How Often Should I Weigh Myself Plus 3 Additional Ways to Measure Progress
When Should I Weigh In?
Stepping on the scale is an important way to gauge your progression with your fitness goals but for many women it can feel scary and confusing! How often should I weigh in? How much is too much? How much is too little?
When it comes to weighing in, I always recommend once per week. Stepping on the scale is a necessary piece for making adjustments to your diet and training so that you can continue to see results. However, when we start obsessively weighing each day, we can get caught up in the mental game.
Weight fluctuates day to day (and hour to hour) with water intake, bathroom usage, and food consumption. It can be discouraging if we start weighing obsessively and taking these slight fluctuations to heart, feeling as though something we did or didn't do led to weight gain.
On the flip side, it doesn't help you mentally or physically to stop weighing yourself completely. It's very common for women to fear the scale and decide not to use it at all. This is just fear avoidance and won't actually solve the problem.
Think of it this way, if you have a fear of public speaking and just decide that you will steer clear of anything that requires you to do so, you may not feel that fear anymore but did you really conquer it? No... you still have it you just chose not to confront it. And even more than that, you'll never grow and progress and improve your speaking skills without subjecting yourself to the initial discomfort.
Same thing applies here: if you just decide not to weigh in anymore, sure, you may not have to deal with the fear of your weight anymore but you also probably aren't transforming your body and progressing fitness wise.
It's a lot harder to gauge when to adjust cardio or food if you have no idea where your weight is. You could also sit in a plateau for a lot longer without even realizing it because you haven't been tracking this important metric.
The scale is certainly not everything (and we will go over other ways to measure progress) but it's still important to track it at least weekly so that you can adjust your plan and see results as quickly and fluidly as possible.
Other Ways to Measure Progress
All of this being said, there are other great ways to gauge progress as well. And it should be noted that you can make huge changes to your body without seeing the scale change at all!
Below are side by side progress photos I took one year ago vs now. I hover around the same exact weight (136-137 lb) in my bikini competition offseason. But after one year of adding a lot more muscle mass, my body shape looks different in the second photo.
I have less body fat so my midsection looks tighter but my glutes are larger, upper body is larger, and legs have more muscle.
My point is, if you're not seeing the scale change, you could very well still be making huge changes. How can we measure these?
The first way is to measure the waist each week.
If you're losing body fat, inches could be coming off your waist with the scale barely changing.
The second way, as shown above, is to take progress pictures.
This is by far my favorite strategy because you can see true progression in the overall shape of your body. What's important here is that you:
1) Take your pictures first thing in the morning after using the bathroom
2) Try to wear the same thing for pictures each week or something very similar. A bathing suit is great for this because you can see everything more clearly than through clothes. A sports bra and shorts are another great option. Remember, these pictures are for YOU only - and your coach if you have one.
3) Take pictures in the same spot each week. This will keep the lighting consistent so you can gauge changes clearly.
4) Keep poses the same! This is important. Your physique looks different from different angles. If your pose is the same, it's very easy to compare side by side.
The third way to measure progress is to track performance at the gym.
Keep track of the weight you use for different movements. If you're lifting heavier, you're getting stronger. If you're getting stronger, you're building muscle.
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