfway; similarly, a diet should not be left incomplete once started. Please share this article with your friends and encourage anyone on a diet to stay committed to it until they achieve their goals.
Imagine you want to lose 2 kg in two weeks. That means you need to lose about 1 kg every week. How should you proceed? You need to strictly follow the diet and other recommendations, and weigh yourself at the same time every week. If you’ve lost the desired 1 kg, it means you’ve reached your goal. If you lose more than 1 kg, great! If you haven’t lost 1 kg, it means the current approach isn't sufficient, and you should adjust your diet or increase your activity to reach the desired weight loss. Weighing yourself every day only shows weight fluctuations, which can vary by 3-5 kg, but weighing yourself once a week will show whether you’re on track to meet your goal.
Weighing yourself every week will tell you: "Your adherence to the diet this week resulted in this amount of weight loss. If you’re satisfied, continue. If not, try harder next week, follow the diet more strictly, and increase your physical activity to achieve the desired result." Following a diet doesn’t mean starving yourself or eating less; it means following the specified eating pattern, adhering to the nutritionist’s advice, and avoiding any foods that are restricted. The focus of a diet isn’t just on reducing calories and energy intake but on proper food combinations, hormones, and eating patterns.
If you want to lose 3 kg in two weeks, aim to lose 1.5 kg each week! If you want to lose 1 kg in two weeks, aim for a half-kilo loss each week, and so on.
Therefore, you should choose a method that works best for you. If you feel motivated and better by weighing yourself every day, do so. Otherwise, stick to weighing yourself once or twice a week. I hope you enjoyed this weight control content, and feel free to share it with others who care about their fitness. For more insightful content, you can visit the Sports World section of Saadnews. Thank you for being with us.
