I have struggled with about 25# of extra weight for the past decade, since I retired this ballooned up to about 40# extra weight. My old bathroom scale broke a few weeks ago si I purchased a new one with the digital read outs in tenths of a pound. For some reason just having to loose .2 of a pound each day seems much more manageable to me than loosing pounds. Since I bought the new scale I have dropped about 19# in around 8 weeks. My goal is .2 per day and it seems so easy to manipulate that small amount each day. By weeks end I find I have surpassed it each week easily. Instead of 6# per month or 2# per week the day to day thing really seems to be working for me where nothing else ever did. Anyone else do a day to day diet?
I’d think normal fluctuations in your weight due to food/water intake would make it hard to meaningfully see weight losses down to tenths of a pound.
Yes, and it works great. But for me, I tend to lose in chunks and then hit plateaus. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then I’ll lose 5 pounds. Then I’ll gain it back. Then I’ll waffle. Then I’ll settle in at my new weight, and it starts all over again.
But I love having the fraction.
The OP approach is very effective, in my experience. While fluctuations due to food/water intake the previous day prevent you from having an absolutely correct picture, on average, over a week, they tend to show a trend… and when numbers are trending in the right direction, it’s not hard to achieve that 0.2lb loss every day or so and most importantly maintain that as your goal. More importantly, once you establish that baseline, you know it’s that free muffin at the office that you indulged in the previous day that kept you from losing that 0.2lb. So today, you avoid the goddamn muffin.
You hit the nail on the head. All I have really done is drop my desserts, cookies and snacks. Aside from that I find my morning weight after I take a dump tends to be my lowest weight. I will gain about 2# thoughout the day roughly. If I am not at goal in the morning I tend to watch real careful my bread intake or fats that particular day. I general I have slightly smaller portions but don’t really feel like I am dieting.
Weighing in at the same time everyday doesn’t completely eliminate this problem, but it helps.
There are some people for whom a scale is a bad idea. I have a friend like that. He counts his weight loss in belt holes.
But for me a scale is a good thing. If I weight more, I have to work harder. If I weight the same, I have to work harder. If I weight less, I’ll be encouraged – and will work harder! A scale with a decimal point literally makes that 10 times as effective.
I do daily weigh-ins. I understand that weight fluctuates and there isn’t a direct relationship between what I ate yesterday and what I weigh this morning, but I find the small losses encouraging, and the small gains manageable in terms of my mindset - if I gain 0.2, I feel it’s possible to lose it by eating particularly well today.
That’s really the key. Depriving yourself of over-indulging. What you ate yesterday was most certainly enough to maintain your weight, so a little less today won’t hurt all that much and will give you that -0.2lb. Tomorrow’s intake will be what you had today and maybe you can manage that little bit less. And so it goes.
There will be plateaus. For those, what tdn said works. It’s a matter of commitment to the process.