You step on the scales in the morning and get a nasty surprise. Yesterday you were doing brilliantly, but suddenly you’re a kilo or even two kilos heavier.
What happened?
The reassuring answer is that you almost certainly haven’t gained that amount of body fat overnight. Our body weight naturally fluctuates from day to day, and there are several reasons why the scales can suddenly move upwards.
The biggest culprit is water.
Our bodies constantly hold and release water. A salty meal, for example, can cause you to retain more fluid. So that takeaway or restaurant meal last night might show up on the scales this morning – but that doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly gained lots of fat.
Carbohydrates can also affect your weight. Your body stores carbohydrate as glycogen in the muscles and liver, and glycogen is stored along with water. If you’ve eaten more carbohydrate than usual, you may temporarily carry more water as a result.
Then there’s simply the weight of food and drink.
If you had a large dinner at 9pm and weigh yourself at 7am, some of that food may still be travelling through your digestive system. It has physical weight. Again, that’s not the same thing as gaining body fat.
Your bowel movements can make a surprising difference too. If you haven’t been to the toilet for a day or two, the scales may be higher.
Even exercise can temporarily increase your weight. A tough workout causes small amounts of damage to muscle tissue – that’s part of the normal process of becoming stronger. Your body may retain additional fluid while those muscles recover.
This is why it’s dangerous to become emotionally attached to one number on one particular morning.
If you’re trying to lose weight, look at the trend, not individual weigh-ins. Weigh yourself under similar conditions – perhaps first thing in the morning, after using the toilet and before breakfast – and look at what is happening over several weeks.
And remember that fat gain requires an excess of energy over time. A sudden jump on the scales after one evening is much more likely to be water, food and normal bodily fluctuations.
So if you’ve been eating well, moving more and making healthier choices, don’t allow one disappointing weigh-in to ruin your day.
The scales haven’t necessarily told you that you’ve failed. They’ve simply told you what you weigh at that particular moment.
