I have a set of Withings bathroom scales. They're great because I stand on them and within 20 seconds, my latest weight data – absolute, lean mass, fat mass and body fat % – is sent automatically to my profile page on their website.
The wise say you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, but look more at weekly trends. I disagree with this: I believe it's motivational to weigh yourself every day, but important not to get hung up on small fluctuations. As long as the downward trend is there overall you're on to a good thing.
And that's what's been happening so far since I started Project Rotund:
Using MyFitnessPal (search for me on there if you want to be 'friends' – j (at) jkt (dot) im / jonathantullett) and my various garmin devices to track exercise details (point of trivia: since starting I've run and cycled 357km and spent nearly 16.5 hrs out, not too bad!), I'm able to keep fairly accurate track of my calorie intake and expenditure. My net calories consumed a day (so daily target: 1710 + exercise (varies) – food intake) is nearly always below my target – 1710 – which is set for 0.5kg/week weight loss:
But, I've noticed over the past couple of days, my weight has plateaued, I've been hovering at 76.7kg since Sunday (the 75.7kg blip was due to severe dehydration and and be ignored). The body fat % has been decreasing gradually, reporting at 16.2% today, and the lean mass increasing (i.e. less fat, more muscle):
So while this is good, I have to say it's confusing. Most of my exercise until yesterday has been cardiovascular (actually, all of it has), and even if there is a small amount of muscle being built – mostly on the legs, which are getting some definition I've noticed – with the calorie deficit, I'd expect the weight to still be falling off.
In addition to weight, I've starting recording weekly measurements of my waist, legs, arms, so I can see if there's any change in size of those areas – loss in cm, rather than absolute weight – so maybe that'll highlight that rather than losing mass, I'm just reshaping?
I'm getting to a point where I'm not sure how to interpret the graphs. My goal was to get to 72kg for the wedding day; a lofty ambition (9kg) in the 5 weeks I had. Still being 4.7kg from that with less than two weeks remaining, I accept it's unattainable. Should that even had been a goal? Am I approaching this incorrectly? Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep recording the data and having just ordered a FitBit I intend to record even more statistics, but should measurement be something other than just 'weight'?
Yes, you should be using more than just one measurement. Some school of thoughts (and the one I go with) say you shouldn't even weigh yourself, but use actual measurements of waist, thighs, arms etc to understand the changes that are happening in your body through eating healthily and exercising regularly. As you have discovered, weighing yourself has far to many variables that can affect it – water retention, dehydration, time of day, time of month (if you're a girl). Where as taking bodily measurements will show progress more consistently, albeit more slowly. Also, look at yourself in the mirror, are you seeing your shape change, are you seeing your muscles becoming more toned and defined? – all of those things are a better indicator of your overall fitness and strength than how much you weigh.
Aside from my legs, which are becoming nicely shaped, I don't see much change. Still 'rotund' *pout*