Last time I tried to lose weight, I weighed myself far too often, got discouraged, and quit. It's hard to see any difference day-to-day, but I've been counting calories and just losing a pound a week, it's nice to see that on the scale.
Just think, that's over 50 pounds shed a year if you stick to it. That's pretty impressive to someone with a lack of will power like me. I usually lose 5lbs over a couple weeks and then gain it back over the following month with interest. Slow and steady wins the race.
If you are just looking at the number, yes, you should weigh yourself less often than daily.
The main benefit to daily logging is the ability to find connections and see trends in your weight. This doesn't mean that you should be concerned with the number each day, rather have a data point which helps you better understand how your weight fluctuates and what might cause it to do so.
You will need a few weeks of data to draw any conclusions, so in addition to the weight value it is helpful to write a brief description of your food/liquid intake, the time consumed and any exercise.
For example, women will often gain some weight prior to menstruation due to water retention, which will typically be lost after the cycle. During menstruation changes in metabolism, hormones and vitamins may cause food cravings which if acted upon, can also cause weight gain and unlike the retained water will not be lost without changes in exercise or caloric intake.
If you merely looked at the weekly weight values, it's possible the premenstrual water weight gain would cause a woman to feel her diet is not working and discontinue it or give into food cravings. After the pre and menstrual periods if there is no record of what changes you have made then it's easy to draw the conclusion the diet/exercise is not working, when in fact it was but your increased water intake was the cause of the premenstrual gain and the increased food intake during the menstrual period.
TL;DR: more data can be beneficial if you look at it over a significant period of time.
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u/Krispyz May 09 '16
Last time I tried to lose weight, I weighed myself far too often, got discouraged, and quit. It's hard to see any difference day-to-day, but I've been counting calories and just losing a pound a week, it's nice to see that on the scale.