No matter what your nutrition goals are, you may be wondering how often you should weigh yourself as you work on changing your eating habits. You may be surprised to learn that the answer is not the same for everyone!
How often you weigh yourself will depend on several factors, including your nutrition goals and your relationship with food and the scale. Let’s explore the reasons why you might choose to– or not to– weigh yourself as a part of your regular self care routine.
Weighing yourself as you try to lose weight
If weight loss is your primary objective, you may be tempted to weigh yourself every day to check your progress. However, weighing yourself daily may not be as beneficial as you think. It’s totally normal and expected for your weight to fluctuate daily– even over the course of the day, from morning to night. So losing or gaining a small amount of weight from day to day doesn’t necessarily reflect long term trends in weight change or body composition.
Checking your weight daily can also become obsessive– even if it doesn’t start out that way. For a better idea of how your weight is trending, weighing yourself less often– like weekly or monthly– might be better.
Is weight your only measure of success
Many of my clients want to change their eating habits to be healthier. For some people, being healthier means managing their diabetes or high cholesterol, for other people it might mean improving their relationship with food.
When trying to be healthier, it’s important to remember that your weight on the scale is not the sole indicator of your health! The scale can’t tell you how well your blood sugar is managed, or how much your cholesterol numbers have changed. The scale also can’t tell you how much energy you have, how your digestion is, how your sleep has improved, or how strong and fit you feel during exercise.
If health is your goal, you may be better off tracking your blood sugar, getting regular labs, keeping a food and mood diary, or tracking your sleep and energy levels, instead of tracking your weight.
It’s true that your health can improve (re: blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) even if your weight doesn’t change. If you wait only for the number on the scale to change, you may be missing other successes you have along the way of your eating journey.
When to stop weighing yourself
There are very clear times when it is not appropriate to weigh yourself. First and foremost, if you have been diagnosed with an eating disorder, you should put away your scale and consult with your dietitian about the best way to monitor your weight. If your dietitian deems it appropriate, she may conduct blind weights (where you don’t see the number) so she can track your recovery progress.
Second, if you have begun to practice intuitive eating, weighing yourself may stall your progress towards body attunement. This is because weighing yourself could be rooted in a dieting mindset that reinforces eating rules, food guilt, and self judgment– both of which can have you second guessing your body’s natural hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues.
How do you know if weighing yourself is right for you
For some people, weighing yourself does not result in harmful thoughts or behaviors. But for others, weighing yourself may incite negativity around food, body image, and self confidence.
If you are unsure of how your relationship with the scale might help or harm you, consider the following questions:
- Does seeing your weight (up, down, or the same) negatively affect your mood for the day?
- Do you punish yourself if you see a number you don’t like?
- Have you noticed that you’re not happy with the number on the scale no matter what it says?
- Are you afraid of what will happen to your weight if you don’t weigh yourself?
- Have you noticed an increase in negative self talk the more you weigh yourself?
- Does the number on the scale dictate what you do or don’t eat?
- Does the number on the scale dictate if/what kind of exercise you do?
- Have you begun to engage in disordered eating behaviors to manipulate your weight on the scale?
- Do you step on the scale multiple times each day just to “make sure” nothing has changed?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ then weighing yourself is no longer a health-promoting activity and you should seek guidance from your dietitian to determine next steps.
Summary
How often you should weigh yourself is based completely on the individual. No two people and their health goals are exactly alike! I generally discourage people from weighing themselves daily, and often challenge my clients to consider if tracking their weight is important to meeting their health and nutrition goals.
For those with eating disorders or disordered eating, weighing yourself is not beneficial and can lead to an increase in negative thoughts and behaviors. It’s important to be honest with yourself about how seeing your weight makes you feel, and use that information to determine if weighing yourself is helpful or hurtful to you.
Kristin Jenkins is a dietitian nutritionist based in Maryland. She has been involved in the field of eating disorders and disordered eating for over 6 years and brings both personal and professional experience to her work serving clients who struggle with their relationship with food and their bodies.
