time to throw out the scale?

[IronCity151]

I've been trying to cut up and burn off the extra winter fat that I've been carrying around. Been targeting a daily caloric deficit of about 500 cals. So far so good overall - slowly seeing my abs sharpen up and vascularity increase.

But the scale is driving me absolutely bat-sh*t. Sometimes, I see nice consistent loss week over week, and then other times, I gain 6 pounds in a single day. It is so frustrating to be hitting the gym every day, getting all my cardio done, sticking to my diet and then see a sudden increase in weight! The weight spike usually only lasts a day or two, so I'm pretty sure it's water weight. Did a little reading and think it's from high sodium and high carb meals - I can pretty much expect to gain 5 pounds immediately from eating a bowl of pho or any other kind of Asian noodle soup.

I'm tempted to stop weighing myself entirely - even weighing in one a week, the numbers are meaningless if I can swing 5+ pounds in either direction on a given day....

Have any of you ditched the damn scale?

[pointreyes]

Trust the mirror.

I still weigh myself once a week but only at the same time on that one day of the week wearing the same clothes. Now it is more of a evaluation to compare against the mirror, bf caliper, and the tape measure mainly because I have slowly increased my caloric intake from 2200 to over 2700 with some days as high as 3000. So far, I have lost 3 pounds in the past 2 months and bf has not changed but the tape measurements have gone up.

[dutter]

i might check my weight once in a while, usually on a doctors office visit. the mirror is a good tool but when you look at yourself every day its hard to notice any changes. this may seem a little strange but my waist & biceps measurements tell me what kind of shape im in. if my waist is going down and biceps are not im doing things right.

i never worry about 5 lb jumps in weight. i can gain that in a day and then loose it on the thrown the next.

[beachguy498]

I'm in the midst of a cut myself and was hopping on the scale 3-4 times a week. We have a good doctor office type scale at work, so its accurate. I would scale up the same time of the day and had fluctuations of a few pounds day to day. So now I'll weigh myself on a Friday only, just once a week.

I go by how loose my belt feels and have been cranking it in slowly as I lose weight. I'm going with that as the basis of how I'm doing.

BG

[acwild]

I'm tempted to stop weighing myself entirely - even weighing in one a week, the numbers are meaningless if I can swing 5+ pounds in either direction on a given day....

Have any of you ditched the damn scale?

It's best to weight yourself once a week at the same time of day on the same scale, otherwise you will drive yourself bats***t as you said!

If you're lifting don't get too worried about what the scale says... muscle weighs more than fat so, you can drop fat and still gain weight on the scale if you put on some lean muscle mass.

[ironwill2008]

Have any of you ditched the damn scale?

Yes. A long time ago. The mirror, the fit of your clothes, and regular progress pics are a far better indicator of where you're at, and where you need to go.

Unless you're training for an event that is weight-classed, tracking your bodyweight will usually only lead you down the wrong path.

[machined]

No scales. As others have stated, the belt hole test, mirrors and clothes.

[oxbeard]

Thank you OP for this thread and everyone for their responses. I was actually dealing with this very issue today myself. Been trying to bust my tail and make gradual dietary changes since May of 08. I thought I had lost 59 lbs in that time until this morning when the scale said I had gained 4lbs overnight even though I was able to tighten the belt another notch this morning.

Was driving me crazy. Of course my wife was telling me all morning many of the same responses I see here, guess it took it coming from someone else to sink in.