How Often Should I Weigh Myself?

How Often Should I Weigh Myself?

First, Assess Your Goal: Are You Trying to Lose Weight or Keep It Off?

By Heidi Mitchell in the Wall Street Journal

Just thinking about stepping on a bathroom scale can induce waves of fear for many people. For others, frequent monitoring of weight can become an obsession. One expert, Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut, weighs in on what self-monitoring routines work best and why Wednesday is golden.

Many Opinions

Doctors’ views vary widely on how often people should weigh themselves, Dr. Schwartz says. Once a week is the most common recommendation in the obesity-treatment arena, where patients learn about smart-food choices and what triggers overeating episodes, rather than singling out a number on a scale, she says. Professionals in the anorexia and bulimia community also dissuade patients from frequent weighing, so as not to fixate on minor fluctuations. “There are even people who treat eating disorders who say you should never weigh yourself, concluding it’s more important to think about your behavior than your weight,” she says.

How often a person steps on the scale really depends on his goals, say Dr. Schwartz. “For those who are just maintaining their weight, once a week is fine to give you a good average weight,” she says. Wednesday is the best day for a weigh-in, because it is furthest from the weekend when restaurant dining and chaotic eating is more common, she says.

If a person is trying to lose weight, weighing three times a week or more makes sense “because it allows you to really understand what’s happening in real time,” Dr. Schwartz says. In fact, research conducted by the National Weight Control Registry, which tracks more than 10,000 people in the U.S. who have lost and kept off significant weight for long periods, has shown that one of the key strategies for staying within target is daily scale-stepping. “That way you catch your weight going up right away and don’t get caught by surprise,” she says.

No ‘True Weight’

The best time to do a weigh-in is soon after waking up, when weight is most consistent. “The body functions all night without any added hydration or calories, so weight tends to be lowest in the morning,” Dr. Schwartz says. She resists the urge to weigh herself on other scales, like at the gym, which might be calibrated differently from her own at home.

There is no “true weight” since the body varies throughout the day and month, depending on what you eat, your menstrual cycle and many other factors, Dr. Schwartz says. If someone had salty Chinese food one day and then ran a 5K the next, his weight could fluctuate as much as 5 pounds. It is best to have a target-weight range of about 2% of one’s total weight, she says. “You have to be careful not to let those little changes on the scale be blown out of proportion,” she says. “But you also don’t want to go a month without weighing and then see you’ve put on 15 pounds.”

Vacation Break

When she’s on vacation, Dr. Schwartz says she takes a break from the scale altogether. “I can tell you from experience that you can go to Paris for a week and eat really good food and not gain any weight because you will be walking the entire day,” she says. By making healthy food choices and not allowing eating to get chaotic, a week away from a scale shouldn’t cause too much concern.

Dr. Schwartz advises people to weigh themselves more or less frequently depending on how it affects their mood. “If you have a bad weigh-in and that ruins your day, then that’s a sign to stop such repeated checks,” she says.

The number on a scale is just one piece of information people should use to guide behavior. “Your weight is a gauge of your overall health, just like your heart rate and blood pressure,” Dr. Schwartz says.