[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Kuz wrote:
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine is concluding that the key to maintaining weight loss is daily weighing in order to have immediate feedback from which to correct any potential bad behavior or changes.
Personally, this strikes me as making someone incredibly obsessive over every single pound gained or lost in the ebb and flow of a given week. I can understand vigilence, but this is ridiculous. Think of the people who will make wholesale dietary changes after the increase of 2 pounds one day, when it could be nothing more than water retention and maybe not enough fiber. They’ll end up starving themselves for a quick fix.
How’s that going to be healthy in the end?
I wonder what is more valuable for the advancement of knowledge: YOUR opinion or a fucking scientific study.
I’d need to read the study, but if empircal evidence supports daily weighing, then your opinion is worthless.
Why do you so many of you believe your a priori assumptions trump empiricism?[/quote]
Do you do your daily weighings with or without the stick up your ass? How much is the weight difference on a daily basis depending whether you’ve chosen to wedge it in or remove it? Anyone with any kind of science background knows the weight of study. An individual study can and does find anything. There are a million confounds and variables. The important thing is to delve behind results and explore explanations as to WHY those results are found.
There are many reasons why dailing weighing is beneficial for many. And if you looked at the BODY of research on successful managment rather than just looking at one isolated fucking study, it would be revealed why that is. Exactly how much it means. And what it is not.
I wonder what is more valuable for the advancement of knowledge: YOUR opinion or a fucking scientific study.
Becuase “fucking scientific studies” also tell us that weightlifitng is unhealthy for you and causes blindness. I think accepting what a research paper shows as holding greater signifigance than your own personal experience and knowing what works for you in the gym is an easy path to paralysis by analysis.[/quote]
A concensus once a body of research has come to some type of conclusion is pretty legitimate. A single, isolated study rarely is. And the discussion section of a research study is usually more illuminating that the results section. Either way, much is to be said fore personal experice as well.
[quote]vroom wrote:
There is nothing wrong with weighing yourself daily.
You’ll find that you start to know what to expect based on what you were eating the day before.
These days, because I’m calorie cycling, I can expect a four or five pound shift, and then if I up the fiber intake, that can have effects as well.
If the weight doesn’t do what it should, then you can probably figure out what to attribute it to. Perhaps the weekend of drinking and partying. Maybe the two days missed at the gym. Perhaps the day of NEPA compared to sitting in the office.
All that said, I wouldn’t advocate blindly looking at the weight on a daily basis and thinking it means you need to make an adjustment because of normal fluctuations. However, the fluctuations are in fact based on what you eat and drink…
This level of being “in tune” might be more important for those that have trouble losing fat or gaining muscle. However, I think it is best combined with the mirror check and/or the tape measure check (as long as you aren’t the obsessive type).[/quote]
I agree with this. I very often weigh myself when gaining (at about the same time after the same meal). I weigh myself (and even force myself to avoid the scale) about once a week when dieting, if that. There is a HUGE difference between what a beginner should do and what someone more advanced should do. I honestly don’t think many people understand this.
There should come a point when you started to think for yourself. Basing your daily actions specifically on what others do is a sure-fire way to fail to reach your potential.
Due to weighing myself, I know I can fluctuate about 10lbs based on going from 5 days of low carb/low cal to one to two days of eating above maintenance. That tells me that my dieted weight goal should be about 10lbs less than I actually want to end up when eating to maintain my weight. It also tells me just how much weight I hold in muscle tissue when glycogen stores are full.
[quote]vroom wrote:
There is nothing wrong with weighing yourself daily.
[/quote]
Good post Vroom. I find that people who don’t weigh themselves regularly are the ones that don’t understand their body. Weighing yourself everyday or most days a week helps you catch any patterns that might develop. If you weigh yourself once a week how do you know if you are on an up day or a down day and how does that help you? And if you just do it once a month or something you could easily be up or down 10 lbs in that time frame. After weighing myself almost every day I can predict, usually within .2-.4 lbs, what my weight will be before getting on the scale.
You weigh what you weigh whether you measure it or not. To me it is like saying I don’t want to look at a thermometer outside because I dont want to know how cold it is. Well, it is the temperature whether you look at it or not, so you might as well know what it is and see if you begin to understand how it works better.
Obviously a basic understanding of how the body works, that you can fluctuate a little bit up and down, is useful but that should be a given for anybody serious about it. My 2 cents.
[quote]nptitim wrote:
vroom wrote:
There is nothing wrong with weighing yourself daily.
Good post Vroom. I find that people who don’t weigh themselves regularly are the ones that don’t understand their body. Weighing yourself everyday or most days a week helps you catch any patterns that might develop. If you weigh yourself once a week how do you know if you are on an up day or a down day and how does that help you? And if you just do it once a month or something you could easily be up or down 10 lbs in that time frame. After weighing myself almost every day I can predict, usually within .2-.4 lbs, what my weight will be before getting on the scale.
You weigh what you weigh whether you measure it or not. To me it is like saying I don’t want to look at a thermometer outside because I dont want to know how cold it is. Well, it is the temperature whether you look at it or not, so you might as well know what it is and see if you begin to understand how it works better.
Obviously a basic understanding of how the body works, that you can fluctuate a little bit up and down, is useful but that should be a given for anybody serious about it. My 2 cents.[/quote]
The biggest thing to take away is that you don’t know if you are even eating enough to gain if you aren’t weighing yourself but once a month or some other infrequent period of time. If the goal is true progress, what better gauge of that when gaining weight is there other than stepping on a scale?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
The biggest thing to take away is that you don’t know if you are even eating enough to gain if you aren’t weighing yourself but once a month or some other infrequent period of time. If the goal is true progress, what better gauge of that when gaining weight is there other than stepping on a scale?
[/quote]
One point concerning this thread. The study itself, what they were trying to determine as well as the results have very little to do with what we’re into on this site.
I guess I do weigh myself 3-5 times a week if I had to guess, but it’s not according to any schedule and sometimes I don’t for a few days in a row.
The study states a causal relationship between daily weighings and increased weight loss, or at least implies it, but this can go different ways depending on a few factors.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
One point concerning this thread. The study itself, what they were trying to determine as well as the results have very little to do with what we’re into on this site.
I guess I do weigh myself 3-5 times a week if I had to guess, but it’s not according to any schedule and sometimes I don’t for a few days in a row.
The study states a causal relationship between daily weighings and increased weight loss, or at least implies it, but this can go different ways depending on a few factors.[/quote]
Which, of course is ridiculous because I have heard fat people make comments as dumb as, “An apple weighs more than a doughnut thus I will gain more weight from eating the apple.” That same logic will be applied by the obese person who loves to eat when they weigh themselves every single day. These will also be the same people who, if they do choose to jump on a diet, will assume more and more weight loss (regardless of the rate of loss) is a good thing, not understanding fluctations in body weight that are normal. These types of people will panic if they see any slight increase and will make brash changes based on only one factor.
Yes, the study is stupid and many people can be stupid. However, weighing yourself regularly isn’t.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Which, of course is ridiculous because I have heard fat people make comments as dumb as, “An apple weighs more than a doughnut thus I will gain more weight from eating the apple.” That same logic will be applied by the obese person who loves to eat when they weigh themselves every single day. These will also be the same people who, if they do choose to jump on a diet, will assume more and more weight loss (regardless of the rate of loss) is a good thing, not understanding fluctations in body weight that are normal. These types of people will panic if they see any slight increase and will make brash changes based on only one factor.
Yes, the study is stupid and many people can be stupid. However, weighing yourself regularly isn’t.[/quote]
Yep.
I think they were trying to say that people who saw an immediate result either way were more likely to be dilligent. However this is inconclusive at best. There were a half dozen other variables and the whole chicken or egg thing could be debated as well. You’re definitely right about what these types of people will do with seeing their weight everyday with no other knowledge than that. I bet we all know some, I know I do.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
rainjack wrote:
If I am trying to lose weight - I weigh once a week.
If I am trying to gain - I weigh myself every chance I get.
Same here.[/quote]
I think there is a fairly general consensus among us that daily weighing will show patterns. Also, most people seem to argue that while gaining we tend to weigh ourselves more often, and while losing we weigh less often. However, if you read the article it is about weighing yourself daily for the intent of weight loss…
“Updated: 5:12 p.m. ET Oct 12, 2006
NEW YORK - Losing excess weight is often easier than keeping it off. A new study shows that stepping on a scale every day, and adjusting eating and exercise habits accordingly, can go a long way in helping dieters maintain a weight loss.”
It seems to me that this goes against what most people here believe.
Yeah, the study was pretty much unrelated to what we do here, except maybe the guys who are 6,2/158lbs and wanna to lose all that fat. It sparked some discussion which is usually good.
[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Kuz wrote:
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine is concluding that the key to maintaining weight loss is daily weighing in order to have immediate feedback from which to correct any potential bad behavior or changes.
Personally, this strikes me as making someone incredibly obsessive over every single pound gained or lost in the ebb and flow of a given week. I can understand vigilence, but this is ridiculous. Think of the people who will make wholesale dietary changes after the increase of 2 pounds one day, when it could be nothing more than water retention and maybe not enough fiber. They’ll end up starving themselves for a quick fix.
How’s that going to be healthy in the end?
I wonder what is more valuable for the advancement of knowledge: YOUR opinion or a fucking scientific study.
I’d need to read the study, but if empircal evidence supports daily weighing, then your opinion is worthless.
Why do you so many of you believe your a priori assumptions trump empiricism?[/quote]
You must be right since you used such fancy terms like “a priori” and “empiricism”. I guess I cannot possibly question the validity of a study, right? Because every scientific study undertaken and published in the New England Journal of Medicine must be [i]empirically[/i] correct?
Congratulations on your exceptional douchebaggery.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I agree with this. I very often weigh myself when gaining (at about the same time after the same meal). I weigh myself (and even force myself to avoid the scale) about once a week when dieting, if that. There is a HUGE difference between what a beginner should do and what someone more advanced should do. I honestly don’t think many people understand this.
[/quote]
That’s really the crux of my concern. This study is not focused on advanced trainess or people with a fair amount of knowledge to truly understand how to even use frequent weighing. Instead, it’s about fairly average people who lost weight and now are just looking to keep it off (i.e. beginners). I just have little faith that the subjects in this particular study were making smarter food choices based on daily weighings.
[quote]Kuz wrote:
That’s really the crux of my concern. This study is not focused on advanced trainess or people with a fair amount of knowledge to truly understand how to even use frequent weighing. Instead, it’s about fairly average people who lost weight and now are just looking to keep it off (i.e. beginners). I just have little faith that the subjects in this particular study were making smarter food choices based on daily weighings. [/quote]
I agree. I think you need to WHAT to do with what the scale tells you before you start asking it questions every day.
I thought I was the only one that was borderline obsessive with the scale numbers when trying to add weight.
I wonder why the difference between losing and gaining?
Do you think bulking really requires that much more micro-managing?
I have to say that for me I just like seeing if I have moved the needle.
[quote]Kuz wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Kuz wrote:
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine is concluding that the key to maintaining weight loss is daily weighing in order to have immediate feedback from which to correct any potential bad behavior or changes.
Personally, this strikes me as making someone incredibly obsessive over every single pound gained or lost in the ebb and flow of a given week. I can understand vigilence, but this is ridiculous. Think of the people who will make wholesale dietary changes after the increase of 2 pounds one day, when it could be nothing more than water retention and maybe not enough fiber. They’ll end up starving themselves for a quick fix.
How’s that going to be healthy in the end?
I wonder what is more valuable for the advancement of knowledge: YOUR opinion or a fucking scientific study.
I’d need to read the study, but if empircal evidence supports daily weighing, then your opinion is worthless.
Why do you so many of you believe your a priori assumptions trump empiricism?
You must be right since you used such fancy terms like “a priori” and “empiricism”. I guess I cannot possibly question the validity of a study, right? Because every scientific study undertaken and published in the New England Journal of Medicine must be [i]empirically[/i] correct?
Congratulations on your exceptional douchebaggery.[/quote]
Where did you “question the validity of a study”? Here is what you said: “Personally, this strikes me as …” You didn’t question the study. You said, “Well, I don’t think it’s right!” Of course, you hadn’t read the study, instead relying on a news account. Which is funny in and of itself.
Questioning a study is find. But that requires more than a knee-jerk reaction to a news account of said study.
I recently lost 60 lbs. I weighed myself daily. It doesnt make me obsessive, it makes me very involved and informed about my daily choices and what benefits me and what doesnt.